[July Celebration Fics]: The Joyous Kind of Living, Harry/Snape, R, 1/2
Title: The Joyous Kind of Living
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Angst, brief violence, AU in that Severus lives
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Wordcount: This part 5000
Rating: R
Summary: After the war, Potter is the only one to treat him with respect. It’s perhaps inevitable that Severus falls deeply, slowly, in love.
Author’s Notes: Another of my July Celebration fics. This one will have a second part, posted tomorrow.
The Joyous Kind of Living
Severus opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the hospital wing. Then he turned and stared at the array of potions sitting neatly beside his bed. He recognized all of them, which was the only reason he cautiously drank them.
Then he felt at his throat. Nagini’s fangs had torn him open, he knew that. He remembered dying. He remembered looking into Potter’s eyes and passing his memories to him. He had no memories of coming here.
“You’re awake, then. Good.”
Poppy’s voice was soft and shadowed. She had been in the school for the past year and knew what he had done as Headmaster. Severus ignored the pain throbbing beneath his breastbone expertly and frowned at her. “Why am I here? What happened?”
“You-Know-Who has been defeated,” Poppy said, and some part of Severus that still had its wits howled in a celebration as dark as that of any werewolf. “Apparently, young Harry Potter, when he came back to life, went to the Shrieking Shack to retrieve your body and found that there was still some breath in it. He healed you as best as he could and then brought you back here.”
Severus stared at her. “Potter is alive?”
“Yes. You’ll have to ask him how he did it.” Poppy looked away from him again. “Now, take your potions, Headmaster Snape. I have to admit-I didn’t want to treat you at first, but Harry insisted.” She left the room before Severus could say anything in response to her words, whether that was to demand how Potter could insist she treat him or that she not call him Headmaster.
Severus leaned back in his bed and swallowed the rest of the potions slowly. Blood Replenishers, pain-killers, potions that fought against infection, and several different kinds of antivenin that he’d known Poppy had on hand but which she rarely used except for victims from a Care of Magical Creatures class. He didn’t know if she would have brought all of them out for him after seeing what he had done to the students.
Except…Potter had insisted.
How is he even here to insist? Severus wondered, and could not sleep for the thoughts that chased each other through his head.
*
“The Horcrux that was inside me was what took the Killing Curse instead of me.”
Severus stared steadily at Potter. He himself had insisted until Potter visited the hospital wing. Now he sat on a bed across from Severus, his gaze steady but-empty, somehow. His arms were looped around his knees. He had dirt on his elbows and hands. His hair was even more of a mess than usual. His gaze was a thousand miles distant.
And yet, he sat there and answered Severus’s questions.
“You expect me to believe that the Headmaster planned this?” Severus spoke in the most goading tone he could, but Potter only shook his head.
“I think he hoped for it. But obviously, there was no way to test it before the final confrontation between me and Voldemort.” Potter ignored his flinch, instead staring over Severus’s head again. “Then I pretended to be dead, and Narcissa Malfoy lied to him about me being alive because I told her Draco still was. After Hagrid brought me back to the castle, I ‘came back to life,’ and he couldn’t use the Elder Wand against me because I am its master.”
“That convoluted story. It’s true?”
“Yes, sir. And,” Potter hesitated for a moment, swallowing, then forged on. “It’s the reason that you’re still alive.”
“Yes. Let us talk about that. My body still had a bit of breath in it?”
“No, sir. Not really. But I took up the Elder Wand and healed my own wand, and-after that, I told Ron and Hermione I was going to put it back in Dumbledore’s tomb. But the wand started trembling in my hand after I was alone, and I felt its presence in my mind, promising to do anything I wanted if I would keep it.”
“Potter! You, of all people, ought to know better than to trust a voice in your head-”
“I know. But there was something I wanted to do. So I went back to the Shrieking Shack, and no one had disturbed your body. And-don’t ask me how I know this, it’s just something the Elder Wand communicated to me-”
Severus wanted to point out that that sentence did tell him how Potter knew it, but he kept silent as he watched the boy struggle.
“It said that because less than twenty-four hours had passed since you died, your soul was still close enough to summon back. So I did. I pulled your soul back into your body, and after that, the wand itself was able to heal your wound enough that you didn’t bleed out on the way to the hospital wing.”
“I owe you my life.” The realization made Severus feel as if volcanic tephra coated his tongue.
“No. I release you from the life-debt and any others that you feel you owe me.”
Severus jerked his head back as a black star flared into life in the air between him and Potter. Potter only watched it as if he’d expected that. Then the star vanished in a rush of imploding air, and at the same time, Severus breathed out. His shoulders felt lighter than they had in years.
“No one has the power to release a life-debt.”
Potter ignored the way his voice shook. “I do. It probably has something to do with the Elder Wand. I’ve also released Draco from the one he owes me because I saved his life when Crabbe cast a Fiendfyre spell.”
“You fool,” Severus said, and his voice was full of wonder. “Those life-debts could have been of use to you! You could have used them to make sure that the Malfoys would have to protect you in the future, or that I would have to-”
“I think you’ve done enough protecting that I never thanked you for.” Potter steadied the glasses on his nose and nodded, as if everything was resolved between them and he hadn’t just done something that might destroy Severus’s sense of himself. “Thank you, sir. Please stay in bed and keep taking the potions that Madam Pomfrey gives you. Despite the Elder Wand, it was touch and go for a while.”
And he turned and left, with Severus staring after him and wondering who he was when he wasn’t protecting Potter.
*
Severus stared in silence at the blank canvas in Minerva’s office-because it was her office now, and would remain that until a time that Severus did not want to think about. “That canvas will hold my portrait.”
“Yes. The spells have been enacted, and when you die, your image will show up there. I sincerely hope that’s not for many years yet, Severus.”
He must have murmured something, because Minerva went on pouring tea and talking, about details of his trial and defense in the Ministry that Severus didn’t need to listen to because he knew them. He didn’t take his gaze from the canvas often. He was remembering the short, unsigned letter that had come with an unremarkable tawny owl three days ago.
