Chapter 79: Nott
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=79
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Seventy-Nine: Nott
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"Still stings," said Harry late the next morning, trying to be philosophical about it.
Snape stepped back, his brow furrowed. "I've dampened down the magical constituents of the Elixir just about as far as can be done, yet you've noticed no improvement?"
Harry shrugged. "Well, it's not like it hurts so much I can't stand it. The stinging goes away after a couple of minutes. I can put up with that if it'll eventually restore my vision back to normal." He grinned. "Or better yet, to where I won't need these glasses. The one eye still has perfect vision, after all. You do really good work."
"Not good enough," murmured Snape. "Well. I've exhausted my own texts on the subject. Perhaps the wizarding library in Edinburgh--"
"Oh, be realistic, Severus," drawled Draco from where he sat slouched. "How many Potions Masters have healed the kind of eye injuries Harry suffered? You're probably the world's foremost expert."
Injuries... maybe that was the key to the whole thing, Harry thought. "You know, when you first started treating me with Elixir I was in a terrible state. Taking pain-killing draughts right 'round the clock, remember?"
While Snape's rather sardonic gaze announced that he was hardly likely to forget, Draco made a derisive noise.
Harry ignored all that. "Right... well, I'm just wondering if maybe that's why the Elixir didn't sting. I mean, maybe it hurt like mad but I was in no shape to notice. And later... well, that's a question, isn't it? Later on I wasn't taking painkillers, hmm...."
"By then," said Snape in a dry voice, "I would think your system had become habituated to the Elixir."
"Huh?"
"You'd gotten used to it and your eyes had adjusted," explained Draco with a bit of a superior air. "But it's been long enough since then that they've gone back to the way they were before. Well, that would certainly account for why the potion hurts him now. Good thinking, Severus."
"Hey, I was the one who thought of it."
"Habituation," said the Potions Master, shaking his head. At himself, it seemed. "Obvious in retrospect. I can hardly believe I didn't reason it out straight away."
"Well, we all had a lot on our minds," said Harry. "It's all right."
"It is decidedly not all right for one to overlook pertinent data staring one in the face!" Snape ran a shaking hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face.
"Look, at the time Draco was more important; I understand that." Harry smiled to show that he really did.
"Draco is not more important, you idiot child! I love you both!"
Harry'd known that for ages, but it was still nice to hear it put so clearly. For him, at least. Draco rose unsteadily to his feet, looking a bit as though he'd stepped off a balcony without his broom. "I... Severus, I..."
For a moment there, Harry was afraid Draco was going to come out with another completely fake I love you, too pronouncement. Not that it really would be fake; Harry was positive that Draco did in fact love the both of them. But Draco would think he was lying -- because Draco didn't know he loved them. Or maybe more to the point, Draco didn't want to love them.
Because to him, love meant manipulation. He loved them enough to want it not to be like that.
"Excuse me, please," Draco finally said, retreating behind his perfect manners as he fled the potions lab.
Snape closed the door and warded it for silence, then cast a rather disparaging look in Harry's direction. "I trust you see why I've refrained from making daily declarations of my feelings, as you urged before?"
Harry had hardly urged that, but he understood what his father meant. "Well, hearing how we feel obviously upsets him, but still, I really think--"
"I told you to leave this matter to me."
"You also told me I could say whatever I liked to you in private." He gave the warded door a significant glance, then.
"So I did." Taking a seat on one of the high stools in the lab, Snape waved for Harry to continue.
Startled by how easy that had been, Harry couldn't help but chuckle.
"Consider it negotiation," was Snape's dry advice. "And bear in mind I still reserve the right to tell you to drop a topic, even in private. But I won't do it unless I believe it absolutely necessary. And so? Go on, dispense your fatherly wisdom. Merlin knows you have simply years of experience--"
"As if you do."
"Head of House duties." Snape was smiling slightly by then, which made the dispute more like banter than an argument. That was nice. "Not the same by any means, but there are similar elements. And I've known the boy for sixteen years whereas you've known him--him, not his reputation--for something like six months. But you're the expert on all things Draco Malfoy, apparently--"
"Draco Snape."
"Ah, yes. You were right last night; that will take some getting used to." Snape's smile had faded by then, but there was still a pleased look about him. Something to do with the wrinkles around his eyes, Harry thought, a little surprised to feel a niggling of dismay eating away at him. It was ridiculous. He didn't resent the adoption or the name change, he didn't.
"Well?" The Potions Master raised a challenging eyebrow. "I do believe you had some advice for me?"
"It's not advice. It's just... I just know what I think. Draco's a big mess inside after the way his family treated him. So maybe it's a bit like with me and the Elixir. He needs to get... uh, habituated I think was the word, to hearing about how we feel. Even if it hurts him at first."
"So you do recommend daily declarations. Or hourly, perhaps?"
God, but the man could be snarky sometimes. "Look, Severus, all I'm saying is that if one comes out naturally, like what you said just then, I don't think we should hold back. We should be what a family's supposed to be, all right? Draco'll get used to it."
"And how would you know what a family is supposed to be?" The question could have been cruel, but that wasn't Snape's intent. Neither was it some sort of teasing; the Potions Master looked about as serious as Harry had ever seen him. "I think you understand how I regard you, Harry, so I trust you can accept this observation in the spirit in which it's given, but... you also are, as you put it, a big mess inside after the way your family treated you."
Harry frowned, thinking back to his nightmare about Snape yelling at him that he'd let down Draco. Or the one from months before, with Snape and Sirius both inside the mirror, both dead. "Yeah, I know. I think we're all three of us pretty messed up. No offence. Sometimes I even think that everybody is screwed up in one way or another. That's just... life." Harry met his father's eyes and smiled. "If I know anything about family, it's because you taught me. Not like a teacher... I mean, just by being there day after day, putting up with Draco and me fighting, listening to me, talking to me... just, dependable. I can think about the Dursleys without flinching now. Well, sometimes at least." Harry shrugged. "I try not to thank you very often because I know you don't like that, but Severus... it's kind of hard for me not to."