Unbuttoned by lastcrazyhorn
Summary: Harry doesn't know exactly what's happening, but something isn't right between him and Professor Lupin, and he's determined to find out why. Will Snape be able to help? Abuse, implied non-con, AU, HP&PA. The character death is NOT Severus or Harry.
Categories: Parental Snape > Guardian Snape, Teacher Snape > Trusted Mentor Snape Main Characters: Dumbledore, Hedwig, Hermione, James, Lily, McGonagall, Original Character, Pomfrey, Remus, Ron, Sirius, .Snape and Harry (required)
Snape Flavour: None
Genres: Angst, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Hurt/Comfort
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption, Alternate Universe
Takes Place: 4th summer
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys, Character Bashing, Character Death, Neglect, Profanity, Rape
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 31 Completed: No Word count: 69721 Read: 185751 Published: 23 Sep 2012 Updated: 18 Aug 2013
Doing Our Best by lastcrazyhorn

Severus paced back and forth across his floor that night, fuming silently as his mind went over the conversation that had taken place with the old man earlier.

"Damn you Albus," he muttered, throwing himself rather violently into an armchair. "Share the misery, why don't you," he growled, leaning forwards with his head in his hands.

As if the images the boy had shown him weren't already indelibly burned into his memory, and now Albus wanted to add to that? How could that possibly help either of them?

He knew that Albus always saw the best in people.

Especially Gryffindor people, he snorted bitterly.

He could only imagine the kind of warring Albus's mind was making with those newly acquired memories.

"Love, my arse," he whispered, thankful that there was no one around to hear him utter such a pedestrian sentiment.

He picked his head up from his hands and leaned back morosely into his chair. He needed to find a substitute for his potions classes. He rubbed his eyes and then took a deep breath, before standing up to get a quill and a few scrolls. It seemed that he was in for a night of letter writing.

. . .

It was nearly dawn when Severus was hit with an epiphany. While working on his Potions Mastery, he had become acquaintances with another young man who was working as a healer in the local hospital. Given the close relationship between healing and potions, this man had also been pursuing mastery in potions, alongside Severus and under the same teacher. Eventually their working relationship turned into a friendship; one that had continued to that day, despite his years in service to the Dark Lord.

Last he had heard, his friend had left his position and gone to work at a dragon reserve of all places!

"Hadwyn Long," Severus addressed the envelope containing his missive to the old vagabond. They hadn't gotten together since before Lily's death, but they did keep up their correspondence to another—at least once a year—and Severus had little doubt that his old friend would fail to come if he asked him directly.

Severus attached the letter to his trusted falcon and then opened the door to the corridors for her to find a way back out into the world. He watched her graceful flight down the hallway until she turned to fly up the stairs, and then he went back inside, closing the door gently behind him.

Walking past the boy's room, he pushed the door open and peered inside.

Just to make sure he isn't having a nightmare, he told himself unconvincingly.

Thanks to the Dreamless Sleep, the boy's face was unlined, but from the arrangement of the lumps under the covers, it appeared that Harry had fallen asleep in a foetal position again.

Severus's jaw clenched briefly as he closed the door; leaving it open just a crack like before. Then he made his way back to his own bed in the hopes of catching a few hours of sleep before their day began anew.

. . .

Severus dreamed of his first real encounter with Hadwyn. They had known each other, but primarily had met in passing, or when their teacher had brought in guest lecturers to speak with his few students.

He had been working with the amortentia potion, learning how to subtly tweak its makeup in order to weed out a few pesky side-effects, when it had abruptly changed colour to a sickly yellow-brown and exploded all over the front of his robes.

Of course he had vanished his robes and undershirt immediately, but it had been for naught, and soon he had been nearly incapacitated with pain as he sought to make it to help. He had collapsed in the hallway, or so Hadwyn informed him later, and only by the skin of his teeth had his friend managed to find him in time to save his life.

From then on out, Hadwyn had insisted on him telling someone when he was going to be in the lab alone, and usually went out of his way to check up on him at least once a day. At first, Severus had despised the extra attention that he saw as nothing more than mollycoddling, but as time had passed, that annoyance had turned into a sort of grudging respect, and eventually he had learned to appreciate his friend's efforts at keeping him alive.

In turn, Severus had found himself opening up to Hadwyn about plans he had regarding the tweaking of other potions, and together they had developed more than one previously impossible healing potion.

"Ye could have died," Hadwyn said, speaking in his dream to the wounded Severus. Hadwyn was Scottish, but his accent was only noticeable when he was tired—or upset.

"But I didn't," Severus had argued the best he could from the bed he had awoken in.

"Should I have left ye for the birds then? There's not much on those bones of yers, but I'm sure the scavengers would have feasted well on the innards of yer skull," the other man had said, his eyes alight with harsh humour.

Silence between them, and then Severus had grudgingly said, "No. Thank you for helping me. Do you need reimbursements—?"

Hadwyn had cut him off with a sharp look to his already threadbare clothes and scrawny torso.

"I'd feel better about helping ye if you I knew ye weren't about to go back and get yourself into the same mess again. Tell me, does anyone know you're here working yourself to death?"

Severus hadn't answered.

"Thought so. Well, ye shouldn't mind me dropping by from time to time to see how me patient is faring, right?"

Hadwyn hadn't threatened him with words, but the other man had still managed to make it clear to him that saying "no" wasn't an option.

And so it had begun.

. . .

With no classes to rouse them, and the fact that they were both running very short on sleep, it was very little surprise that both Harry and Severus slept in that morning. Harry only awoke because his bladder was screaming for mercy, and upon returning to his bed, he realized that his stomach was growling rather ferociously as well.