Do you want a portrait of yourself in the Headmaster’s office when you die, or not?
Severus had thought it was a joke, but he had answered sincerely, if with sarcasm, that he thought his sacrifices deserved at least that much. And even though he didn’t recognize the owl, or the handwriting, and Minerva said nothing about it…
He knew who had had it put there.
*
“Witness for the defense, Harry James Potter.”
Severus turned to watch Potter walk up the aisle between the thickly clustered seats of the witnesses. He didn’t wink or twinkle at Severus the way Albus would have. He gave Severus exactly the same kind of faint smile he had used when Draco and Narcissa were on trial, and then sat down in the chair that the Wizengamot had designed for witnesses.
“This is a surprise,” said a woman with a nasal voice that reminded Severus of a mooncalf’s honk. “Reliable reports said that you hated Professor Snape and thought he was a traitor.”
“At one time, I did,” Potter said with a shrug. “I’ve learned better since then.”
“And you’re prepared to testify that Professor Snape committed no crimes?”
“I’m prepared to testify that all the crimes he committed were on the orders of Professor Albus Dumbledore.”
“What proof of this do you have?”
“Memories shared-”
Severus tensed.
“-with me by the portrait of Headmaster Dumbledore, who I spoke to a few days ago. May I have your permission to place them in a Pensieve?”
Severus blinked and blinked again as he watched Potter receive permission, and draw forth the memories. He added a few other strands, which he described as “Things I saw but didn’t understand at the time” and “memories from other Hogwarts students who are still in the hospital wing and couldn’t be here to testify.”
Nothing about the memories that he had received from Severus as he lay dying. Somehow, he had known that Severus did not want those shared, even if they would preserve his life or his freedom.
Severus watched as Wizengamot members lowered their heads into the Pensieve and gasped or cried or looked sick. He watched as the woman with the nasal voice became subdued and even nodded to him with a little frown on her face. He watched as they voted to acquit him and gave out some murmurs that someday there might be an Order of Merlin, although Severus highly doubted that would ever materialize.
But mostly, he watched Potter. Potter handled questions calmly and without exploding. He clarified points when he had to, and sometimes raised his eyebrows and acquired a faint sarcastic edge to his voice that suggested, better than any words, exactly what he thought of his interrogator’s intelligence. He explained Severus’s part in helping him locate Horcruxes and defeat the Dark Lord without once suggesting that Severus had known, and participated, in sending him to his death.
Or that he had been devoted to Lily.
When the questioning and the acquittal were finished, Potter stood up and gave a silent nod of support to Severus, nothing extraordinary, and then turned and walked calmly out of the room.
Severus’s eyes followed him.
*
Severus ducked the jinx that came his way and silently cursed all the instincts that were telling him to retaliate. Oh, he could, but he would use Dark magic. His instincts had become exaggerated since the war. He would react with fury and strength that would bleed his attackers dry. And he would go to prison, when he had barely got his wand back.
Which meant that anyone who had the wherewithal and desire could harass him in Diagon Alley, and he could do nothing about it.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The crack of brilliant light that descended on his attackers a second later was familiar to Severus. He had experienced much the same thing in the hospital wing when Potter had released him from his life-debts. He stood and watched Potter walking towards them, his body radiating that same light.
They can never accuse him of Darkness, Severus thought, then remembered the attacks the Daily Prophet had printed during Potter’s fifth year. But there were always idiots in the world.
“What did you think you were doing?” Potter folded his arms and stared at the attackers again. He had turned nineteen since Severus had last seen him in person, and the frequent photographs didn’t do him justice. Not the way he had managed to tame his hair by growing it out, or the breadth of his shoulders.
“He-he was a Death Eater,” said the leader of the attackers, a tall girl in Hufflepuff robes. She must be here to shop for her school things. She blinked at Potter.
“Would you ever think of attacking me?”
“Of course not, sir!”
“What about my friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger?”
“Of course not! They’re war heroes!”
“And so is he.”
Severus moved a little to the side. He had no desire to remind his attackers of his presence, but he did want to see if Potter had managed to raise the disappointed glare to an art form.
He had. Severus thought his even better than Albus’s.
“I-but-” The Hufflepuff girl looked devastated, and so did the others behind her. Young enough to be students, too, Severus thought, although they weren’t wearing House colors. He breathed in and out. His instincts would have made even more of a mess of things than usual if he had retaliated.
“Things aren’t always black and white,” Potter said sternly. “Or Dark and Light. Go home and think about it. You’re, what, sixteen? I thought the same stupid shit when I was sixteen. On the other hand, I was in the middle of a war. You ought to keep up with the news enough now that the war’s done to at least know who was acquitted!”
The children scurried off, one of them openly weeping. Potter watched them go, then sighed and turned to Severus. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Only one hex landed,” Severus said, without knowing why he said it, and held out his arm. There was a rapidly growing boil on the skin. He could have healed it well enough by himself, but casting all but a certain small repertoire of spells might still bring the Aurors down on him. Might.
Potter reached out and gently closed his hand around Severus’s forearm. There was a motion like curtains swaying in the air, and Severus thought he smelled jasmine. Then Potter drew his hand back.
Severus stared down at his completely clear skin.
“Sorry I didn’t get here before they hurt you,” Potter said. “Where are you headed, sir?”
“To buy some ingredients to grind for my potions,” Severus said, and he turned and began to walk down Diagon Alley. Potter fell into easy step beside him, and began to talk about his difficulty crushing scorpion tails.
The conversation lasted all of Severus’s trip to the apothecary, his selection of ingredients, and his journey back to the Apparition point. He criticized Potter’s technique, the whole idea of him becoming an Auror, the fact that he hadn’t gone back to Hogwarts to earn his Potions NEWT, and the inferior quality of the Ministry’s equipment. Potter just listened with a smile, and sometimes asked questions.
