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When Harry made his way out to the reception desk, there was barely a trace of almond left on his skin. His hair, damp from the shower, lay more or less flat, and his robes were probably cleaner than when he'd arrived. He didn't look like a man who'd just let Severus Snape bite his arse.
The same witch was still seated in the reception area, scribbling into a ledger and consulting various scrolls. Her braided hair was silvery-white, and she wore stern black-rimmed spectacles, but she had a merry face and a catlike habit of smiling to herself even while intent on the task at hand.
Harry waited until she parked her quill in an inkpot. "I'd like to make another appointment."
"Another?" She looked up at him in mild surprise, then with a swish of her wand blurred all her documents in case Harry's eyes strayed to information he didn't have permission to read. An appointment scroll unfurled in front of her. "Of course, whenever you like."
"And may I request that Snape – Mr. Snape – " Merlin, that made him sound like a stranger. " – be assigned to me next time, too?" Harry had learned over the years to speak with authority, and his stumble over Snape's name annoyed him.
Another swish of her wand, and the files stacked themselves. "You're mistaken, Mr. Smith. There's no Mr. Snape on staff."
"In that case, you've got someone Polyjuiced as Snape running around feeling people up," he said, only half-joking. "Because unless I was hallucinating, he just gave me – " The most blinding orgasm of my life. " – a pretty convincing massage." An obvious thought struck him. "Unless he goes by a different name here?"
The reception witch cast a privacy spell, then regarded him with a forbearance that implied she was waiting for the knut to drop. "Mr. Snape is a patient-in-residence. I'm afraid the details of his treatment and condition are confidential."
"He gave me a summary of his symptoms, but – right, okay, I understand." Harry's spirits deflated a little, and he reached for his coin purse. "Never mind. Instead, could you let the director know I'm very grateful and I think you're doing a terrific job?"
"Why, thank you, Mr. Smith," said a voice in the background. "I'm delighted to hear it."
In the doorway behind the reception desk, Harry's original masseuse stood leaning against the frame with an air of comfortable fatigue. Beyond her stretched the dimly lit hall of soundproofed rooms. She'd put her hair up in a curly, uncontrollable bun that rivalled Hermione's.
"Oh," Harry said, flushing. "Hi. I didn't see – oh cripes, you're the director?"
"And primary case manager," she said. "Mr. Snape is directly under my care."
"That's … interesting." Harry laid his money pouch on the desk and looked from the receptionist to the director, frowning as he put his thoughts together. "So you're responsible for assigning him as my masseur?"
"Fancy assigning Mr. Snape," the receptionist murmured drolly.
"Fancy telling Severus to do anything he doesn't want to do," said the director, her amused grimace inviting Harry to visualise the consequences. "Ever since the unpleasantness at Hogwarts, he's sworn off cooperation, and he has quite the extensive vocabulary of obscenities for saying no."
Harry could imagine that and felt, deep down, a twinge of approval. Then he remembered Snape's hoarse, intimate description of being helpless and thoroughly handled until he was converted to the pleasures of touch, realised who had in all likelihood been doing the touching, and flushed to the tips of his ears.
"I can confirm what Isobel said," the director went calmly on. "He doesn't work for us. It would be a breach of contract and a form of ethical abuse to take advantage of a client in that fashion. But Mr. Snape insists on trading his potions skills for room and board, so we do our best to accommodate him. He lives here on a work exchange." She shrugged, reaching up absently to knead one shoulder. "I only allow it because it also functions as therapy for him."
A sleeveless vest put her strong shoulder musculature on display, and the free-floating erotic after-effects of Harry's massage compelled him to notice. He cleared his throat. "So why was he – "
"Well, now, he requested it, didn't he?" she said with a rueful smile. "I could hardly discourage the first spark of interest he's shown in anything in months. As I'm sure you're aware, our Mr. Snape is a rather – how shall I put this?"
Harry could think of a dozen different ways to end that sentence. "Terrible patient? Paranoid git?"
"Let us say, rather, sceptical gentleman." She flicked a reproving eyebrow. "With good reason, one might add. However, anything that passes within these walls he makes his business, whether it concerns him or not. And you, I believe, concern him."
