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The gargoyle slid aside with a familiar, grudging groan, and Harry Potter climbed the spiral staircase to the Headmistress’s tower. Five years had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts, yet the castle still carried the memory of people who died. Harry’s boots scuffed softly against the worn steps. At twenty-three, he no longer felt like the boy who had once sprinted up these stairs in panic or fury. He was a Healer-in-training at St. Mungo’s now. The anger that had once burned white-hot had cooled into something sharper, more useful: a stubborn refusal to let the past dictate the future.
Headmistress McGonagall waited behind her desk, her spectacles glinting in the firelight.
“Potter. Or should I say, Healer Potter?” Her voice held the old Scottish lilt, dry as ever. “Sit. Tea?”
He took the chair opposite, accepting the cup that floated toward him.
“Just Harry’s fine, Professor. Headmistress.”
She studied him over the rim of her own cup. “You look well. The training suits you. You’ve developed quite the reputation for curse-damage rehabilitation. Muscle relaxants, nerve regeneration salves. Not many manage to combine potioncraft and physical therapy with such… precision.”
Harry shrugged, though pride flickered briefly behind his ribs. “It’s just work. Someone has to do it.” He took a sip of the tea. “I’m here for the supply requisition you mentioned.”
McGonagall set her cup down with a decisive click. “That was an excuse. I need you for something else. Severus Snape.”
Harry’s fingers tightened on the porcelain. The name still landed like a hex. He had seen the reports: the venom’s lingering curse on the nerves, the way the man had dragged himself back to Hogwarts, avoiding him… and most people.
“He survived,” McGonagall continued quietly. “Barely. The anti-venom saved his life, but the damage remains. Tremors in the hands. Muscle spasms along the shoulders and back that he refuses to acknowledge. He hides them behind that infernal black cloak and sharper tongue than ever. I’ve watched him wince when he thinks no one sees. He’s too proud to ask for help, and too valuable to lose to his own stubbornness.”
Harry’s jaw worked. He spent years making my life hell. Called me arrogant, worthless. And now I’m supposed to play nursemaid?
“I’m not forcing myself on anyone,” he said flatly. “If Snape wants my help, fine. If not, I won’t waste either of our time.”
McGonagall’s mouth thinned into a line that brooked no argument. “Leave the persuasion to me. You’ll hear from me tomorrow.”
Harry left the tower with the taste of bergamot still on his tongue and the uneasy sense that he had just agreed to walk back into the dungeons willingly.
The letter arrived by owl the next morning, McGonagall’s handwriting crisp and uncompromising:
The arrangement is made. Monday and Friday evenings, seven o’clock sharp, in Professor Snape’s private quarters. He has consented. Do not be late.
Harry read it twice and snorted at the word consented. He knew he was going to regret this.
He Apparated to the Hogwarts gates on Monday evening with a satchel of salves and a knot of reluctant determination in his gut. The dungeons were as cold as he remembered. The last time he had been this nervous was during his final healer’s exam. He hadn’t seen the man in years... he had no idea what to expect.
Snape’s door opened before he could knock. The man stood in the doorway, taller than memory allowed, with his usual black robes. His face was the same but the lines around his mouth had deepened. With pain or disgust. Or both. The left hand, Harry noticed, trembled faintly before disappearing into a sleeve.
“Potter,” Snape drawled, “to what do I owe this exquisite displeasure? Come to gloat over the wreckage of your former professor?”
Harry stepped inside without waiting for invitation, boots ringing on the stone.
“Headmistress’s orders, Professor. I’m here to treat the tremors and spasms you’re pretending don’t exist. Sit.”
Snape’s lip curled. “How delightfully direct. Five years and you’ve learned neither manners nor subtlety. I assure you, I require no coddling from a half-trained medi-wizard who once blew up cauldrons for sport.”
Harry set his satchel on the table with a deliberate thud. “I’ve treated worse than you. Dragonfire burns, lingering Cruciatus tremors. You’re not special, Snape. Just stubborn. And if you want to keep teaching without dropping every third vial, you’ll let me work.”