When they separated and Severus returned home, he realized that Potter had, without saying a word, made sure that he was protected during the rest of his journey. Rather like he had seen off Severus’s attackers without a wand.
All that evening, as he ground the fresh pegasus hooves, Severus listened. The small hand-mill he used was loud, with a noise like someone walking over crunching river pebbles. And still it seemed too silent in his house.
*
“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t see you there,” Potter said, and danced deftly around Severus as he juggled his own packages. The Potter Severus remembered would have dropped at least one of them to the ground. This one caught them all and nodded to Severus. “I’ll see you later.”
Severus turned to partially block the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron again, which was the thing that had made Potter stumble into him in the first place. “And now you’re too good to say hello to your old professor?”
“No, of course not, sir,” Potter said, a curious frown on his face. “I only thought that you probably didn’t want to be troubled with me.”
“I do not dislike you, Potter.”
“Now,” Potter muttered under his breath, but Severus heard it. He stifled his smile, because that would tell Potter exactly how purposeful this encounter was, and nodded into the Leaky Cauldron.
“Come and have a drink with me.”
Potter’s eyebrows looked as if they might wing off the top of his head, but he nodded. “All right, sir. I do have to be back at the Ministry in an hour.”
An hour should be more than enough time, Severus thought as he led Potter to one of the sturdier tables and watched him pile his packages around his chair with neat sweeps of his wand. Enough time for Severus to figure out what it was that he liked about Potter’s company and determine if he wanted more of it in the future.
They both ordered butterbeer, and for a moment, Severus thought they would sit there in silence. Fortunately, he noticed a particular shape among Potter’s packets. “You are buying a new cauldron?”
“Yes.” Potter flushed a little. “I managed to melt the old one.”
“Tell me, Potter, was Longbottom in the room?”
Potter laughed a little, a sound that Severus decided, carefully, he could stand with hearing more of. “No. I added the powdered lacewings to the cauldron when there was still too much unmelted electrum in the bottom.”
Severus winced at the thought of the resulting mess, but his mind was delicately sorting through ingredients, and he ended by staring at Potter. “Only one potion uses powdered lacewings and electrum.”
“Really? I wouldn’t know. I’m not the expert here, sir.”
“What were you doing brewing Wolfsbane?”
“Greyback created a lot of werewolves on purpose before we caught him. Some of them are Muggles without Galleons. Some of them are wizards living by themselves who don’t have any secure places to spend their transformations. I’m going to become good at brewing it so I can give it to at least a few people free each full moon.”
“The electrum by itself is an expensive ingredient.” And that was not the only costly one that particular potion required.
Potter’s eyes glittered, and he tilted his head. “Good thing I’m rich, then.”
Severus swallowed another gulp of butterbeer, and said nothing. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, Potter had been obscenely good friends with Lupin, and this was the sort of saving-people thing he would do.
But it gave him an opportunity to ask about brewing, which turned into a conversation about Potter’s Auror work. Potter spoke simply but with more of a sarcastic bent than Severus remembered. Or perhaps his appreciation for it had been obscured when he had to take points and give detentions based on it.
When it was directed at me.
Severus did ask a question when Potter checked his watch, hissed a quiet curse, and got up to leave. “Why have you been so careful with me since the war?”
“I have no idea what you mean, sir.”
And by his wide, blinking eyes, he honestly didn’t. Severus sighed a little. “Consistently respectful. Going out of your way to treat me like-as if I did not do half the things I did. Why do that?”
“Because you sacrificed a lot for the war, sir. And that means that you deserve at least the consideration I give other people who did that. Sorry, sir, but I really am going to be late.” Potter gave him an apologetic smile and ran out the door, trailing packages behind him like a comet’s tail.
Severus stared after him. So Potter was treating him not exactly like an ordinary person, but like-a friend.
He pondered what that meant for the rest of the day.
*
“Er, thank you for inviting me, sir.”
Severus concealed a smirk as he watched Potter step into the kitchen, shaking the snow off his cloak. He looked around politely, but darted a confused glance at Severus when he thought his back was turned. He obviously didn’t know why he’d been invited.
For that matter, Severus himself had invited him based on tentative emotion and gut instinct. All those things that he had once sworn himself never to live by, since they had not served him well in keeping Lily’s friendship.
But the thought of Lily did not fill him with as much of a pang as it once had. Instead, he held up the full kettle to Potter and asked, “Tea?”
Potter smiled at him and nodded, then spelled the remaining snow away from the cloak and did the same with his boots. Severus tilted his head. That spell was not difficult, but not many wizards learned it, either, simply assuming the snow and water would fade from sight.
“Hermione hates having house-elves,” Potter explained when he saw him looking. “We’ve all become pretty adept at household charms.” He accepted a cup of tea and cradled it between his hands, sitting down at the small table Severus had stationed between the kitchen window and the hearth when he had bought this flat.
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Hmmm?” Potter turned half-dreaming eyes on him, and Severus felt a smug jolt in his stomach. I am one of those he trusts himself to relax around. “Oh, Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Luna and Neville and Dean and Dennis and Parvati and-a group of us that meet regularly at Ron and Hermione’s house. We all survived the Battle of Hogwarts. It’s mostly Gryffindors, except for Luna, but Draco does join us sometimes.”
Severus paused in the middle of adding the scones to the tray, although the spells he had prepared meant ingredients kept whisking over regardless. He irritably sent the over-eager saltcellar back to its place on the shelves. “Draco has mentioned nothing to me about this.”
Potter shrugged. “I think he’s a bit embarrassed. Some of his Slytherin friends still tease him when he spends time with anyone other than them.”
“I see.” Severus brought the scones to the table. Potter waited for him to take what he wanted before he reached for anything. Then he went back to watching the snow as he drank and ate, while Severus watched him. Has he learned manners, or did always have some that I simply never saw?
Potter sipped the last of his tea and glanced at Severus. “Was there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about, sir?”