On the point of remarking once a spy, always a spy, Harry suddenly couldn't locate the words.
"On your last visit, even though I took pains to ensure your privacy, he spotted you on your way out. Shortly after, he came to ask me a favour. He's been logging hours by practising on the staff for years, and he's long since acquired his license. So as your case manager – "
Distracted by thoughts of how and why he might 'concern' Snape, Harry almost didn't catch that. "Sorry?"
" – it was my informed opinion that the two of you might do better healing together than apart." She looked him up and down, not to shame him or insinuate anything, but to make, Harry realised, a frank evaluation. "I hope I wasn't mistaken."
"I don't know," Harry said. Confusingly, his pulse sped up, and the memory of being kissed rushed through his body like a hot summer storm. Maybe he could get a message to Snape, something along the lines of you promised to teach me. It felt as if steam might be coming off his skin, quite the obvious giveaway.
"For the love of Merlin," the director said sharply. "Please tell me Severus didn't violate the clinic's contract."
Embarrassed by how susceptible he was, Harry kept his lower body hidden behind the desk. The director's perceptiveness wasn't surprising, but at the moment it was bloody inconvenient. "No," he lied. "Nothing like that. It's just – I gather this was a one-off?"
"You're always welcome to return."
"Right." Still mulling over his next move, he dug around inside his coin purse for Galleons. "Well, I guess I'll try an appointment in two weeks, then."
"I was under the impression you already had an appointment, Mr. Smith," the receptionist spoke up.
"Not yet," Harry said. "But if you can't fit me in - "
She unfurled the scroll again. "It's right here. Same time next week." She tapped the calendar with the feather of her quill. "Of course, we can reschedule if you prefer."
Harry started to say yes, but then the director's eyebrows arched, and her look of surprised approval helped him make the connection. "Oh! No. No, that's fine. Next week? That's – even better." A pleased, excited apprehension fluttered in his gut. Snape had left the room first. Snape had had plenty of time to lay his own plans. "So, I guess all that's left for me to do is pay up?"
The director stopped leaning and walked forward, close enough to slide her hands atop Isobel's shoulders. Harry could read her director's tag now: Desiree Goldenrod. He somehow doubted it was her real name. "There's no charge for today's session, Mr. Smith."
It caught him off guard, and he couldn't stop the familiar surge of annoyance at the way his celebrity littered his path with gifts he hadn't earned. He didn't want strangers feeling they owed him.
"Thank you, but I'd rather – "
"I should remind you, Mr. Snape doesn't work here. We can't charge you for what was, in effect, his therapy session."
"I suppose," Harry muttered, and tried a different approach. "So how much do you charge him?"
"I'm afraid that's not really your business, is it? Rest assured, he pays his own way. In fact, once he feels confident enough to pick up the threads of his life, I hope he continues to contract with us. He's an extraordinarily gifted, if rather fanatical, brewer."
Harry would have agreed, but the thread of his pulse had jumped and sped him away in an entirely different direction. "When you say 'pick up the threads of his life,' do you mean full recovery?" He heard the hope in his own voice and did his best to temper it with seasoned maturity. "I thought his condition was incurable."
Once the words were out of his mouth, he wished he hadn't said them. They sounded horribly cynical. He should have stuck with hope.
Isobel passed Harry a reminder token, a metal logo of the clinic charmed to alert him one day and then one hour prior to the appointment. With a small, thoughtful frown, Healer Goldenrod lifted her receptionist's white braid aside and applied her thumbs with casual strokes to Isobel's neck.
"Sometimes," she said, her eyes downcast as she deftly manipulated the muscles, "it's important to make a distinction. In this case, we cannot cure Mr. Snape." She glanced up in time to catch the expression on Harry's face and simply nodded. "But in another sense, it's possible for him to heal. The last stage will occur when he leaves here of his own free will and re-enters the world."
Harry frowned. "Of his own free will? Did you ask him to leave?"
She didn't even pause in the quick, soft indents she was pressing along Isobel's neck. "Really, Mr. Potter. Think again."
