Harry squinted at him, dropped his arm. “Is there any chance I can get you to call me Harry?”
Snape went to the table he thought of – in the safety of his own mind – as Harry’s. Not ‘Potter’s,’ but ‘Harry’s.’
“No,” he said, collecting a fresh phial and a clean scalpel.
* * *
Harry stocked in silence as Snape worked, only occasionally asking where something unusual was to be placed. The chilly dungeons got quite warm when one was engaged in physical exertion, he realized. He pulled off his cloak and folded it up on a stool, but – though it was fodder for a few minutes’ worth of fantasy – he refrained from doffing any more of his clothes. In some strange way he felt it would be disrespectful of Snape.
When he’d emptied the boxes he stacked them in a corner, out of the way, and came to sit silently to one side and watch Snape work, sprinkling small amounts of various ingredients into a glass beaker over a tiny blue flame.
“Is that mine?” he asked softly as Snape stirred the pinkish stuff with a glass rod. Snape nodded.
“Should I shut up?” Harry said then.
“I’m not incapable of simultaneously making a potion and carrying on a conversation, Mr. Potter,” Snape said, a snide laugh under his words.
“Why’s it different every day?” Harry asked.
“Your body chemistry is different every day. Your skin is a living organ, like any other. Its components are everchanging, though in very small ways. The deglubarolente curse takes this into account, therefore the cure must as well.” Snape increased the flame with a soft word, waited until the pinkish stuff turned black, then shut off the flame. “What you eat, what you drink, what you bathe in… all this must be considered – though not all of it necessarily changes the potion’s ingredients – each day when I test your … contribution.” He nodded toward the tiny phial that now held only dry specks of Harry’s blood.
“Jesus,” Harry breathed. “I had …”
Snape snorted. “You had no idea. Of course not.”
“Well, I understood that it was a complicated potion,” Harry defended himself. “That was why I came to the best.”
Snape lifted the beaker of black liquid off the metal stand and quickly set it on the marble counter – no doubt it was still warm from the flame.
“It’s black,” Harry said quietly, reaching in innocent curiosity toward the glass. Snape caught his hand.
“Not yet. You’ll contaminate it.”
Harry started to pull his hand back, accurately guessing Snape would then ease his hold. When the man did so, Harry turned his own hand to catch Snape’s fingers, pulling his hand to his lips for a quick kiss. He let go immediately, smiling, not entirely certain Snape wouldn’t automatically hex him.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly, meeting Snape’s wide, startled eyes. “For what you’re doing.”
Snape lowered his eyes to his hands, tangled with each other in his lap. “That … isn’t necessary.”
“The thanks?” Harry prodded. “Or the … er …”
“The romantic gesture isn’t necessary,” Snape said. He turned back to the beaker and held his hands over it, speaking an incantation in a soft voice. Harry didn’t catch all the words, but he found himself smiling when the black liquid turned clear in the space between one second and the next.
“Wow,” Harry breathed.
Snape snorted. “Yes. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how much potion-making resembles magic to those who paid no attention in class?” Snape picked up the beaker, swirled it, smelt it, and handed it to Harry.
“Cheers, sir.” Harry downed it. Smacked his lips. “Tastes great.”
Snape scowled faintly. “It should not have any taste.”
“I was kidding,” Harry said. “It’s lunch time. Do you want to come upstairs with me?”
“I generally eat in my office during term,” Snape said. “I have lessons to plan.”
Harry got up. “This is taking up a lot of your time, isn’t it?”
Snape shrugged infinitesimally. “Yes.”
“Have you decided yet what you’re going to charge me?”
Snape looked at him and Harry would have sworn the man had completely forgotten his statement about Harry owing him.
He regrouped quickly, however, his lip curling. “No. But it will be ugly, I can promise you.”
Harry said, “Whatever you want, professor. I owe you my life.”
Snape had no answer, but the smirk fell away from his face, leaving a nakedness that made Harry’s insides shiver.
The potions teacher turned away, and Harry left quickly, replaying that expression in his head as he went upstairs to the Great Hall for lunch.
* * *
Harry poked his nose into Snape’s laboratory at about 4 p.m.
The man was brewing a potion. Gods, did he never relax?
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Harry said.
“I won’t,” Snape replied, not glancing up or pausing in his work.
“Just popped in to collect my cloak. Forgot it earlier.” Harry collected it from the stool where he’d left it, cradling it in his arms as he watched Snape work for a few seconds.
“I’m going into Hogsmeade,” he said then. “Stretch my legs, clear my head. Hermione and Ron are going to apparate in from London, meet me at the Three Bs.”
Snape continued stirring. “And for what reason am I the fortunate recipient of this profoundly moving revelation?”
Harry blinked. “I don’t know.” He grinned. “Maybe I’m regressing to my student frame of mind.”
Snape sprinkled something that looked like ground cocoa into the cauldron. It smoked, smelling of cinnamon and a mouldy, woody scent that reminded Harry of the Forbidden Forest.
“Correct me if I misremember,” Snape went on, brushing off his fingers and standing back to watch the stuff simmer, “but I don’t recall your being particularly diligent in informing your teachers of your whereabouts during your years as a student.”
“Then maybe I was just hoping you’d miss me,” Harry said, flinging his cloak over his shoulders.
“Potter—”
“Yes?”