“Two things,” Severus said, and reminded himself that this new version of Potter would not embarrass Severus like the schoolboy version would have.
“Yes, sir?”
“First, I enjoy the company of someone who-does not treat me as if I had an incurable plague.”
“I’m hoping that stops soon.” Potter’s eyes had a fine spark when he was angry, burning with a righteous fire. “There are new laws going up in front of the Wizengamot soon, to reverse some of the decisions they made right after the war. For one thing, shopkeepers don’t have the right to attack someone they just think has a Dark Mark on their arm. If someone gets violent, that’s one thing, but they can’t hex you or Draco or Narcissa Malfoy if you just go in and buy things quietly and leave.”
“Narcissa does not have a Dark Mark.”
“But they think she does, hence the retaliation.”
“How long do you intend to fight?” Severus asked, since he was truly curious. “Is there some series of wrongs that you would content yourself with righting?”
“I’ll keep fighting as long as I can and the world needs me.”
No dimming that fire. Severus swallowed as he felt the reaction move through his body, and he knew his voice was hoarse as he spoke again. “The second thing is that, while I do appreciate your respect, I would prefer it if you called me something other than sir.”
“But you’re not a professor anymore. Would you prefer Mr. Snape? Or do independent Potions brewers have a title?”
“I would prefer Severus.”
Potter opened his mouth in what looked like honest surprise, and then ended up closing it again. “Of course,” he said, and his voice was very gentle. “Severus. You must miss the way that my mother used to call you that.”
“I do,” Severus said, and continued on before all his old self could strangle the honesty. “But I am not looking to hear the echo of your mother’s voice in yours, Mr. Potter. I am looking only to hear someone who regards me as a friend speak to me that way.”
Potter considered him for a long moment, his mouth slowly tilting up at the corners. “Then you must call me Harry.”
*
“Severus?” Harry’s voice sounded louder than Severus had realized it would as he limped towards the door. Yes, that was definitely limping, Severus thought, and pinched his lips together. “Sorry, I would have taken down the wards if I knew that you were coming over.”
“You would have known I was coming if you had sent me a Patronus messenger when your accident happened,” Severus hissed, and threw his shoulder against the door the moment he heard the locking charms disengage. He was carefully to have a free arm ready to wrap around Harry’s waist as he stumbled. “Instead, it was left to Miss Granger to tell me.”
Harry straightened up and shot him a baffled glance. “Well, I mean, it’s a minor wound. I don’t know why Hermione told you.”
“Because she suspects, as I do, that this was no accident.” Severus eyed the long gash that ran up Harry’s left leg. It was true chance that had made it spare any major muscles.
But chance only. Severus herded Harry into a chair and drew out the painkilling potions and the one that would knit the skin closed. He had prepared them at once when Granger’s Patronus found him and told him about the “accident.” “And no minor wound.”
“I already took the painkillers.”
“That you are limping proves they did not work.”
Harry rolled his eyes, but swallowed the potions that Severus held out to him. Severus, meanwhile, moved his wand in the pattern that the wound suggested, and nodded. Rage was quiet in him. He had learned to control and channel it to where it would do some good since the war.
He leaned back and looked up at Harry, who winced. “What?”
Severus handed him the potion that would knit the wound shut, and said mildly, “This is the pattern for the Muscle-Ripping Curse. No Auror instructor should have been using that in a class with trainees. And you will still claim this was an accident?”
“Severus-”
“Lie to yourself if you will. But not to me.”
Harry fell silent at the force in his voice, blinked, and pushed his glasses up his nose. Then he swallowed the last of the potions, and sighed. “Come into the drawing room with me, and I’ll tell you how it happened.” He limped for the first few steps when he stood up from the chair, but it faded thereafter. Severus eyed his leg complacently as he followed Harry into the drawing room.
And if his eyes lingered on the way that Harry’s muscles moved under his skin more than they should, who would tell?
Harry’s small house was a cheerful place crowded with photographs of his friends, godson, Order of the Phoenix members, and, presumably, young people from his Auror training class. Severus narrowed his eyes at a photograph of himself on the mantel, caught in brewing. He did not know that Harry had that.
Harry noted his gaze, but shrugged unrepentantly as he sat down on one of the overstuffed scarlet couches he favored. Severus took the one chair in a dark green. He assumed it was a concession to Draco’s sensibilities.
“Why tell others it was an accident?” Severus persisted.
Harry sighed. “Because Auror Oron really, really does not like me. He was trying to hurt me. I know that. But if I make a claim like that, it’s going to look like I’m asking for favors and can’t take a bit of pain-”
“You could have been killed or crippled, and that is what you care about?”
“But I wasn’t-Severus? Please listen to me.”
Reluctantly, Severus snapped his mouth shut, and watched Harry lean forwards, his eyes bright.
“Auror Oron is one of the few people right now who’s fighting to free house-elves,” Harry said softly, “because a house-elf helped him during the war when she didn’t have to, and since then he’s kind of woken up to the way that they’re treated is wrong. Sure, I could get him sacked if I had the right sort of evidence. But then I’m removing someone who could be a powerful ally for Hermione.”
Severus stared at him. “You risk yourself for the sake of politics?”
“I have to. I owe it to Dobby.”
By now, Severus knew the story of that elf and how he had died. It did not make him comfortable to recall. He clenched his fists.
“Just leave it alone. Please.”
“If he strikes you again, I will not.”
Harry paused, then nodded. “I don’t think he’ll be stupid enough to do it again. But fine, yes, if he is, I promise to let you at him,” he added hastily, since he must have seen the sort of glow in Severus’s eyes that meant it was dangerous to push him.
“Good.”
The moment passed, and Severus found himself sitting and gazing at Harry. Harry took off his glasses and cleaned them, then put them back on and squinted at Severus.
“Are you all right?”
“Relieved that you are,” Severus admitted in a rough voice that made him wince a little. He had not meant to speak like that.
Harry blinked, then smiled. “Well. Thanks.”