Snape clenched his jaw; resentment burned behind his dark eyes. He lowered himself into the chair a minute later with the barest wince. “Very well. Get on with it.”
Harry stood his ground, satchel open, fingers already uncorking a jar of muscle relaxant salve he had perfected himself: essence of dittany blended with powdered moonstone.
“I need access to your upper half,” Harry said, voice level, though his pulse hammered against his ribs. He’s going to make this impossible. Good. Let him. Then I can leave with a clear conscience.
Snape’s black eyes narrowed to slits. “How clinical. One might almost believe you’ve matured, Potter.” With deliberate, pained slowness, he shed the outer robe, then unbuttoned the high collar of his shirt beneath. Pale skin emerged, marked by the thick, silvery scars of Nagini’s bite along the left side of his throat and collarbone. Harry forced his gaze clinical. The scars on his neck were thick and long, still faintly inflamed after five years. He could see the faint tremor in Snape’s shoulders now that the fabric no longer concealed it.
Harry’s fingers, steady from years of precise healing work, moved with clinical intent over the scarred terrain of Snape’s neck and shoulder. The skin was cool, almost unnaturally so, stretched tight over muscles that knotted like rope beneath his touch.
Snape hissed as Harry’s thumb found the worst spot. “Potter,” he snarled, voice low and venomous, “if this is your idea of rehabilitation, I would sooner submit to a herd of stampeding Thestrals.”
Harry didn’t pull away. Instead, he pressed deeper, feeling the tremor vibrate. He’s fighting it even now. A surge of irritation warred with something dangerously close to pity. Five years of pretending he’s invincible, and for what? Pride? “Hold still, Professor. You’re making it worse. This salve—” He dipped two fingers into the jar, scooping out a generous amount of the pale, faintly glowing cream. The scent of dittany and moonstone bloomed sharp and clean between them. “—works better when the muscles aren’t clenched like you’re about to hex me.”
Snape’s dark eyes flicked sideways, resentment simmering there like a poorly contained potion. Yet he remained seated. “Your arrogance is unchanged, I see. Still convinced the world bends to your will.”
Harry worked the salve in with firm, rhythmic strokes, thumbs circling outward from the bite marks. Warmth spread from his palms into chilled skin. “Arrogance? No. Competence. There’s a difference. You taught me that, ironically enough.”
Silence stretched, broken only by the wet slide of salve and Snape’s controlled breathing. Harry saw the fractures: the way guilt and pain had carved themselves into the older man’s features. He survived worse than I did.
By the end of the hour, Snape’s shoulders sat lower, the left hand steadier as he flexed it experimentally. “Adequate,” he conceded, the word dragged out like a curse. “Do not expect gratitude.”
Harry wiped his hands on a cloth, packing his satchel with deliberate calm. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” A ghost of a smirk tugged at his lips. “See you Friday, Professor. Try not to drop any cauldrons before then.”
---
The weeks blurred into a reluctant rhythm. Mondays and Fridays at seven sharp. The dungeons grew less oppressive with familiarity, though the banter never dulled.
On the third visit, Snape greeted him with a raised eyebrow and a cutting drawl.
“Back again, Potter? One might suspect you enjoy inflicting discomfort under the excuse of healing.”
Harry set up his workspace without invitation, the jar of salve now augmented with a mild nerve-soothing draught he used at St. Mungo’s. “Enjoy? Hardly. But watching you admit that it helps? That’s mildly satisfying.” He gestured for the shirt to come off again. Snape complied with the same pained dignity, exposing the map of scars that told a story Harry was only beginning to read.
As Harry’s hands worked deeper into the muscles, kneading away weeks of accumulated tension, Snape’s internal monologue was intensive: The boy’s touch is too gentle. He sees too much. Snape’s resentment coiled tight. I do not need his pity. But beneath it stirred an unwelcome awareness of warmth, of competent fingers and acceptable company.
