"Sorry about that," Harry murmured, forgetting that Snape had asked for no more apologies. "I wasn't trying to do that, at least, I don't think I was. I don't even know how I did it, really."
"I suspect I do," Snape muttered darkly. "But now is not the time. We will discuss it tomorrow."
"Promise? You won't disappear again?"
"I will bring your Eyesight Elixir," Snape assured him, and that time, Harry caught the subtle shift in the conversation. The Potions Master was veering it away from the personal into the impersonal. Well, okay. Harry could go along with that.
"Is that like the final step? I mean, tomorrow I'll be able to see?"
"I doubt matters will proceed quite so rapidly," Snape clarified. "The Restorative Potions have helped prepare your tissues, but it will take some time for the Elixir to take full effect." With that, Snape was helping him sit up a bit and pressing a vial into his hand. "Dreamless Sleep for tonight, but far more potent than the variety you once told me didn't work on you. Drink, Harry."
"I don't need it," Harry protested. "I won't have another nightmare, I don't think, not now I've talked to you."
"Nonetheless," his teacher drawled in that insistent voice he recognized. Giving in, Harry awkwardly tilted the vial and tipped the contents into his mouth. Hmm, it bubbled on his tongue a lot more than the regular kind. Tasted fruitier, too.
He almost thought Snape had left; Harry was so sleepy, it was hard to tell. But then a hand gently settled onto his forehead and stroked his hair back from his face. It felt nice.
"Will you promise me something, Harry?" Snape softly asked. "It's important."
"Promise?" Harry drowsily asked.
"Yes. Listen to Draco Malfoy when he comes to talk to you, all right? Will you do that?"
Harry thought hard about that, because he knew that something just wasn't right, something more than the obvious. The timing, that was it...
"You got me wuzzy first before asking," Harry announced in a voice that anyone but a Potions Master might have taken for falling-down-drunk. "That's not... nice, Pre.. er, Professor."
"Just tell me you'll speak with him--"
"Slytherin," Harry accused, a wave of silliness seeming to dance across his tongue. It loosened up his vocal cords, too. He'd never realized he knew so many nice S words. "Sly scheming 'spicious Slytherin. S---... um, sneaky snakey snarky snacky snooty snarley singy-songy Slyth'rin..."
He thought he heard his teacher mutter something like I do believe I got you a shade too "wuzzy," but he couldn't be sure of that, any more than he was sure about what happened next. He hadn't really felt what he'd thought, had he?
Nah, he decided. Couldn't be. Snape wouldn't lightly brush his lips against the scar on his forehead, would he? It was just the wuzziness of the potion making him feel warm and silly and happy, and well, not hated.
Not hated at all.
Harry giggled once or twice before falling into the happiest sleep he'd had in weeks.
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Thirty: Draco
Comments very welcome,
Aspen in the Sunlight
Chapter 30: Draco
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=30
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Thirty: Draco
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Harry spent the next morning catching up on some reading. Or rather, some listening. Hermione had stopped by early, bringing some of her books, along with a quill she'd charmed to read out loud. It was a neat trick, Harry thought. It took him a little while to get the hang of dragging it across lines of text without letting it drift up and down, but other than that, it worked fine. Well, except for the fact that it read out loud in her voice. Harry loved Hermione and all, but she really did have a way of talking like she knew it all.
Be sure to drink all of your pumpkin juice, Harry, she'd said at least a dozen times that morning. It's high in vitamin A, so it'll be really good for your eyes...
She hadn't let up until he'd drained the entire glass. At least she hadn't tried to get him a second one or something, before she'd had to rush off to class. It was kind of dull in the hospital wing after that, with just fussy Madame Pomfrey and a talking quill for company. She'd salved him again, talking in that high sing-song voice about how everything would be better soon, he'd see, and it had been all Harry could not to shout at her that no, he didn't see!
Barmy old bat. She wouldn't even let him go to the bathroom alone! It was as if she didn't realize after six years of Voldemort and Quidditch and sundry Potions accidents that Harry had been in the hospital wing enough to navigate it blindfolded, let alone blind!
Finally she'd left him alone, though, and Harry had managed to listen to Hermione spouting her way through an entire chapter in Transfiguration. He was still behind, but tired of that subject, he flipped another book off the pile on his bedside table and opened it at random, then ran the quill across a sample line. Hermione's girlish voice rang out:
"Although Ulber of Normandy's classification system remains in limited use today, the true distinction between mood charms and attitude charms is not one of intent but rather of--"
Draco Malfoy's voice interrupted the quill as his footsteps strode forward. "Granger, what the hell are you teaching Potter? We won't be covering that rot for weeks yet--" The voice came around the fabric divider Pomfrey had accioed over when she'd last applied Harry's salve. "Where's Granger?"
Harry set his lips in a straight line, and closed his eyes as though Draco wasn't worth looking at. The effect was probably ruined, seeing as he was blind, but oh, well. "She Disapparated when she heard you coming," he threw out, just to see what the Slytherin would do with that.
Draco gasped, but tried to cover it with a slight cough. "You don't mean to tell me that that Mud---, that Muggleborn knows how to Disapparate."
Interesting change of terms, especially for Draco Malfoy, but all it meant to Harry was that the Slytherin was... well, being a Slytherin, playing some sort of sucker game. "Sure she can Disapparate," Harry answered in his you-are-so-stupid-and-I-am-so-bored-of it voice. "What, can't you?"
"Potter," Draco drawled. "Nobody can Disapparate inside this castle."
"House elves can," Harry pointed out. It was too good, making Draco think Hermione could out-magic him. Of course she could, but try getting a high and mighty pureblood to admit to it. "I've seen Dobby do it. You remember Dobby, don't you, Malfoy?"
"You think I keep track of the hundreds of house-elves running around this place?" Draco gave a sneering laugh.
"He used to be your charming father's," Harry fairly spat and when Draco didn't react, added, "'Til one day there was this sock..."