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at https://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/983018.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Angst, brief violence, AU in that Severus lives
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Wordcount: This part 5000
Rating: R
Summary: After the war, Potter is the only one to treat him with respect. It’s perhaps inevitable that Severus falls deeply, slowly, in love.
Author’s Notes: Another of my July Celebration fics. This one will have a second part, posted tomorrow.
The Joyous Kind of Living
Severus opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the hospital wing. Then he turned and stared at the array of potions sitting neatly beside his bed. He recognized all of them, which was the only reason he cautiously drank them.
Then he felt at his throat. Nagini’s fangs had torn him open, he knew that. He remembered dying. He remembered looking into Potter’s eyes and passing his memories to him. He had no memories of coming here.
“You’re awake, then. Good.”
Poppy’s voice was soft and shadowed. She had been in the school for the past year and knew what he had done as Headmaster. Severus ignored the pain throbbing beneath his breastbone expertly and frowned at her. “Why am I here? What happened?”
“You-Know-Who has been defeated,” Poppy said, and some part of Severus that still had its wits howled in a celebration as dark as that of any werewolf. “Apparently, young Harry Potter, when he came back to life, went to the Shrieking Shack to retrieve your body and found that there was still some breath in it. He healed you as best as he could and then brought you back here.”
Severus stared at her. “Potter is alive?”
“Yes. You’ll have to ask him how he did it.” Poppy looked away from him again. “Now, take your potions, Headmaster Snape. I have to admit-I didn’t want to treat you at first, but Harry insisted.” She left the room before Severus could say anything in response to her words, whether that was to demand how Potter could insist she treat him or that she not call him Headmaster.
Severus leaned back in his bed and swallowed the rest of the potions slowly. Blood Replenishers, pain-killers, potions that fought against infection, and several different kinds of antivenin that he’d known Poppy had on hand but which she rarely used except for victims from a Care of Magical Creatures class. He didn’t know if she would have brought all of them out for him after seeing what he had done to the students.
Except…Potter had insisted.
How is he even here to insist? Severus wondered, and could not sleep for the thoughts that chased each other through his head.
*
“The Horcrux that was inside me was what took the Killing Curse instead of me.”
Severus stared steadily at Potter. He himself had insisted until Potter visited the hospital wing. Now he sat on a bed across from Severus, his gaze steady but-empty, somehow. His arms were looped around his knees. He had dirt on his elbows and hands. His hair was even more of a mess than usual. His gaze was a thousand miles distant.
And yet, he sat there and answered Severus’s questions.
“You expect me to believe that the Headmaster planned this?” Severus spoke in the most goading tone he could, but Potter only shook his head.
“I think he hoped for it. But obviously, there was no way to test it before the final confrontation between me and Voldemort.” Potter ignored his flinch, instead staring over Severus’s head again. “Then I pretended to be dead, and Narcissa Malfoy lied to him about me being alive because I told her Draco still was. After Hagrid brought me back to the castle, I ‘came back to life,’ and he couldn’t use the Elder Wand against me because I am its master.”
“That convoluted story. It’s true?”
“Yes, sir. And,” Potter hesitated for a moment, swallowing, then forged on. “It’s the reason that you’re still alive.”
“Yes. Let us talk about that. My body still had a bit of breath in it?”
“No, sir. Not really. But I took up the Elder Wand and healed my own wand, and-after that, I told Ron and Hermione I was going to put it back in Dumbledore’s tomb. But the wand started trembling in my hand after I was alone, and I felt its presence in my mind, promising to do anything I wanted if I would keep it.”
“Potter! You, of all people, ought to know better than to trust a voice in your head-”
“I know. But there was something I wanted to do. So I went back to the Shrieking Shack, and no one had disturbed your body. And-don’t ask me how I know this, it’s just something the Elder Wand communicated to me-”
Severus wanted to point out that that sentence did tell him how Potter knew it, but he kept silent as he watched the boy struggle.
“It said that because less than twenty-four hours had passed since you died, your soul was still close enough to summon back. So I did. I pulled your soul back into your body, and after that, the wand itself was able to heal your wound enough that you didn’t bleed out on the way to the hospital wing.”
“I owe you my life.” The realization made Severus feel as if volcanic tephra coated his tongue.
“No. I release you from the life-debt and any others that you feel you owe me.”
Severus jerked his head back as a black star flared into life in the air between him and Potter. Potter only watched it as if he’d expected that. Then the star vanished in a rush of imploding air, and at the same time, Severus breathed out. His shoulders felt lighter than they had in years.
“No one has the power to release a life-debt.”
Potter ignored the way his voice shook. “I do. It probably has something to do with the Elder Wand. I’ve also released Draco from the one he owes me because I saved his life when Crabbe cast a Fiendfyre spell.”
“You fool,” Severus said, and his voice was full of wonder. “Those life-debts could have been of use to you! You could have used them to make sure that the Malfoys would have to protect you in the future, or that I would have to-”
“I think you’ve done enough protecting that I never thanked you for.” Potter steadied the glasses on his nose and nodded, as if everything was resolved between them and he hadn’t just done something that might destroy Severus’s sense of himself. “Thank you, sir. Please stay in bed and keep taking the potions that Madam Pomfrey gives you. Despite the Elder Wand, it was touch and go for a while.”
And he turned and left, with Severus staring after him and wondering who he was when he wasn’t protecting Potter.
*
Severus stared in silence at the blank canvas in Minerva’s office-because it was her office now, and would remain that until a time that Severus did not want to think about. “That canvas will hold my portrait.”
“Yes. The spells have been enacted, and when you die, your image will show up there. I sincerely hope that’s not for many years yet, Severus.”
He must have murmured something, because Minerva went on pouring tea and talking, about details of his trial and defense in the Ministry that Severus didn’t need to listen to because he knew them. He didn’t take his gaze from the canvas often. He was remembering the short, unsigned letter that had come with an unremarkable tawny owl three days ago.