“You’ve improved the formula,” Snape muttered after a long while, voice rougher than usual. “Moonstone ratio adjusted. Clever.”
Harry paused, surprised by the near-compliment. “You noticed.” He answered softly. “Learned from the best. Even if the best spent years calling me a dunderhead.”
Snape’s laugh was a dry, bitter thing. “You were. Still are, in many respects. But... not in this.” Vulnerability bled through the admission, quickly masked.
We’re both survivors of the same war, Harry thought.
---
By the eleventh session, the air between them had shifted, thick with unspoken things. Harry arrived to find Snape already seated in a low-backed chair, shirt unbuttoned, a glass of firewhisky untouched on the table. The tremors were milder now.
“Evening,” Harry said, rolling up his sleeves. His gaze lingered a fraction too long on the line of Snape’s throat, the way firelight softened the harsh angles of his face.
Snape’s eyes narrowed, perceptive as ever. “Something amiss, Potter? Or has prolonged exposure finally addled what passes for your brain?”
Harry dipped into the salve, a custom blend they’d refined together over terse discussions of ingredients, and began at the base of the neck. The touch was firmer now, more assured, thumbs pressing along the spine with a rhythm that bordered on intimate. Sensory details flooded him: the faint salt of skin, the hitch in Snape’s breath when he found a particularly knotted spot, the way the man’s body yielded despite itself.
This is Snape. The bastard who made my life hell. Yet here he is... brilliant, broken, hiding every crack with his sarcasm. Grief for lost years twisted with a new, unwelcome heat low in his gut.
“You don’t have to hide it anymore, you know. The pain. Not from me.” He said finally, not sure if he wanted to say it aloud.
Snape stiffened, then exhaled sharply as Harry’s hands smoothed over his shoulders.
“Sentimental drivel. I survived the Dark Lord’s snake. I do not require your... comfort.” But his voice lacked its usual bite.
Harry’s pulse quickened. He didn’t pull back. “Stubborn git,” he murmured, half-affectionate, the words warm against the shell of Snape’s ear.
Snape turned his head slightly, dark eyes meeting green. “Insolent brat.”
The massage continued in charged silence, hands speaking what words still withheld.
---
On the next meeting Harry’s hands moved slower, thumbs pressing deep into the most stubborn knots along Snape’s upper back. The muscles there were iron-hard, twisted remnants of venom and years of rigid self-control. Each pass of Harry’s fingers coaxed them toward surrender, and Snape’s breath stuttered.
Damn him. Damn this. I will not fall apart under Potter’s hands like some fragile first-year. The thought burned, laced with the familiar acid of resentment, but the warmth spreading through his abused muscles betrayed him. Relief flooded in, treacherous and sweet, pulling another near-silent rumble from his throat before he could strangle it.
“You’re allowed to breathe, you know,” Harry said quietly, voice low and rough. “It’s not a sign of weakness. Just normal.”
Snape’s eyes snapped open, dark and glittering with irritation. He twisted his head just enough to glare over the sharp line of his shoulder. “Your arrogance has grown teeth, Potter. I require no commentary on how I choose to endure your… ministrations.” Yet even as he spoke, his body leaned fractionally into the pressure, chasing the release his pride refused to name.
Harry didn’t comment on it. Instead, he adjusted his stance, one knee braced against the edge of the chair for better leverage, and sank his thumbs in again—slower, deeper.
All that brilliance, all that stubborn bloody survival, and he still can’t let himself feel good for five minutes.
The anger Harry had carried for years had transmuted into something sharper and far more dangerous: understanding. He remembered his own nights at St. Mungo’s, biting back sounds of pain. Remembered thinking weakness was death.
“You’re not enduring,” Harry murmured, voice barely above the crackle of the fire. “You’re healing. There’s a difference.” His hands glided lower, mapping the long, tense lines of muscle flanking Snape’s spine. Skin warmed under his palms, blood flowing more freely now.
