Beneath the Surface

Chapter 4: The Return

Notes:

Let's continue the story!
I hope Snape doesn't come as too OoC, but I must say, he has gone through so much it's practically impossible to not be changed.
ENJOY!

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Snape is awake.

Harry had been repeating that sentence in his head all afternoon. Once he'd told Pomfrey the good news, she had all but smothered and checked him again and again, until he had snapped and refused to cooperate any longer. Harry had laughed up his sleeve, amused at Snape's obvious annoyance and his obvious disagreement with Pomfrey's smothering.

"Don't complain, young man, that's the price you pay for making us worried sick about you for an entire year!" she'd said as she'd performed diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell.

Snape groaned and Harry chuckled, which made Snape's eyes focus on him.

"Sorry, sir," Harry said, not hiding his smile now that he'd been found out, "but... she's right, you know. You fooled us all, and they worry about you. It's only fair."

Snape groaned again, and Pomfrey tapped him on the head with her wand.

"Try not to make any noises to let your throat heal completely. That goes for groans and grumbles as well. And no speaking," she told him, her finger pointing at him in a warning, "now, rest. Potter will be back in the evening to change your bandages and apply the salve to your neck."

At that, Snape's eyebrows arched and his eyes shot to Harry, who felt himself become smaller.

"Didn't he tell you? He's the one who brought you here, he's been looking after you all month," Pomfrey said, noticing Snape's eyes boring into Harry. "Now, you must behave with him, understood? He's been taking your health and recovery very seriously and you should do the same."

Snape slowly nodded, no complaint escaped his lips. It seemed that the knowledge that Harry had been looking after him had surprised him.

"We'll let you rest. Potter, off you go, let him sleep," Pomfrey said.

With that, she drew the curtain, giving the man some privacy.

And so, with one last look at Snape - who still looked at him with one eyebrow raised -, Harry had left the Hospital Wing, feeling a strange mixture of contradictions.

All afternoon he spent lying on the Gryffindor common room couch, debating with himself whether to return or not. He couldn't deny that he felt uneasy now that Snape was awake, reluctant to spend time with the man and afraid they'd go back to their usual loathing.

The patterns were too easy to repeat, it was all they'd known, insulting each other and fighting. The last words Harry had told him in the Great Hall before Snape disappeared in a cloud of black. The words before they saw each other last, at the Shrieking Shack. They had all been full of hatred and loathing, and Harry feared going back to that.

Now Harry didn't hate him. Or at least, he didn't hate the man in his head, the man who had spent the last seven years risking his life not just for Harry, but for the cause as well. The man who was so selfless that was capable of such sacrifice couldn't be bad, as he'd told McGonagall weeks ago.

However, now he was awake, conscious. And the Snape he remembered was cruel and a bully, and he loathed him. Would they go back to that? Harry didn't want that. He wasn't sure of a lot of things, but he was sure of this.

With a jolt, Harry realized there was another thing to consider. He'd spoken to Snape while he was in a coma, and he'd spoken from his heart about things he perhaps shouldn't have. He implicitly knew he could trust the man, he'd taken Dumbledore's secrets with him for a year and had only told Harry when it was time; when Voldemort was at his most vulnerable. But the words had spilt from the depths of his soul, and he'd confessed things that he hadn't dared to confess to anyone, not even Ron or Hermione. The way he felt and what he thought, he'd told him as if Snape was an old friend.