I heard from the heavens that clouds have been grey

[danzanelfuoco]

 HARRY POTTER

Cow-T 13, week 2, m1 - Un personaggio si prende cura di un altro personaggio infortunato, malato, bisognoso di conforto

 

“Don’t.”

Snape pushes away his hand, angry. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Potter crosses his arm, and scowls at him. 

Scowls at him? The little mongrel! But Snape had always known he was an arrogant prat, who thought too much of himself - liar liar, a voice sings in his head, you never really believed it. 

Still Snape doesn’t relent. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” he tells him and moves to stand up. 

Potter lingers, close to him, too close for Snape’s liking. He already told him he doesn’t need his help. 

But when he does get up - when he stands on his feet - his legs are weak, his muscle too atrophied by weeks of inactivity. He has been laying in a bed trying to recovering from almost dying way too long, and now he can’t even stand on his own. 

He falls, sprawling in the ground in bundle of limbs, nightgown and sheets twisted around his arms and legs, as he tried to grab something in his fall. 

“Fuck!” He curses, not really caring he shouldn’t. 

He has spent almost twenty years of his life restraining himself in front of kids, he won’t do it in his hospital room too. 

He moves to stand up, flaying his limbs around without much success, until he gives up, with a growl and a punch against the soft mattress.
He feels so useless, so pathetic. 

“Snape,” Harry crouches next to him, placing a hand on his arm. “Severus.” 

The teacher raises his eyes to meet Harry’s. He shouldn’t have. There’s something soft there that Severus doesn’t want to see. 

Potter has always hated him. Pity doesn’t suit him better, but for how much Severus had always tried to think the worst of him, he has to admit - at least to himself - that this doesn’t look like pity at all. 

“Let me take care of you,” the boy says instead, squeezing his arm in what should be a comforting gesture. It is, Severus damns himself, it comforts him. 

“I’m not a child,” he says, but he’s not as forceful as he was before. 

“I know,” Harry nods, “But you need help, there’s nothing wrong with it. Merlin knows, how much help I needed and how much help you gave me.” 

Severus gathers the remnants of his pride - there’s so little of it left as he lays, limbs sprawled on the floor. 

“Please, Snape,” Harry asks of him, and there was so little Severus could refuse him in his heart - in his heart, at least, where nobody could see it. In his action, though, that was a completely different matter. 

“Fine,” he says, and he tries to be scathing, but he fails. 

“Thank you,” Harry says as he puts his arm under his armpits and hauls him up. 

Severus grumbles - he feels like a rag doll, the loose control on his body keeping him on edge. But if it has to be someone, he trusts Potter - merlin help him, he does. 

“You shouldn’t be thanking me,” he says instead, bitterness in his voice, as he refuses to look at him. 

Harry chuckles. “I think I should. I plan to, actually. I have a lot of reasons.”

“No, you don’t.” 

That’s it then, the moment of truth - Snape can’t believe himself, he has spent so much of his time thinking of ways to avoid this particular conversation with the boy and now he’s the one to start it. 

He has never knew what was good for himself. 

But Harry shakes his head. “Of course, you would say so,” he says as he helps him sit on the bed,  “You kept going at me, telling me off for my Hero complex, but you’re the self sacrificing prick.” 

Severus scoffs at that. “Watch it, Potter.” 

“Or what?” He asks him with a mocking grin, then he crouches between his legs to help him put up his slippers. 

Severus’ brain short-circuits a little and he gapes at him, not sure how to go on. 

“I know you think you were atoning for whatever mistake you made, but you didn’t have to go back to the war.” 

That snaps him back to his senses, “I assure you, I did,” he sneers. 

Potter gets up, without a worry, and reaches out to him, his hand extended. 

“Then we’re even. You saved me, I saved you.” 

“Why would you do this for me, then?” Severus eyes warily his hand. 

“Because I want to, isn’t that enough?” 

Severus doesn’t know. 

“Come on,” Harry nags him, weaving his hand in front of him to prompt him to take it, “you wanted to take a walk in the park, didn’t you?” 

Snape takes it.