Another suppressed sound slipped from Snape and Harry’s pulse kicked hard in response.
“Insufferable,” Snape rasped, the word frayed at the edges. “Like always.”
Harry’s mouth curved into a small, crooked smile he knew Snape couldn’t see. “You haven’t hexed me yet. I think it’s a good sign.”
His thumbs circled a particularly vicious knot near the shoulder blade, pressing until it began to melt. This time, Snape didn’t quite manage to swallow the low exhale of relief. It hung between them, heavy and intimate in the quiet dungeon room.
Harry’s own chest tightened. I shouldn’t like the sound of that. I really, really shouldn’t. But the slow burn of awareness had already taken root.
“I brought something new,” Harry said next Friday, keeping his voice steady and professional even as his pulse thrummed with cautious anticipation. “For your hands. The tremors are still there, even if they’re milder. This should help more directly than the muscle salve.”
Snape’s dark eyes narrowed at the jar, suspicion clear on his face. He straightened in the chair. “Lavender,” he stated flatly, as if the word itself were an insult. “You expect me to trust my hands, the hands that brew potions, to some floral bedtime draught you whipped up between patients?”
Harry set the jar on the small table beside them and uncorked it. The aroma bloomed fuller now: clean lavender softened by undertones of valerian and powdered devil’s claw. “No side effects. Tested on multiple patients with lingering nerve damage from curses and venom. It helps with tremors. It’s based mostly on lavender oil, but I stabilized it with a slow-release base so it won’t dull your reflexes or fog your mind. You’ll still be able to sneer at me with full capacity.”
A sharp, bitter sound, almost a laugh, escaped Snape. “How generous.” He flexed his left hand experimentally, watching the faint tremor that still remained in his long fingers. Internally, conflict was visible. The guilt that lived in him like a second shadow twisted tighter. He had spent years convinced the boy would never show him any kind of kindness. And now here was competent, mature Harry Potter, reading tremor patterns like they were open books.
Harry didn’t wait for full permission. He knew better. Instead, he pulled up his low stool and sat facing Snape, close enough that their knees nearly brushed. “Give me your hands, Professor.”
Snape’s jaw tightened. For a long second he simply stared, resentment and something far more unsettling flickering behind his eyes. Then, with a painful sigh, he extended both hands palm-down across the narrow space between them.
Harry took the right one first. The skin was cool and dry, scarred faintly across the knuckles from old duels and decades of potion-making. He scooped a small amount of the new salve and began working it in with slow, firm strokes, circling the joints, smoothing over the delicate tendons. The lavender scent enveloped them both, soothing and intimate in the quiet room.
A low sound of reluctant relief tried to climb Snape’s throat. He swallowed it viciously. “This is… tolerable,” he conceded through gritted teeth. “The base is elegant. You did not learn that particular subtlety at St. Mungo’s.”
Harry’s mouth quirked, eyes focused on his work. “No.” He switched to the left hand. “You taught me more than you know. Even when you were being a complete bastard about it.”
Snape’s gaze dropped to their joined hands. Harry’s fingers were warm, callused from mortar and pestle and patient work, yet careful in a way that made Snape’s chest ache with unwelcome awareness. He should hate me. I gave him every reason…
“You enjoy this far too much, Potter,” Snape drawled, though the cutting edge had softened into something rougher. “Playing saviour to your old enemy. Does it salve your Gryffindor conscience?”
Harry looked up then, green eyes steady and far too perceptive. “It’s not about saving you. It’s about the fact that you’re still here… still teaching, still brilliant despite everything. And maybe—” He pressed a thumb firmly along the base of Snape’s thumb, drawing another suppressed exhale from the man. “—maybe I’m tired of carrying around old hate when there’s something better we could do with our time.”
The words hung heavy. Snape did not reply. He simply watched as Harry continued his massage.
