Chapter Text
“You think?”
“I mean, he’s gotta be, right?” Ron asked, distractedly.
Harry hummed. “But does – or would – he even care?”
“He’s still human.” Hermione hissed over her homework.
“Is he?” Both Ron and him said at the same time.
Harry gave Hermione a blank look and shrugged. “A human would have died in the Shack.”
She scoffed, slapping her quill down. “He didn’t because he’s a Potions Master and had antivenin and blood replenisher. This conversation is ridiculous… and it won’t get you out of detention whether he’s lonely or not.” She snapped.
Harry scowled at her and got off the couch – he was bordering on late as it was.
“Maybe you should just offer to have a drink with him instead of detention, mate!” Ron called after him with a chuckle, just as the portrait of the Fat Lady shut behind him.
He flipped it off, earning him an outraged gasp from her. “Not meant for you, Madame.” He apologised awkwardly. She only huffed and turned her back.
Sullenly, he headed down to the dungeons for his detention. Him – a grown man, vanquisher of the Dark Lord, down there for detention. Because somehow, even after what he’d done, Snape couldn’t cut him the slack of letting him forget his homework once.
He bitterly stepped into the potions classroom, not at all surprised to find the nasty old sod leaning over a cauldron already. He was greeted by a familiar scowl, quickly melting to an even nastier sneer. “Late, Potter.” He snapped. “Lines. Two hundred of them.”
He crossed his arms. “Thought we could do something different today. Have a drink, maybe?” He said sarcastically – that’d show Ron when he’d be back in the common room, later. If he made it back and Snape didn’t disembowel him on the spot.
“Are you daft, Potter? This is a detention. Not… not a pub.” Snape said, practically foaming at the mouth.
“Fine.” He snapped. “Just thought it’d be nicer to talk than to sit there in silence.” He hissed, feeling oddly obligated to defend himself – as if the suggestion of him having a drink with Snape wasn’t ridiculous enough.
Silence rang for a moment in the room – when Snape said nothing else, he wordlessly sat at his desk. Clearly, it wasn’t even worth a comeback now – just his luck, of course. He sat down and listlessly picked up the quill. He didn’t even know what to write. Normally, Snape gave him a sentence.
He looked up, ready to ask, only to freeze. Snape was standing in front of him, his expression almost confused. In his hands were… two tumblers with an inch of amber liquid each. Harry stared, blandly, not understanding in the least – at least not until one glass was thrust at him, so hard that it nearly spilled.
He hastily took it, putting down his quill. Snape crossed one arm over his chest, using the other to have a sip of his drink. He looked down, almost surprised to find that there was, in fact, still a glass in his hand. He sipped some carefully, recognising the burn of fire whiskey.
He coughed lightly, puffing out a bit of black smoke. Snape sneered, turning, and sweeping away, to his desk. Entirely thrown, Harry decided to… to follow him. Clearly something was going on if Severus Snape gave him alcohol during a detention. He leaned cautiously against the desk after Snape sat in his chair, scowling as fiercely as he ever was.
“You wanted to… talk, Potter?” The man’s voice was practically dripping derision, as if he doubted Harry were even capable. He sipped some more of the whiskey, just so he wouldn’t insult the prick, desperately looking for something he could say.
“Is the bite healed properly?” He asked, gesturing to Snape’s habitually well-covered neck. The question seemed to startle the man, long, spidery fingers coming up to brush his throat.
“I… Yes. The venom remains, but…” Snape said slowly, as if it was the first time he’d used the words. Harry wanted to roll his eyes – he didn’t doubt that the other teachers if not also his Slytherins asked him constantly.
“Can you get rid of it?” He asked idly, genuinely curious.
Snape sipped his drink and shrugged. “I… am developing a potion to do just that. To draw out all venom in a human body.”
He nodded. “Sounds complicated.” To be fair, all potions did, to him, but…
The Professor gave him an odd look, before nodding slowly. “It is… not without its challenges. I have to brew an antidote to every poison, and then find a way to combine them all into one.”