Do you want a portrait of yourself in the Headmaster’s office when you die, or not?
Severus had thought it was a joke, but he had answered sincerely, if with sarcasm, that he thought his sacrifices deserved at least that much. And even though he didn’t recognize the owl, or the handwriting, and Minerva said nothing about it…
He knew who had had it put there.
*
“Witness for the defense, Harry James Potter.”
Severus turned to watch Potter walk up the aisle between the thickly clustered seats of the witnesses. He didn’t wink or twinkle at Severus the way Albus would have. He gave Severus exactly the same kind of faint smile he had used when Draco and Narcissa were on trial, and then sat down in the chair that the Wizengamot had designed for witnesses.
“This is a surprise,” said a woman with a nasal voice that reminded Severus of a mooncalf’s honk. “Reliable reports said that you hated Professor Snape and thought he was a traitor.”
“At one time, I did,” Potter said with a shrug. “I’ve learned better since then.”
“And you’re prepared to testify that Professor Snape committed no crimes?”
“I’m prepared to testify that all the crimes he committed were on the orders of Professor Albus Dumbledore.”
“What proof of this do you have?”
“Memories shared-”
Severus tensed.
“-with me by the portrait of Headmaster Dumbledore, who I spoke to a few days ago. May I have your permission to place them in a Pensieve?”
Severus blinked and blinked again as he watched Potter receive permission, and draw forth the memories. He added a few other strands, which he described as “Things I saw but didn’t understand at the time” and “memories from other Hogwarts students who are still in the hospital wing and couldn’t be here to testify.”
Nothing about the memories that he had received from Severus as he lay dying. Somehow, he had known that Severus did not want those shared, even if they would preserve his life or his freedom.
Severus watched as Wizengamot members lowered their heads into the Pensieve and gasped or cried or looked sick. He watched as the woman with the nasal voice became subdued and even nodded to him with a little frown on her face. He watched as they voted to acquit him and gave out some murmurs that someday there might be an Order of Merlin, although Severus highly doubted that would ever materialize.
But mostly, he watched Potter. Potter handled questions calmly and without exploding. He clarified points when he had to, and sometimes raised his eyebrows and acquired a faint sarcastic edge to his voice that suggested, better than any words, exactly what he thought of his interrogator’s intelligence. He explained Severus’s part in helping him locate Horcruxes and defeat the Dark Lord without once suggesting that Severus had known, and participated, in sending him to his death.
Or that he had been devoted to Lily.
When the questioning and the acquittal were finished, Potter stood up and gave a silent nod of support to Severus, nothing extraordinary, and then turned and walked calmly out of the room.
Severus’s eyes followed him.
*
Severus ducked the jinx that came his way and silently cursed all the instincts that were telling him to retaliate. Oh, he could, but he would use Dark magic. His instincts had become exaggerated since the war. He would react with fury and strength that would bleed his attackers dry. And he would go to prison, when he had barely got his wand back.
Which meant that anyone who had the wherewithal and desire could harass him in Diagon Alley, and he could do nothing about it.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The crack of brilliant light that descended on his attackers a second later was familiar to Severus. He had experienced much the same thing in the hospital wing when Potter had released him from his life-debts. He stood and watched Potter walking towards them, his body radiating that same light.
They can never accuse him of Darkness, Severus thought, then remembered the attacks the Daily Prophet had printed during Potter’s fifth year. But there were always idiots in the world.
“What did you think you were doing?” Potter folded his arms and stared at the attackers again. He had turned nineteen since Severus had last seen him in person, and the frequent photographs didn’t do him justice. Not the way he had managed to tame his hair by growing it out, or the breadth of his shoulders.
“He-he was a Death Eater,” said the leader of the attackers, a tall girl in Hufflepuff robes. She must be here to shop for her school things. She blinked at Potter.
“Would you ever think of attacking me?”
“Of course not, sir!”
“What about my friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger?”
“Of course not! They’re war heroes!”
“And so is he.”
Severus moved a little to the side. He had no desire to remind his attackers of his presence, but he did want to see if Potter had managed to raise the disappointed glare to an art form.
He had. Severus thought his even better than Albus’s.
“I-but-” The Hufflepuff girl looked devastated, and so did the others behind her. Young enough to be students, too, Severus thought, although they weren’t wearing House colors. He breathed in and out. His instincts would have made even more of a mess of things than usual if he had retaliated.
“Things aren’t always black and white,” Potter said sternly. “Or Dark and Light. Go home and think about it. You’re, what, sixteen? I thought the same stupid shit when I was sixteen. On the other hand, I was in the middle of a war. You ought to keep up with the news enough now that the war’s done to at least know who was acquitted!”
The children scurried off, one of them openly weeping. Potter watched them go, then sighed and turned to Severus. “Are you all right, sir?”
“Only one hex landed,” Severus said, without knowing why he said it, and held out his arm. There was a rapidly growing boil on the skin. He could have healed it well enough by himself, but casting all but a certain small repertoire of spells might still bring the Aurors down on him. Might.
Potter reached out and gently closed his hand around Severus’s forearm. There was a motion like curtains swaying in the air, and Severus thought he smelled jasmine. Then Potter drew his hand back.
Severus stared down at his completely clear skin.
“Sorry I didn’t get here before they hurt you,” Potter said. “Where are you headed, sir?”
“To buy some ingredients to grind for my potions,” Severus said, and he turned and began to walk down Diagon Alley. Potter fell into easy step beside him, and began to talk about his difficulty crushing scorpion tails.
The conversation lasted all of Severus’s trip to the apothecary, his selection of ingredients, and his journey back to the Apparition point. He criticized Potter’s technique, the whole idea of him becoming an Auror, the fact that he hadn’t gone back to Hogwarts to earn his Potions NEWT, and the inferior quality of the Ministry’s equipment. Potter just listened with a smile, and sometimes asked questions.
When they separated and Severus returned home, he realized that Potter had, without saying a word, made sure that he was protected during the rest of his journey. Rather like he had seen off Severus’s attackers without a wand.
