"He knew it was possible!"
"You're just still mad at him from your school days! You've never stopped!"
"Don't presume to judge my anger, Harry," Snape warned in a voice that was cold, clear through.
"I won't." Because Snape's anger, after all, wasn't really the point, was it? It was what he did with it that mattered. "But please, Professor, you can't stop making his Wolfsbane over it! Please tell me you won't. That's just awful!"
"Yes, it would be, wouldn't it?" Snape drawled in a dark, sardonic voice.
"You can't hate Remus so much that you want innocent people to get killed!"
The Potions Master scoffed at that. "Oh, but Lupin's a noble Gryffindor, Harry. Not too much unlike you, actually. He'll chain himself so that he's no option but to attack himself when the moon goes full."
"Stop it!" Harry cried.
"Oh, I will make your mangy friend's potion," Snape growled, placing a finger across Harry's lips when it seemed the boy would speak. "Just do not thank me."
Harry nodded, thinking that was fair enough, and wiped again at his eyes. It hadn't seemed significant while emotion had just been churning inside him, but now that he was calmer, he realized that he was crying. It was probably too late to hide his face, but he tried it anyway, feeling defensive. Severus Snape had probably never cried. Or not since he was little. Sixteen, though, wasn't so little.
"Don't," Snape urged, nudging Harry's head a bit away from him. "If your tear ducts have healed, it means the Restorative Potions are beginning to work as they should. Lumos." Harry heard the swish of a wand. "Can you see any difference?"
"No... maybe something. It's not light, though. The blackness looks... well, less black."
"Gray? Colors?"
"No, just less black. I can't really explain." Snape hadn't said Nox, so Harry figured this was as good a time as any to ask what he'd been wondering about ever since he'd woken up. "Um, Professor?"
"Hmm?" Snape sounded like he was still peering closely at his face.
"You'll tell me the truth if I ask for it, won't you? The plain honest truth, no matter how horrible it turns out to be?"
Snape considered that a moment before answering. "Are you asking me never to misdirect you?"
Harry didn't want to open that whole can of worms, not right then. "Actually, I was just wanting to know what you saw. Um, you know, when you look at me."
Snape sounded a bit puzzled. "Dark hair, green eyes--- ah, you mean your eyes and what they look like, now. Yes, I'll tell you the truth. Hold still." Harry heard the wand moving again, and felt his eyelids being pried open. He couldn't help it; he jerked himself away.
Snape said nothing of it, merely detailing, "Your eyes are intact, the irises still green, although the color may be more.... intense than before. Glossier, somehow. At any rate, I can see residual scarring on your cornea. Like scratches on glass, Harry. Faint to imperceptible, unless one looks closely. You're nearly healed. I think tomorrow you should begin the Eyesight Elixir."
Harry breathed a sigh of relief. All in all, things didn't sound too bad. But Eyesight Elixir? "Haven't I been drinking it all along? That rotten smelling stuff?"
"Potter," Snape drawled, effortlessly snapping into full Professor mood, "Sight Restorative Potions and Eyesight Elixir are completely different in formulation and use."
"Yes, sir," Harry muttered, before another thought occurred to him. "Do you have a batch that Malfoy hasn't had his finger in? Because Ron and Hermione told me he's been helping you make my potions, and... well..."
"Yes?"
"That's just gross," Harry announced, lifting his chin. "And..."
"Oh, please do speak your mind," Snape put in, sounding... well, Harry didn't know. Sort of snide and amused, all at once.
"Yeah, well you asked for it," Harry muttered, deciding that he might as well. It's not like this was some little thing he could just ignore, was it? "Letting Malfoy anywhere near my Potions is pretty irresponsible of you, don't you think, Professor? No offense, but are you thinking? His shitefaced father did just try to burn me alive, you know."
"Draco Malfoy is not his father," Snape briskly stated, abruptly levering himself off the bed and away from Harry. "Nonetheless, he has not been helping make your potions. Your friends are mistaken."
"Then why doesn't he have to do the bookwork everybody else has been getting?"
"I thought you trusted me," Snape remarked. Harry could almost see that raised eyebrow.
He thought of saying I thought so, too, but decided it was petty, not to mention untrue. And really, it sort of touched him that Snape appeared to care about his trust, so he figured he'd better not abuse it. "Listen," he sighed. "I trusted you through tortures from the pits of Hell, so don't you dare claim I have to prove myself by not asking what's going on. It's my right to know, damn it! Besides, Malfoy keeps coming around here, and... it worries me. I don't know what he's up to."
"He's not up to anything."
"Yeah?" Harry challenged, pushing up to lean on an elbow. "Don't you know you can't believe a word that comes out of that Slytherin's mouth?"
"I'm a Slytherin, too, don't forget," Snape smoothly reminded him. "Now, as for Mr. Malfoy, he has come to the hospital wing on my orders. Mine, and Albus'. He has been endeavoring to speak to you. It is... a condition. The rest you must hear from him."
"And in class?" Harry pressed.
It sounded to Harry as though Snape had crossed his arms in front of his chest. "It may surprise you to learn this, but Mr. Malfoy does not approve of his father's... handiwork, shall we say. He wished to do something to help, Harry--"
"Malfoy did not ask to help me," Harry interrupted.
"Oh yes, he most certainly did, and as he's really quite good at brewing, I set him to making Painless Sleep Draughts. He doesn't know I've been pouring his results into the general student supply, and I ask that you not tell him."
"That little misdirection might end up poisoning somebody," Harry pointed out, flopping onto his back.
"Do you really believe I ever stock the infirmary with a potion, even one of my own making, without verifying it thoroughly, first?"
Harry didn't mean to be dim, but that just didn't make sense. "So if you've checked Malfoy's draughts and they're okay, why not give them to me? I mean, either they're safe or they aren't, Professor."
"The Potions you need just now," Snape tightly announced, "are more potent than standard formulations. Draco is fully competent to brew them, but I have not allowed it because I knew it would make you uneasy. As indeed, it has."
Harry winced, and wasn't sure if it was at the mild rebuke, or the fact that Snape had just called Malfoy Draco. He didn't like that. "Sorry, sir."
"No more apologies," Snape said brusquely as he stood up. Funny, without the robes Harry had a much harder time hearing how he might be moving. "Are you all right to sleep, now, Harry?"
"I wanted to ask something else," Harry yawned. "Um, bunch of stuff, but I can't remember. Oh, the portkey, that was it... hmm, something about the portkey...?"
"I think it's time you rested," Snape remarked, learning over to help pull up his blankets and tuck him in. Another first, for Harry. Or maybe not. Snape had probably tucked him in at Devon. But nobody else had, not ever, except probably his parents, but it didn't count for much when you couldn't remember.
Even under the blankets, though, Harry started to shiver. He wanted Snape's warmth back.
His teacher must have figured the breezes were what was making him cold. Harry heard a brief series of Reparo spells, along with the noise of glass chinking itself back together, and could almost imagine the sight of the windows putting themselves to rights.