Indifference Towards Difference || Harry Potter

27 | Let's Walk The Road To Hell, With All Its Good Intentions

Damn. That wasn't working either.

"Good Merlin," Snape reached over and gently prodding his mouth shut.

Harry huffed; the man just wasn't getting it.

He was more than prepared to stick his tongue out again and again until Snape understood, when long fingers began carding through his hair, and a cool hand settled on his brow. Harry closed his eyes, utterly distracted.

"Mild fever," Snape commented, hand remaining on his forehead. Harry sank deeper into his pillow, wallowing in the feel of it. It felt nice.

"A fever?" he mumbled, mind sill trying to catch up with it all before his eyes shot open in horror. "'M not allowed to get sick," Harry pled, looking despairingly at Snape. "Don' lemme get sick. They won' like it, they won'—"

"You will be fine. I promise you," and this time Snape sounded so sure and certain and Harry kind of liked that because Snape was rarely wrong about anything. Snape always knew when he'd caused trouble, though he didn't like being so troublesome. It just... happened. 

"I don' mean to be trouble, " he whispered, suddenly feeling emotional and drained all at once. "But I don' wanna sign fan mail in blood n' turn Umbridge into a toad again." Not wanting to do Transfigimination —or Transmigrification, or Trans-something —sounded awfully lazy of him, so he added,  "She's a really ugly toad."

There was an odd, funny sort of snort like choked laughter.

"'S true," Harry insisted. "I can't lie too— look at my hand n' my pants aren't on fire." Just to double check, he tried to sit up and look.

"Your undergarments are...perfectly fine," Snape assured him, pushing him down. He sounded like he was having trouble speaking. "And you will not have to endure the sight of Dolores Umbridge as any such amphibian." He reached for one of Harry's hands and brushed the back of it. "If it were up to myself... you would not shed another drop of blood in your lifetime. You have lost far too much already."

"Lost? 'M not lost. I'm right here."

He patted the mattress contently. Snape shook his head at him, looking... not amused, exactly— bemused, perhaps? It was a funny expression all the same, and Harry burst into giggles.

There was a definite twitch of Snape's lips there, and Harry smiled happily, sinking into the bed as though it was a fluffy little marshmallow cloud. Marshmallows sounded really good right now but Harry was so sleepy... his blinks were getting longer and longer and longer...

At some point, he just closed his eyes, breathing in potions and lilac and safety. He could have marshmallows later.

"Are you still awake?"

The voice was low and pleasant, weaving itself perfectly into the soft  sleepiness washing over him.

"...huh?" he slurred drowsily, and could've sworn he'd heard a muffled chuckle.

With a soft sigh, Harry slipped under a wave of exhaustion a final time.

***

Daylight played on the cobblestone walls of the manor, light reflecting off the lake and dancing on the grey stone. A snowy white owl soared above verdant grounds lazily, before suddenly tucking her wings close to her body and swooping downwards, wings opening and talons stretching forwards at the last minute.

All this Severus Snape could see as he stood by a small window with scraps of doodled-on parchment stuck surrounding it. He clutched a long scroll of parchment himself, only full with uniform lettering, and crumpled in a way that meant it had been looked at many times before. Despite his seeming inattentiveness, he was very much aware of the boy sleeping in the bed behind him.