All that evening, as he ground the fresh pegasus hooves, Severus listened. The small hand-mill he used was loud, with a noise like someone walking over crunching river pebbles. And still it seemed too silent in his house.
*
“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t see you there,” Potter said, and danced deftly around Severus as he juggled his own packages. The Potter Severus remembered would have dropped at least one of them to the ground. This one caught them all and nodded to Severus. “I’ll see you later.”
Severus turned to partially block the entrance of the Leaky Cauldron again, which was the thing that had made Potter stumble into him in the first place. “And now you’re too good to say hello to your old professor?”
“No, of course not, sir,” Potter said, a curious frown on his face. “I only thought that you probably didn’t want to be troubled with me.”
“I do not dislike you, Potter.”
“Now,” Potter muttered under his breath, but Severus heard it. He stifled his smile, because that would tell Potter exactly how purposeful this encounter was, and nodded into the Leaky Cauldron.
“Come and have a drink with me.”
Potter’s eyebrows looked as if they might wing off the top of his head, but he nodded. “All right, sir. I do have to be back at the Ministry in an hour.”
An hour should be more than enough time, Severus thought as he led Potter to one of the sturdier tables and watched him pile his packages around his chair with neat sweeps of his wand. Enough time for Severus to figure out what it was that he liked about Potter’s company and determine if he wanted more of it in the future.
They both ordered butterbeer, and for a moment, Severus thought they would sit there in silence. Fortunately, he noticed a particular shape among Potter’s packets. “You are buying a new cauldron?”
“Yes.” Potter flushed a little. “I managed to melt the old one.”
“Tell me, Potter, was Longbottom in the room?”
Potter laughed a little, a sound that Severus decided, carefully, he could stand with hearing more of. “No. I added the powdered lacewings to the cauldron when there was still too much unmelted electrum in the bottom.”
Severus winced at the thought of the resulting mess, but his mind was delicately sorting through ingredients, and he ended by staring at Potter. “Only one potion uses powdered lacewings and electrum.”
“Really? I wouldn’t know. I’m not the expert here, sir.”
“What were you doing brewing Wolfsbane?”
“Greyback created a lot of werewolves on purpose before we caught him. Some of them are Muggles without Galleons. Some of them are wizards living by themselves who don’t have any secure places to spend their transformations. I’m going to become good at brewing it so I can give it to at least a few people free each full moon.”
“The electrum by itself is an expensive ingredient.” And that was not the only costly one that particular potion required.
Potter’s eyes glittered, and he tilted his head. “Good thing I’m rich, then.”
Severus swallowed another gulp of butterbeer, and said nothing. He supposed it shouldn’t have surprised him. After all, Potter had been obscenely good friends with Lupin, and this was the sort of saving-people thing he would do.
But it gave him an opportunity to ask about brewing, which turned into a conversation about Potter’s Auror work. Potter spoke simply but with more of a sarcastic bent than Severus remembered. Or perhaps his appreciation for it had been obscured when he had to take points and give detentions based on it.
When it was directed at me.
Severus did ask a question when Potter checked his watch, hissed a quiet curse, and got up to leave. “Why have you been so careful with me since the war?”
“I have no idea what you mean, sir.”
And by his wide, blinking eyes, he honestly didn’t. Severus sighed a little. “Consistently respectful. Going out of your way to treat me like-as if I did not do half the things I did. Why do that?”
“Because you sacrificed a lot for the war, sir. And that means that you deserve at least the consideration I give other people who did that. Sorry, sir, but I really am going to be late.” Potter gave him an apologetic smile and ran out the door, trailing packages behind him like a comet’s tail.
Severus stared after him. So Potter was treating him not exactly like an ordinary person, but like-a friend.
He pondered what that meant for the rest of the day.
*
“Er, thank you for inviting me, sir.”
Severus concealed a smirk as he watched Potter step into the kitchen, shaking the snow off his cloak. He looked around politely, but darted a confused glance at Severus when he thought his back was turned. He obviously didn’t know why he’d been invited.
For that matter, Severus himself had invited him based on tentative emotion and gut instinct. All those things that he had once sworn himself never to live by, since they had not served him well in keeping Lily’s friendship.
But the thought of Lily did not fill him with as much of a pang as it once had. Instead, he held up the full kettle to Potter and asked, “Tea?”
Potter smiled at him and nodded, then spelled the remaining snow away from the cloak and did the same with his boots. Severus tilted his head. That spell was not difficult, but not many wizards learned it, either, simply assuming the snow and water would fade from sight.
“Hermione hates having house-elves,” Potter explained when he saw him looking. “We’ve all become pretty adept at household charms.” He accepted a cup of tea and cradled it between his hands, sitting down at the small table Severus had stationed between the kitchen window and the hearth when he had bought this flat.
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Hmmm?” Potter turned half-dreaming eyes on him, and Severus felt a smug jolt in his stomach. I am one of those he trusts himself to relax around. “Oh, Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Luna and Neville and Dean and Dennis and Parvati and-a group of us that meet regularly at Ron and Hermione’s house. We all survived the Battle of Hogwarts. It’s mostly Gryffindors, except for Luna, but Draco does join us sometimes.”
Severus paused in the middle of adding the scones to the tray, although the spells he had prepared meant ingredients kept whisking over regardless. He irritably sent the over-eager saltcellar back to its place on the shelves. “Draco has mentioned nothing to me about this.”
Potter shrugged. “I think he’s a bit embarrassed. Some of his Slytherin friends still tease him when he spends time with anyone other than them.”
“I see.” Severus brought the scones to the table. Potter waited for him to take what he wanted before he reached for anything. Then he went back to watching the snow as he drank and ate, while Severus watched him. Has he learned manners, or did always have some that I simply never saw?
Potter sipped the last of his tea and glanced at Severus. “Was there something in particular you wanted to talk to me about, sir?”