---
Harry Apparated to the Hogwarts gates just before seven, the world tilting slightly as his boots hit the damp grass. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. The wizarding party near London had spiraled into chaos. Some fool’s experimental fireworks laced with unstable runes. The injured had poured into St. Mungo’s like blood from a severed artery. He’d barely had time to splash water on his face before coming here.
He didn’t notice the small smear of dried blood on his collar, a rust-coloured streak left by a young witch whose shoulder had been half-shredded by shrapnel. He raised a hand to knock, but the door opened before his knuckles met wood, like usual.
Snape stood framed in the doorway, expression already sharpening into disdain. But the disdain faltered the instant his dark eyes swept over Harry.
“Potter.” The drawl was slower than usual, edged with something different than his typical irritation. “You look like something thestrals dragged in. And you’re bleeding on my threshold.”
Harry blinked, then glanced down at himself. “What? Oh.” He touched the stiff collar, frowning at the brownish stain. “Not mine. Must’ve missed it.” He stepped inside anyway, satchel heavier than it had any right to be. “Long night. Big incident at a party. I’m fine.”
Snape’s gaze tracked him as he crossed the room. He reeks of exhaustion and hospital antiseptic. And still he comes. The observation grated against old, comfortable resentment. Potter should have cancelled. Potter should have prioritised himself for once. The fact that he hadn’t sent an unwelcome flicker of concern through Snape’s chest.
“You swore these sessions would not interfere with your precious Healer duties,” Snape said, closing the door with a soft click. “Yet here you are, half-dead on your feet. Sit before you fall.”
Harry dropped into the usual chair with a grunt, rubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not cancelling. We agreed on Mondays and Fridays. I keep my word.” Even when my eyes feel like they’ve been sandblasted, he added in his thoughts.
He wouldn’t give Snape the satisfaction of seeing him weak. Not when the man had spent years calling him reckless and unreliable.
Snape’s jaw tightened. He crossed to the small table where Harry usually set up his supplies and, after a moment’s hesitation, poured a measure of strong black tea from the pot he’d prepared earlier. He set the cup down in front of Harry with more force than necessary.
“Drink. Then we will discuss whether you are in any condition to lay hands on me.”
Harry took the cup, surprised by the gesture, and drank. It was strong and bitter, helped clear some of the fog. “I can manage the hands at least. The tremors have been responding well to the lavender blend. You’ve got a Potions class tomorrow, don’t you? You’ll want steady fingers.”
Snape watched him, dark eyes unreadable. Always the martyr. Always pushing forward even when he should retreat. Yet the resentment felt… thinner tonight. Threaded through with an unfamiliar strand of worry.
“Very well,” Snape said at last, voice clipped. “But if you sway even slightly, I will levitate you out of my quarters myself.”
Harry’s mouth twitched into a tired half-smirk. “Threatening your Healer. Bold, Professor.”
He opened the satchel and retrieved the lavender salve first, then the deeper muscle relaxant.
When Snape shed his outer robe and unbuttoned his shirt, Harry noticed the way the older man’s gaze kept flicking back to the blood on his collar.
Harry took Snape’s hands again, working the salve in with slower, heavier strokes than usual. His own fingers trembled faintly from fatigue, but the rhythm remained sure. The familiar scent of lavender filled the room, calming and intimate.
Snape’s breath hitched as Harry’s thumb pressed into a persistent knot in his palm. Too warm. Too steady despite everything. The guilt that always lived in him sharpened.
“You are an idiot, Potter,” he murmured, the words almost gentle. “Running yourself ragged and then playing saviour in my dungeons. One day that Gryffindor stubbornness will kill you.”
Harry glanced up, green eyes meeting black. Exhaustion had stripped away some of his filters. “Maybe. But not today. And not before I finish this.” His fingers slid between Snape’s, pressing salve along each tendon with careful thoroughness. “Besides… you’re not the worst patient I’ve had tonight.”
A long silence stretched between them, broken only by the wet slide of salve and the low crackle of the fire. Snape did not pull his hands away. Instead, his fingers curled slightly, just enough to acknowledge the contact.