“Not just an antidote to the one you want rid of?” He asked, fully expecting to be torn to shreds for what he was sure Snape thought was a dumb question.
“No. Antivenin for Nagini’s venom alone was… insufficient. There is darker magic at play. However, were I to concoct something that can draw all venom, then that would be affected also. It is… delicate work.”
“Sounds it.” He agreed, equally impressed and not wanting to be. They quietly sipped their drinks for a few moments.
“Are you returning to the Quidditch team?” Snape asked him. Harry nearly dropped his damn glass – of course he did, Severus Snape had asked him about Quidditch. He idly considered that he might be having some sort of odd nightmare. Possibly a stroke.
“Erm, they asked me back. I’m not… sure yet. I’d be competing with a lot of younger kids and…” He shook his head, wondering why he was even giving a serious answer.
“And you no longer feel the same as the other students.” Snape said, those dark eyes studying him with a surprising lack of animosity, all of a sudden.
Air escaped him with a whoosh, and he nodded slowly – somehow, Snape was… right. “Yeah. That. Exactly that. I haven’t told them yet, but…” He shrugged, and Snape hummed – it wasn’t a sound he’d heard before, but it was probably the most pleasant one he’d ever heard him make.
Except, maybe, the wet cough the man had given when he’d woken from his almost-certain death in the Shack, when for just a moment, Harry had been over the moon that Snape hadn’t died.
“It should certainly ease the way for Slytherin to win the house cup, in any case.” The man drawled, and Harry felt his hackles rise.
He scowled at him – of course that was what Snape would be thinking about. Bloody bastard. He finished his drink, slamming the glass down. “Glad you have your priorities straight.” He snapped, before stepping away from the desk. He was momentarily torn between walking out and sitting down to write his lines after all – he only just decided on the door to leave when Snape spoke again.
“Wait, Potter.” He said, his tone hesitant.
He clenched his jaw and turned back to look at him. Snape looked like he’d swallowed an entire lemon. “I merely meant to… joke. I wasn’t attempting to insult your house, easy as though it is to step on Gryffindor pride.” The man snapped.
Harry snorted – of course the man would apologise and insult him again.
That he would apologise at all, however… He stared at the teacher, still unsure what was going on. The man waved his hand and their glasses filled with alcohol again. Professor Snape pushed his back towards him – another invitation to stay and drink? He walked back and accepted the glass, sipping some more.
This time, Snape wasn’t looking at him at all – he was staring off to the distance, past Harry’s shoulder. “Is it weird? Teaching again, now?” He wondered.
Dark eyes snapped to him, the expression in them unreadable. “It is as unpleasant as it was before, Mr. Potter.” The man said quietly.
Despite himself, Harry grinned. “Not your dream job, yeah?”
Snape hissed and, without looking away, picked up a page from a nearby stack of papers. He thrust it at Harry, who accepted it automatically and glanced it over. Shitty handwriting aside… “What’s this?”
“It’s Steven Wilbert’s latest potions test.” Snape drawled, finishing his own glass, and refilling it immediately.
Curious, Harry started actually reading.
By the third line, he had to hide a laugh in a cough – poorly, no doubt. Snape raised an eloquent eyebrow at him.
“Why do I need to use a copper cauldron when using dragon venom.” Harry read out, knowing the answer – if only because Neville Longbottom nearly ended his life with a pewter one in third year. Snape nodded for him to continue, genuine disgust on his face. “So Professor Snape won’t yell at me.” He read out – read out. The student had actually written that down.
Unable to help himself, Harry burst into laughter, nearly dropping the paper as he did.
Snape scoffed and looked away, but didn’t chastise him for it. “Read the last question.” He instructed.
Harry – who had gotten as far as to the part where the student was going on about how much he hated the smell of flobberworms – skipped there immediately.