He cast tempus and with a shock realized it was nearly eleven in the morning. Grabbing his glasses, he tiptoed back out into the main room of his professor's quarters and carefully looked around to see if he could locate the man.

Snape's door to his bedroom was closed, which wasn't that unusual, but the man's heavy teaching robes were still laid out across the sofa and his dragon hide boots were on the floor next to it. Creeping up to his professor's door, he leaned in and put his ear ever so lightly on the wood itself.

Breathing. He definitely could hear breathing.

A sleeping Snape? Surely he wasn't alone in Professor Snape's quarters with the man asleep!

Suddenly, Harry's stomach growled rather threateningly again, and he jerked backwards from the door as though he had been stung, his heart beating rather ferociously in his ears.

He turned and went to the dining table and carefully took a seat, placing his hands atop the smooth surface while he tried to figure out what to do. He needed to eat, but he didn't think he was supposed to leave Snape's quarters by himself.

He didn't think he could even if he wasn't terrified of being surrounded with that many sets of prying eyes.

Snape didn't have anything resembling an ice box, and although Harry knew it was likely there was something edible in the man's cabinets, he didn't really feel up to pushing his luck. Besides, who knew what he'd find?

"Pickled dragon's feet," he muttered with a shiver of disgust. No. Very very no.

Okay, well it wasn't like he was unused to hunger. He sighed and then brightened as a thought showed in his mind. Dobby.

Minutes later, he was the proud owner of a turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat, after having convinced Dobby that he didn't need anything else. He had no doubt that Dobby was probably back in the kitchens gloating happily about helping the "Great Harry Potter, Sir."

He rolled his eyes and then went to work on his sandwich.

. . .

It was after three when Severus finally rolled out of bed, his head pounding and his mouth tasting uncomfortably sour. He went to his bathroom and took care of his needs, brushing his teeth as he did, all without ever turning on a light. He liked his dungeon living for a reason, damn it. Who really needed light, anyway?

By the time he had managed to get himself dressed, the memories of his previous night's meeting had reasserted themselves with a vengeance inside his still groggy head. It was with very little grace that he finally made his way into the main room of his quarters that afternoon.

Harry, curled up in a chair by the fire, was reading a book on Quidditch that he had found in his professor's library. He was almost, but not quite, aware of when the older man entered the living room.

In contrast, Severus made no secret of his entrance into the room. He stomped out into the light, blinking and scowling like the bastard his students typically saw him as. He needed something with caffeine. It was a bit late in the day for a coffee, but tea would work just fine.

He glanced down at the little messy haired boy who was currently taking up residence in his favourite chair, and his scowl deepened. Harry didn't react to his professor's grouchy behavior, and instead curled up tighter around the book in his lap, almost like some kind of giant snail.

The wizard glared down at the little boy until a quick glance showed him a flash of the title.

"Mr. Potter, why aren't you working upon your homework?" asked Severus, his hands firmly on his hips.

Harry raised his head, then shrugged. He didn't offer an answer.

"Answer me, if you would," Severus demanded. "Unlike some of your peers, I do not speak just hear the sound of my own voice."

Harry sighed heavily, shrugged again, but this time he replied, "Why should I, sir?" The young boy flipped a few pages idly, and then mumbled, "Doesn't really matter, does it? I'm the Boy-Who-Lived and all that stupid rot. People don't care what I can do, only who I am." He scowled briefly, and then relaxed his features into casual nonchalance.

As though their conversation had ended, Harry dismissed the looming wizard by turning slightly, and sticking his nose back into his book. Severus was not fooled by the boy's dismissal. He knew all too well that Harry was turning pages too fast to be reading them. He turned away from the child, and walked into his small kitchen.

Typically, he would summon tea from a kitchen elf, but just then he needed the quiet of preparing the tea. The boy's attitude annoyed him, but it was nowhere near the anger that he had and still felt over Albus wishing to "share" Lupin's memories with him.

Did it matter to him the abuse the grown man had suffered as a boy? Perhaps, but he was mostly concerned about Harry.

What Lupin had done to Harry was no simple fist to the cheek to be easily forgiven then forgotten. This was no simple schoolyard scuffle. This was an attack upon a child by a man who bloody well knew better. Lupin had assaulted the small boy in the worst way possible, and that was an abuse not easily forgotten; if ever forgiven.

With the tea steaming fragrantly in the pot, and Harry's favourite chocolate digestives, Severus took the tea tray out to the living room. He set it down on a low sitting table, and then poured a cup of tea for himself before sitting down upon the sofa.

He watched the boy delicately sniff the air, but he kept his smile to himself and waited patiently to see what the child would do.

Harry tried to ignore the tea, but it was a cinnamon spice that he liked. Turning his head just a bit, he could also see the digestives he liked. With a sigh, he closed his book, slipped from the chair, and poured himself a cup of tea. Taking a few digestives, he sat down with his tea, and solemnly drank it.

"Lily loved learning," Snape smiled mildly. "There seemed to be no end to the subjects that brought a sparkle to her eyes. Being around her when she wished to share a new bit of knowledge was similar to bathing in summer sunshine."

Severus could tell the boy was listening even though it appeared his attention was entirely upon the six digestives sitting on his knee.

"She would have wanted you to do your best," he said gently. It was much easier to be kind when he could feel the much needed tea slowly seeping into his deprived bloodstream.

"Honestly?" The child's voice was soft, but his green eyes made contact with his own dark amber ones in such an expressive and longing way that Severus knew there was nothing half-hearted about his question.

"Indeed. For your mother, learning was a friend to be nurtured and never forgotten, no matter what happened."

Silence fell between them once more, but this time it was a comfortable kind of quiet, almost timeless in its security.

To be continued...


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=2858