“Tell me about the incident,” Snape said after a while, voice low. Not quite an order. Almost an invitation.
Harry didn’t look up. His gaze stayed fixed on Snape’s hands, thumbs pressing slow, methodical circles into the left palm where the tremors had always clung the hardest.
“Group of young people experimented with wizarding fireworks,” he said, voice low and rough from exhaustion. “They blew them up at night when the party ended… Around fifty injured. Some lost fingers. Some limbs. Me and my mentor were helping a pregnant woman most of the night. She was screaming and scared. Even the calming draught wasn’t helping, maybe because we couldn't give her a bigger dose.”
He sighed, the full weight of the long shift crashing down on him like a collapsing ward. His shoulders slumped. “We had to put her into a coma for her safety. She hasn’t woken yet.”
Silence settled thick between them. Harry kept working, but his touch had grown heavier, slower, as if the memories were draining strength from his hands. Inside, the familiar knot of grief and helplessness tightened.
Snape watched him, dark eyes unreadable at first. Old resentment stirred, automatic and sharp, but it fractured almost immediately against the sight of Harry’s tired face and the quiet steadiness of those hands still tending to him.
“Reckless idiots,” Snape muttered at last, the words clipped. “Playing with unstable runes like first-years. Natural selection, one might call it.” But there was no real bite. His voice had dropped, roughened by something uncomfortably close to concern. He sat with that woman for hours. Held her fear in his hands while I sat here complaining about tremors.
Harry’s mouth twitched in a humourless half-smirk. “Yeah. Well, natural selection doesn’t feel very satisfying at four in the morning when you’re elbow-deep in someone else’s blood or trying to keep a baby alive.” A faint tremor still lingered in Snape's palm, but it was quieter now. “She kept calling for her husband. He was one of the ones who lost an arm. Didn’t even know yet.”
Snape’s fingers flexed involuntarily beneath Harry’s. The contact felt too intense tonight.
“You should have cancelled,” Snape said quietly. Not an accusation. Closer to an order he wished Harry would obey.
Harry finally glanced up. Green eyes met black, tired but steady. “I thought about it. Then I thought about you trying to teach tomorrow with your hands shaking like they did three weeks ago.” A small, crooked smile ghosted across his face. “Couldn’t have that.”
Snape exhaled through his nose, the sound almost a laugh. “Insufferable.” But his free hand lifted, hesitated, then settled lightly on Harry’s wrist. “You are no good to anyone if you collapse in my chair, Potter.”
“I’m alright,” Harry murmured, returning to the massage with renewed, if gentler, focus. “Just… tired. Tell me something distracting, Professor. Insult my salve ratios.” He smiled faintly. “It’s better than going back to the apartment and listening to your own thoughts.”
Snape froze for a moment. He comes here, exhausted, carrying the screams of strangers, and calls my dungeons a refuge…
“Insolent as ever,” Snape murmured, voice low and roughened by the late hour. “My dungeons have hosted far worse than your maudlin self-pity, Potter. At least the stone walls don’t pretend to care.”
Yet even as he spoke, his fingers remained where they were, cool and steady against Harry’s overheated skin. A tiny bit of comfort he was able to show.
I spent years ensuring he would despise me. He should not find solace here.
Guilt coiled tight in his chest, old and familiar, but it was slowly being crowded out by a reluctant, almost tender awareness of the pulse beating beneath his fingertips.
Harry huffed a quiet laugh and returned his attention to Snape’s hand. “Come on, then. Tear apart the valerian ratio. Tell me I’m one drop away from turning your fingers into limp noodles. I can take it.”
Snape watched the bent head, the messy dark hair that still refused to lie flat, the dried blood on the collar that Harry had forgotten to clean. Something in his chest twisted.