“Where might I find a bezoar?” He read out, grinning weakly – he remembered the question well enough. The answer, however… he laughed again, throwing his head back with it.
“It’s not funny, Potter!” Snape hissed angrily – however, it lacked the genuine venom his voice normally carried.
He tried his best to calm down, to stop laughing but he simply couldn’t, not for a good minute.
“Oh, oh my god, that felt good.” Harry said with a few more chuckles. “Haven’t had a laugh that good in ages. Ah… in Professor SNAKE’s potions cupboard.” He burst into laughter yet again. “He… he misspelled your name?”
Snape grunted in agreement.
“Wow, and I thought we were bad. Is he as terrible at actually brewing?”
“As terrible as you, you mean?” Snape asked nastily. “Not quite. He has the luck of someone truly stupid, I’m afraid. He misremembered the recipe for calming draught last lesson. He wanted to use bloody adder’s venom for it… however he also misread the label on the vial, and accidentally grabbed asphodel instead.”
Harry blinked. “Still wrong, isn’t it? That doesn’t go in there either.”
“Correct, Mr. Potter.” Snape drawled, inclining his head. “However, at the stage the cretin added it, it simply changed the nature of his potion. He ended up with a… passable version of ouch-b-gone instead.”
Harry huffed, mildly impressed that someone could accidentally correctly make the wrong potion. He narrowed his eyes at Snape. “You still failed him, didn’t you?” He checked.
The man smirked. “With great pleasure, as the lesson was not on that potion.”
He laughed, despite himself. “Is he the worst you have? Given that Neville isn’t in your NEWTs class.” Harry said teasingly.
“I assure you, the fact that Longbottom didn’t make it into your class this year is the only reason I’m not dead of alcohol poisoning yet. Mr. Wilbert is without a doubt the worst imbecile in his class… but I do teach eight of them.” Snape said, finishing his glass and setting it down. He didn’t seem inclined to fill it again.
Harry sipped his own, not quite done yet. “Who’s the worst you’ve got?” He asked eagerly – he didn’t know Wilbert, but he was curious if any of the younger Gryffindors made Snape’s list. The man sneered at him for a few seconds, before shrugging.
“Few students have the intrinsic ability to be quite as destructive as Longbottom, but every year – and every house – has one or two hopeless causes that would be better served planted in the greenhouse along with the ingredients they insist on wasting in my class.” He said, so perfectly calmly, that it took Harry a second to understand the man was joking.
In Harry’s defence, he was pretty sure Snape never had joked with him before – but talking as they were now, he could almost see how the other man might have meant his comment about house pride jokingly as well. He looked… well, he wasn’t smiling per se, but the angry sneer was certainly gone, for the moment, replaced with something slightly more relaxed. If Severus Snape did that.
“Even Slytherin?” He asked, leaning forwards a bit.
Snape scowled for a moment, before giving a small nod. Harry giggled and finished his glass. “Glad to see you can at least admit it.” He said, wondering if Snape would get mad at him for it.
“As nobody would believe it if you told them I said so, I feel safe admitting my darkest secret.” He drawled, setting Harry off in another fit of giggles.
Still, when he set down his glass again, he was eerily aware that he should leave – that what they had just done was strangely inappropriate somehow. “I should head back, probably. Get some sleep.” He said awkwardly.
Snape hummed and banished their glasses. “Indubitably. Do try to actually go back, rather than trawling through the corridors like the troublemaker you are.”
Harry chuckled and stepped away from Snape’s desk. “Straight to bed. I’ve… I’ve actually been sleeping, since he died. You know? Peacefully? For the first time in seventeen or so years, I’m looking forward to going to bed.” He said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his tone. He stepped towards the door, hand already on the handle, when Snape spoke again.
“Twenty-one.” He said – Harry half-turned. Snape wasn’t looking at him – he was staring at his desk. “Twenty-one years. Good night, Mr. Potter.” He said.
Recognising it as the dismissal it was, Harry hurried out, just in case the man might change his mind.