"So why hasn't he, then?"
The receptionist, who'd bent her head forward to expose more neck, straightened up to frown at him. "Oh laddie, he's tried."
"He's more vulnerable than he used to be," the director said slowly, "and - well, let's just say the wizarding world doesn't look very kindly upon him. His first attempts at independence resulted in a few health setbacks, and we had to readmit him. Severus - that is to say, Mr. Snape hasn't shown much interest since then in going outside."
Harry felt a flash of anger and had to remind himself that until this afternoon, he had put Snape entirely out of his mind.
"So," he said cautiously, "if Snape – Mr. Snape – had a friend who occasionally asked him over for tea – "
"Oh, he's free to go where and when he pleases. He's not under contract." Healer Goldenrod smiled again. "Outside these walls, there's no oath that binds him."
Harry nodded as if it had been merely idle curiosity. "I'll keep that in mind." He could feel the embarrassment seeping into his smile. Ridiculous, considering these women dealt in recuperative sexual care and wouldn't be fazed by his interest in a snake-tempered, soul-damaged former Death Eater. One who apparently lived on the premises and practised massage on anyone within reach. "Well, then, I'll see you next - "
His goodbye was knocked off-track by a flurry of noise and movement from a side hall as two people stormed into the reception area. Well, Snape stormed; the attendant on his heels was merely exasperated, keeping up a stream of protests: "You know bloody damn well you skipped a dose, your motor functions exhibit a measurable inhibited response outside your norm, and you almost smiled at me, you unforgiving dick, which I would have thought was functionally impossible - "
"Can a man not toss off in the privacy of his own room without being accused of sabotaging his bloody health? If you can't trust that I have a vested interest in my own recovery - "
Snape spotted Harry, and a flush raced from his collar up to his hairline, exquisitely pink beneath his unnaturally smooth skin. But although he swallowed his tirade, Snape didn't seem particularly put out by having practically shouted his masturbatory claims to the entire office. He was draped in rather soft-looking, billowing, forest-green robes, tied at the waist with a sash, but his feet were still bare, and Harry got to re-experience the disconcerting impact of those ravenous dilated eyes. The dark glasses were clenched angrily in Snape's hand. He must have found them more useful as a substitute for strangling the opposition than for protecting his eyesight.
A curl of almond wafted off him and drifted across the room. Harry did his damnedest not to betray how mortifying it was to feel a jolt between his legs, all because Snape had been too busy jerking off to wash the streaky, glistening massage oil out of his unbound hair. With the way it coiled and clung, and with his sweeping robes, pristine skin, and wild, uncanny eyes, he could have sat for the portrait of a fallen angel caught halfway through the process of becoming a devil.
Harry wouldn't have thought Snape going biblical on him could be such a turn-on, but the air felt electric, as if the git had brought a bit of sky down with him or brimstone up from below. And Merlin, that almond oil. It didn't matter to Harry that he'd just showered off the last round. He'd happily pour a sticky, slippery mess onto Snape's ravaged throat, all down his narrow, nearly hairless chest, luminous and cool to the touch, over his awful hair, making it even more grossly sensuous and irresistible to grip. In fact, given the chance, Harry would smear oil all over Snape, roll him on the floor, and slick him up so he could -
"Mr. Smith."
The feral stare sucked Harry out of his thoughts, all that contemptuous magnetism doing him no favours toward keeping his libido from popping an obvious stiffy. A barely detectable tremble whispered through Snape's robes, and Harry was briefly surprised he had that effect on Snape. Served him right if he was reckless enough to stand there reading Harry's mind.
No, hang on, the attendant had accused Snape of skipping his medication. The knowledge of his fragile condition smote Harry again.
Not that Snape allowed physical frailty to get in the way of a targeted attack. "Why the fuck are you still here?"
Behind Snape, the attendant smugly folded his arms as if to say, See? He's a dick. So did Healer Goldenrod, although her pose was more resigned, the displeasure of an adult having to chide someone her own age for behaving like a child. "Severus, may I remind you of our discussions? Please control your tongue when clients are present."
