(no subject)
Snape/Harry. Summertime, when the living's easy. PG-13.
In summertime the Snape estate sinks with the weight of the sun, light pressing the walls down further into the ground. The wards shimmer and ripple, like they're melting, and Harry watches them sometimes when he stops to wipe the sweat from his eyes.
Snape's making him start a garden of plants for potions, plants that sting and bite and curl invitingly around Harry's legs. There's a tracking charm on his wand, one that Harry discovered only after being chased through five miles of forest by Death Eaters. So he keeps it in the bottom of his school bag, tries to not think about using it. Tries to not think of how easy this all would be with it - the raking, the digging, the hauling.
Every morning he awakes to find new packets of seeds on the kitchen table, and every morning he takes them and carefully plants each two inches down and three inches apart. He wonders what they're for, what they'll turn into, but he never really wonders enough to ask. He just digs, and waters, and takes care of the things that are already there.
Snape comes out and sits on the crumbling stone bench, hunched under three layers of wool and four layers of cooling charms. He watches with an air of distaste, speaking only to correct or chastise:
"Clean yourself, boy, you look like a Muggle."
Harry scrubs futilely at his hands and knees, and glares up at Snape.
His skin forms blisters around the crude wooden handle of the shovel, blisters that crack and split and he's too stoic to want to wince, but he does anyway. The sun burns his eyes and his face, and by midday, after his shirt's been stripped off from heat and frustration, it burns his shoulders to red and peeling.
Snape's taken to leaving a jar of salve in Harry's bedroom, this yellow paste that smells a little like cotton candy. Maybe he feels sorry, maybe he's just keeping his slave in working condition. Either way, it works, and Harry's grateful for it.
This one night, though, his hands are so bad he can't even open the lid, but he doesn't ask Snape to help, just wraps rags around his palms and bites down on his tongue. He fumbles with his knife and fork during dinner, and goes to just pick the goddamn food up with his hands, but Snape reaches out - snaps out, really, with this whip-quick motion - and grabs Harry's wrist.
"You're injured," he says. "But that's no reason to eat like a heathen."
He takes the potion and rubs it gently into Harry's hands, touch that's close to ice-cold and Harry shivers. Cold hands on his and he pushes into them, because he's so hot it hurts and he's sick of this humidity and god his hands -
Snape pulls back sharply, noiselessly. He's sitting dead straight up, but Harry sees something in his frame that almost looks like a tremble. Harry reaches but Snape just thuds the jar down on the table, stands up, and says "Wash those grass stains off of your knees, boy, you look like a child."
He leaves with a flutter, muttering something about shirtless boys and age of consent.
Harry slowly cleans up from dinner, careful to not let anything slip from his hands and break. He watches the last of the sun disappear from the sky, untangles the rest of his clothes from his bony limbs, but does not bother to wash the ground from his skin.
He dreams of icicles melting in his mouth and the dirt under his nails leaving a trail of mud down Snape's back.
In summertime the Snape estate sinks with the weight of the sun, light pressing the walls down further into the ground. The wards shimmer and ripple, like they're melting, and Harry watches them sometimes when he stops to wipe the sweat from his eyes.
Snape's making him start a garden of plants for potions, plants that sting and bite and curl invitingly around Harry's legs. There's a tracking charm on his wand, one that Harry discovered only after being chased through five miles of forest by Death Eaters. So he keeps it in the bottom of his school bag, tries to not think about using it. Tries to not think of how easy this all would be with it - the raking, the digging, the hauling.
Every morning he awakes to find new packets of seeds on the kitchen table, and every morning he takes them and carefully plants each two inches down and three inches apart. He wonders what they're for, what they'll turn into, but he never really wonders enough to ask. He just digs, and waters, and takes care of the things that are already there.
Snape comes out and sits on the crumbling stone bench, hunched under three layers of wool and four layers of cooling charms. He watches with an air of distaste, speaking only to correct or chastise:
"Clean yourself, boy, you look like a Muggle."
Harry scrubs futilely at his hands and knees, and glares up at Snape.
His skin forms blisters around the crude wooden handle of the shovel, blisters that crack and split and he's too stoic to want to wince, but he does anyway. The sun burns his eyes and his face, and by midday, after his shirt's been stripped off from heat and frustration, it burns his shoulders to red and peeling.
Snape's taken to leaving a jar of salve in Harry's bedroom, this yellow paste that smells a little like cotton candy. Maybe he feels sorry, maybe he's just keeping his slave in working condition. Either way, it works, and Harry's grateful for it.
This one night, though, his hands are so bad he can't even open the lid, but he doesn't ask Snape to help, just wraps rags around his palms and bites down on his tongue. He fumbles with his knife and fork during dinner, and goes to just pick the goddamn food up with his hands, but Snape reaches out - snaps out, really, with this whip-quick motion - and grabs Harry's wrist.
"You're injured," he says. "But that's no reason to eat like a heathen."
He takes the potion and rubs it gently into Harry's hands, touch that's close to ice-cold and Harry shivers. Cold hands on his and he pushes into them, because he's so hot it hurts and he's sick of this humidity and god his hands -
Snape pulls back sharply, noiselessly. He's sitting dead straight up, but Harry sees something in his frame that almost looks like a tremble. Harry reaches but Snape just thuds the jar down on the table, stands up, and says "Wash those grass stains off of your knees, boy, you look like a child."
He leaves with a flutter, muttering something about shirtless boys and age of consent.
Harry slowly cleans up from dinner, careful to not let anything slip from his hands and break. He watches the last of the sun disappear from the sky, untangles the rest of his clothes from his bony limbs, but does not bother to wash the ground from his skin.
He dreams of icicles melting in his mouth and the dirt under his nails leaving a trail of mud down Snape's back.