“Your valerian ratio is… adequate,” he said at last, the admission dragged out like a confession. “Surprisingly so.” A pause. His free hand tightened fractionally on Harry’s wrist. “Though I maintain you are still a dunderhead for coming here half-dead rather than sleeping.”
For years Snape had been the shadow that haunted him, the voice that criticized every mistake. Now that same voice was offering something close to approval and even concern, and Harry found he didn’t want to pull away from it.
“I’ve had worse nights,” Harry said softly. “At least here it’s quiet. No monitors beeping. No one screaming.” He swallowed. “She kept saying she could feel the baby kicking weaker and weaker. I kept telling her we’d fix it. I don’t even know if I lied.” The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the wet slide of salve.
Snape’s dark eyes studied Harry’s face for a long moment.
“You did not lie,” he said quietly. The words were clipped, but there was no sarcasm now. Only the weight of someone who had spent a lifetime weighing life and death. “You gave her the only thing possible in that moment: hope.”
Harry looked up again. Their gazes locked, green and black, inches apart. Harry’s pulse jumped under Snape’s fingers.
“Since when do you hand out comforting platitudes, Professor?” he asked, voice rough but teasing.
Snape’s lip curled in a ghost of his old sneer, but his eyes had softened at the edges. “Since my insufferable Healer decided to appear with a bloodied shirt and then demand distraction.” His thumb brushed once more across Harry’s wrist.
Harry felt the loss of contact like a small, cold absence. He cleared his throat and reached for the larger jar of muscle salve. “Shirt off, then. If I’m already here, I might as well make sure your shoulders don’t betray you in tomorrow’s class.”
Snape hesitated for a moment and finally complied. He didn’t want to admit that it was just an excuse to continue this meeting.
As Harry’s hands settled warm and sure on his shoulders, kneading deep into the familiar knots, a long, barely suppressed sigh of relief escaped him.
“Better?” Harry murmured, close enough that his breath ghosted across the nape of Snape’s neck.
Snape closed his eyes.
“Marginally,” he lied.
Harry’s hands were strong, confident even when his body was exhausted and his mind still carried the fresh trauma of the night. Snape had never been used to touch. Not like this. Not gentle. Decades of isolation had made every brush of contact feel like a potential threat or a clinical necessity. Yet here, in the dim glow of his own hearth, Potter’s hands were giving him something he had never expected to experience: pure, unguarded relief.
“Merlin’s teeth,” Snape hissed, the curse frayed at the edges when Harry shifted his weight and leaned in, using the heel of his hand to roll a particularly vicious knot near the spine. Harry didn’t comment on the sounds. He simply adjusted his grip, fingers splayed wide across scarred shoulders, thumbs circling in firm, rhythmic presses.
“You’re tighter than usual tonight,” Harry murmured, voice low and rough with fatigue. “Holding everything in again. The fireworks mess… it’s sticking with me too. Every time I close my eyes I hear her screaming.” His breath ghosted warm across the nape of Snape’s neck. “But this… working on you, it helps. Funny, isn’t it? The person I used to hate most is the only thing keeping me from falling apart right now.”
Snape’s eyes closed. The admission landed like a Bludger to the ribs. “Your sentimentality is revolting, Potter,” he rasped. “Yet your hands… they are annoyingly competent. I did not expect—” He broke off as Harry found a deep trigger point beneath the left shoulder blade and pressed. This time Snape couldn’t suppress the sound: a long, shuddering exhale that bordered on a groan, raw and honest in the quiet room.
Harry’s pulse jumped. I shouldn’t like the way he sounds. But exhaustion had already stripped his defenses.
“Expected what?” Harry asked softly, not letting up. His hands glided lower, smoothing along the long muscles. “That I’d be good at this? Or… that you’d let me?”
“Both,” he admitted, the word barely audible.
He turned his head just enough to catch Harry’s gaze over the sharp line of his shoulder. Black eyes met green, inches apart.
Harry didn’t look away. His hands stilled for a heartbeat, resting warm and heavy on Snape’s back. In this moment they both knew something was changing between them.