"'Mr. Smith' isn't merely a client," Snape muttered, then had the wit to shut his mouth before he was asked to explain what he meant by that.
Lips pressed tight, Harry stared back at him and smiled as keenly, as devilishly as he could, satisfied when the flush lingering on Snape's face gathered and darkened over the bastard's cheekbones. Pity about their audience. Harry might have given into the impulse right then and there to invite Snape over for tea and afters, just to prove to him he wasn't despised by everyone in the Wizarding World. But with three pairs of eyes following their every move, it would have felt about as outrageous as getting down on one knee to propose. Even so, Harry was sorry innocent bystanders had to exist in the same room as the obscene energy flaring between him and Snape.
…hmm. That was an apology he'd probably be making a lot in future. And he had a suspicion his friends would soon be joining the ranks of innocent bystanders.
But for now all he said was, "Just confirming my appointment for next week. If you have no objections?"
He'd never learned how to flirt properly, but that didn't really matter with Snape, did it? So Harry made sure they kept their eyes locked on each other, mutually smouldering. Well, to be fair, Snape was the one doing all the smouldering because that was the way Snape rolled, based on his desire in the moment to consume or destroy. It was all Harry could do not to burst out laughing in sudden self-conscious delight.
"Maybe I'll see you then," he managed, and turned away. "Unless - " He crooked a sly glance back over his shoulder, catching how the attendant manoeuvred - well, dragged Snape out of the lobby, gentle despite his earlier aggravation. "Do you make house calls?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Smith," Healer Goldenrod intervened quietly.
Snape swayed with fatigue and corrected his posture, and Harry felt his stomach tighten when the attendant put an arm around his waist and Snape didn't snarl at needing help. Three years since Harry had last seen him, his first visit in all that time. Merlin, he had no excuses.
"I'm sorry it took me so long," he called out.
Snape paused just over the threshold, the dim hall painting him in stark contrasts. He flattened a hand against the wall to support himself, turning just enough to send Harry an inscrutable look over the tops of his dark glasses. Before he allowed the attendant to steer him onward, a shadow like an apostrophe lifted one corner of his lips, a tiny muscular possessive that might mean smirk or smile. But Harry, who was determined now to figure out Snape's private language of bottomless stares and carefully sculpted twitches, decided to take it as a sign of forgiveness and a symbol of promise. He wasn't a subtle bloke himself, but he looked forward to making a hobby out of decoding the facial punctuation and abbreviated reflexes that was all Snape had left.
"Time heals most wounds, Potter," the dark, raspy voice echoed through the archway. The use of his real name had to be deliberate. "I wouldn't have let you or anyone else near me in those first two years. What matters now - " He straightened up and shook off the steadying arm of the long-suffering attendant. " - is whether or not you come back."
Harry turned around so Snape could see his face, but he'd been coaxed further down the hall by his handler. "I haven't felt this good in bloody ages. I'd be a right idiot not to come back."
He'd thrown the bait. Would Snape catch it?
Yes, he would, and throw it back.
"Unfortunately, past precedent would suggest you're perfectly capable of being a right - "
"Severus!" Isobel and Healer Goldenrod shouted in unison, and there, at a distance, came a soft, scraped-out, and not entirely malicious laugh, just before a door clicked shut.
"Thank you," Harry told them, turning back to the desk in case the director might think he'd been offended by Snape's implied insult. "For everything." His hand curled around the token in his robe pocket. He was already calculating how to reshuffle his yearly donations to accommodate a substantial sum to the clinic. The women smiled to show they were equally pleased, and Harry headed for the door, glancing back to see them still watching him, Desiree Goldenrod's hand resting on Isobel's shoulder. "I didn't know I missed him," he confessed roughly, helpless to keep it to himself.
Healer Goldenrod nodded. "There's a remedy for that now, I've heard. Quite a simple one. It's called 'come again.'"
The bitemark on Harry's arse chose that moment to twinge, and he choked down a laugh. "My pleasure," he said, and before the door closed behind him, before the sunlight and sounds of street life hit him in the face, he heard Isobel giggle and Goldenrod say, "Oh, I've no doubt Severus will see to that."