“Two things,” Severus said, and reminded himself that this new version of Potter would not embarrass Severus like the schoolboy version would have.
“Yes, sir?”
“First, I enjoy the company of someone who-does not treat me as if I had an incurable plague.”
“I’m hoping that stops soon.” Potter’s eyes had a fine spark when he was angry, burning with a righteous fire. “There are new laws going up in front of the Wizengamot soon, to reverse some of the decisions they made right after the war. For one thing, shopkeepers don’t have the right to attack someone they just think has a Dark Mark on their arm. If someone gets violent, that’s one thing, but they can’t hex you or Draco or Narcissa Malfoy if you just go in and buy things quietly and leave.”
“Narcissa does not have a Dark Mark.”
“But they think she does, hence the retaliation.”
“How long do you intend to fight?” Severus asked, since he was truly curious. “Is there some series of wrongs that you would content yourself with righting?”
“I’ll keep fighting as long as I can and the world needs me.”
No dimming that fire. Severus swallowed as he felt the reaction move through his body, and he knew his voice was hoarse as he spoke again. “The second thing is that, while I do appreciate your respect, I would prefer it if you called me something other than sir.”
“But you’re not a professor anymore. Would you prefer Mr. Snape? Or do independent Potions brewers have a title?”
“I would prefer Severus.”
Potter opened his mouth in what looked like honest surprise, and then ended up closing it again. “Of course,” he said, and his voice was very gentle. “Severus. You must miss the way that my mother used to call you that.”
“I do,” Severus said, and continued on before all his old self could strangle the honesty. “But I am not looking to hear the echo of your mother’s voice in yours, Mr. Potter. I am looking only to hear someone who regards me as a friend speak to me that way.”
Potter considered him for a long moment, his mouth slowly tilting up at the corners. “Then you must call me Harry.”
*
“Severus?” Harry’s voice sounded louder than Severus had realized it would as he limped towards the door. Yes, that was definitely limping, Severus thought, and pinched his lips together. “Sorry, I would have taken down the wards if I knew that you were coming over.”
“You would have known I was coming if you had sent me a Patronus messenger when your accident happened,” Severus hissed, and threw his shoulder against the door the moment he heard the locking charms disengage. He was carefully to have a free arm ready to wrap around Harry’s waist as he stumbled. “Instead, it was left to Miss Granger to tell me.”
Harry straightened up and shot him a baffled glance. “Well, I mean, it’s a minor wound. I don’t know why Hermione told you.”
“Because she suspects, as I do, that this was no accident.” Severus eyed the long gash that ran up Harry’s left leg. It was true chance that had made it spare any major muscles.
But chance only. Severus herded Harry into a chair and drew out the painkilling potions and the one that would knit the skin closed. He had prepared them at once when Granger’s Patronus found him and told him about the “accident.” “And no minor wound.”
“I already took the painkillers.”
“That you are limping proves they did not work.”
Harry rolled his eyes, but swallowed the potions that Severus held out to him. Severus, meanwhile, moved his wand in the pattern that the wound suggested, and nodded. Rage was quiet in him. He had learned to control and channel it to where it would do some good since the war.
He leaned back and looked up at Harry, who winced. “What?”
Severus handed him the potion that would knit the wound shut, and said mildly, “This is the pattern for the Muscle-Ripping Curse. No Auror instructor should have been using that in a class with trainees. And you will still claim this was an accident?”
“Severus-”
“Lie to yourself if you will. But not to me.”
Harry fell silent at the force in his voice, blinked, and pushed his glasses up his nose. Then he swallowed the last of the potions, and sighed. “Come into the drawing room with me, and I’ll tell you how it happened.” He limped for the first few steps when he stood up from the chair, but it faded thereafter. Severus eyed his leg complacently as he followed Harry into the drawing room.
And if his eyes lingered on the way that Harry’s muscles moved under his skin more than they should, who would tell?
Harry’s small house was a cheerful place crowded with photographs of his friends, godson, Order of the Phoenix members, and, presumably, young people from his Auror training class. Severus narrowed his eyes at a photograph of himself on the mantel, caught in brewing. He did not know that Harry had that.
Harry noted his gaze, but shrugged unrepentantly as he sat down on one of the overstuffed scarlet couches he favored. Severus took the one chair in a dark green. He assumed it was a concession to Draco’s sensibilities.
“Why tell others it was an accident?” Severus persisted.
Harry sighed. “Because Auror Oron really, really does not like me. He was trying to hurt me. I know that. But if I make a claim like that, it’s going to look like I’m asking for favors and can’t take a bit of pain-”
“You could have been killed or crippled, and that is what you care about?”
“But I wasn’t-Severus? Please listen to me.”
Reluctantly, Severus snapped his mouth shut, and watched Harry lean forwards, his eyes bright.
“Auror Oron is one of the few people right now who’s fighting to free house-elves,” Harry said softly, “because a house-elf helped him during the war when she didn’t have to, and since then he’s kind of woken up to the way that they’re treated is wrong. Sure, I could get him sacked if I had the right sort of evidence. But then I’m removing someone who could be a powerful ally for Hermione.”
Severus stared at him. “You risk yourself for the sake of politics?”
“I have to. I owe it to Dobby.”
By now, Severus knew the story of that elf and how he had died. It did not make him comfortable to recall. He clenched his fists.
“Just leave it alone. Please.”
“If he strikes you again, I will not.”
Harry paused, then nodded. “I don’t think he’ll be stupid enough to do it again. But fine, yes, if he is, I promise to let you at him,” he added hastily, since he must have seen the sort of glow in Severus’s eyes that meant it was dangerous to push him.
“Good.”
The moment passed, and Severus found himself sitting and gazing at Harry. Harry took off his glasses and cleaned them, then put them back on and squinted at Severus.
“Are you all right?”
“Relieved that you are,” Severus admitted in a rough voice that made him wince a little. He had not meant to speak like that.
Harry blinked, then smiled. “Well. Thanks.”
Part Two.
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