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Harry realized, past his horror, what Snape was saying. He forced the words out of his tight throat. “Thank you.”
Snape blinked, cocked his head. “For?”
“For bothering to explain, rather than just telling me to fuck off. I appreciate that you probably don’t want to talk about it, and I’m … I’m honored that you trust me enough to tell me.” Harry shook his head. He had some small idea of the sorts of things Voldemort’s followers called fun. He closed his eyes, nauseated to think Snape had had to suffer any of it. “Damn it. I’m such an ass. If I had known…”
“Harry.” Snape’s firm voice stopped him. “You didn’t know.” To his surprise and relief, Snape flushed faintly before saying, “And … I do find you … that is … you are …”
Harry smiled wanly. “I don’t repulse you, is that what you’re trying to say?” He felt a little better. Very little.
Snape snorted softly. “Yes. But the answer is no. No thank you, but no.”
That erased Harry’s smile. He sighed. “Okay. I’m sorry for pushing.”
“You could not have realized. I’d have explained sooner, but …” Snape laughed, a soft, self-deprecating sound. “I suppose I didn’t believe you actually ...”
“Wanted you?” Harry said. Snape didn’t answer. “Still. Thank you for not just hexing me into next week.” He stood up. “But you do understand that I care about you, and that this doesn’t change that?”
Snape looked up at him in obvious surprise.
“Say ‘yes, Harry, I understand that you care about me.’” Harry waited, one brow arched. He’d have been absolutely floored had Snape obeyed.
“I … I did not understand that,” Snape said, gaze falling away.
“Oh. Well, considering I’ve been acting like a stupid randy teenager, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” He grinned to see the faint hint of a smile on Snape’s face. “But you understand it now?”
“Well, I don’t understand it,” Snape hedged. Harry sighed, most expressively.
“But I will take your word for it,” the potions teacher concluded.
Harry edged toward the door. “I … Severus, I’m really sorry—”
“Stop apologizing,” Snape said. “I …” He flushed all over again, and Harry realized it wasn’t from embarrassment, but from frustration and anger, that his memories wouldn’t let him relax and enjoy what Harry offered. “It … felt …”
“Good?” Harry suggested softly, still moving toward the door. The last thing he wanted Snape to think was that he was trying to seduce him again, after all he’d learned.
Snape exhaled sharply, like a whip cracking. “Yes.”
“To me, too,” Harry said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He left quickly.
Day Six
Harry stopped outside Snape’s door in the morning. He tried not to knock. He hated it that he felt compelled to raise his hand and rap on the door.
It opened. He walked through the front and back offices to the lab.
Snape was seated at the usual table, dusting a blue powder into a beaker of green stuff that sparked.
His gaze darted to Harry for a split second. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Harry said, and winced inwardly. Fuck fuck fuck. How are you? I am fine. What the hell has happened? We were friends yesterday.
“Did you sleep well?”
Harry clenched his jaw. “Yes,” he lied. Christ. He stopped beside Snape, held out his arm, watched with dry, itchy eyes as Snape stroked, paused, cut, and turned his arm over the phial.
“I feel that I should apologize,” Snape said then.
Harry groaned. “First politeness, now this? What do you want from me, blood?”
And – thank the Founders! – Snape snorted.
“Severus,” Harry said earnestly. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t be … polite to me. Aren’t we past that?”
“Can you hear what you are saying?” Snape challenged.
“Yes, but you know what I mean.”
Snape covered the cut, set the phial of blood on the table, and muttered the healing spell.
“I do,” he said then, letting Harry’s arm go. “But I still feel that I … that it was unfair of me to … encourage you, however unconsciously, knowing that I would not…”
“Encourage me? Because you didn’t kill me?” Harry smiled. “You’re hardly a cock-tease, Severus. You didn’t lead me on, if that’s what’s worrying you.” He pushed his sleeve down. “If there’s any fault to be placed, it’s on me.”
“No.” Snape shook his head.
Harry watched him work for a few minutes, envying that Snape had something to do with his hands and hating, hating how awkwardly he stood there, skin twitching, tongue lying in his mouth like a dead bird.
He hated it most because of the voice in his head, the voice he had no answer for, sneering What, now you can’t fuck him, you have nothing to say to him?
“I’ll see you at noon.” Harry left, not seeing Snape turn and open his mouth as if to call him back.
* * *
“Harry. How are you?”
Harry started, looking up to see Aidan Muir, in Muggle clothes again, under a light, open school robe, the afternoon sun behind him giving him a hazy halo.
Harry grinned briefly before letting his face fall back into the frown he’d been wearing all day. “Stumped,” he admitted.
“By?”
“Snape.”
Aidan smiled, shoving his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. “I see. Anything I can do to help?”
Harry shrugged. “I doubt it.”
He’d spent the morning helping Hooch coach the Ravenclaw Quidditch team – the exercise had done him good, though he’d found the hero-worship grating in a juvenile ‘everyone wants me but the one I want’ way.
