Non-answers and non-princes
Seconds of awkward silence trickle past while Harry and Snape blink stupidly at each other. There was a moment, barely a split second, when Harry thought the older man might be about to smile — something about how the light hit the dark of his eyes — but he never did, and he definitely isn’t smiling now. In fact, he’s giving Harry one of his most unimpressed, bored looks and Harry can practically hear him thinking Foolish boy! or worse…
”I mean, I’ve never, you know — with anyone! — boys or girls, well I’ve kissed a couple of girls, but it hardly counts, and anyway I didn’t really like it, I mean I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t feel very… special either… and anyway, I’ve started having loads of feelings since then”, Harry babbles, and the more he babbles, the more unimpressed Snape looks but for the life of him he can’t seem to shut up. ”Sexual feelings I mean, about you know, not about girls but… you know—”
”Yes!” Snape finally interrupts with an impatient hiss that overlaps Harry’s You, and if Snape noticed he pretends he didn’t. ”I get the picture, mister Potter.”
”Right”, Harry mumbles.
”So you are a virgin then”, Snape says and it’s no more a question than the look on his face is one of surprise.
Harry is torn between embarassment and indignation, because of course he’s a virgin, what did Snape expect?
”I’m only —” he starts to protest, but immediately cuts himself off and changes his tactics. ”It’s not like I have a lot options in Little Whinging. And when I’m at Hogwarts, well… I’m at Hogwarts!”
Snape raises an eyebrow delicately, but there’s a hint of amusement to it and Harry blushes.
”I serve enough detention as it is!” he says. ”I wouldn’t want to risk getting caught necking in some broom cupboard, would I…”
”Quite right”, Snape agrees and Harry gets the distinct impression that he’s being appeased again.
”What, it’s not like I’m the only one!” he exclaims. ”Snogging, sure, lot of that going on, but any more than that… What?”
Snape was definitely smirking now.
”Your naiveté really does astound me, Harry… Only last night I caught two Second-years fooling around—”
”Second years—!” Harry splutters. ”But— But… they’re so little!”
”Yes well, at least they were both second years. If one of them had been older I would have had to have done more than simply taking points…”
”I should bloody well hope so!”
”Oh?” Snape says silkily. ”Age difference bothers you, does it?”
”Well, if… you know, one’s a kid…”
”Aha. And how old do you imagine I was when you yourself was in your second year—?”
”That’s different!”
”Really. How so.”
”Well, I didn’t fancy you then, did I? I fancy you now, and I’m—”
”So much older”, Snape sneers.
”I’m almost seventeen!” Harry exclaims, his voice breaking embarassingly on the last word.
”Mister Potter, you are not ’almost seventeen’”, Snape says in exasperation and doesn’t even bother hiding his eye-roll this time. ”Not that long ago you yourself informed me that you had just turned sixteen. For someone who so emphatically informs me that he is not a child on a reguar basis, I must say you do tend to favour the rhetoric of one!”
Harry feels his cheeks burning, but stubbornly glares back at Snape anyway. Snape huffs out a sigh and looks away.
”And if I was seventeen?” he asks.
Snape glances back sharply.
”When I’m seventeen, I’ll be of age. I’ll be of legal age in the Wizarding world, right? An adult?”
”Yes?” Snape hisses, his eyes twitching suspisciously.
”Would it be different then? Between us?”
”Mister Potter, I believe I have made myself perfectly clear on this issue.”
”Yeah. You don't date students”, Harry scoffs. ”But what if I wasn’t your student then? What about after I graduate, I’ll be of legal age and I’ll no longer be a student, will I?”
”That would be the logical assumption.”
”Well?”
”Well, what?”
”Well… Would you—?”
Suddenly Snape stands up and swiftly turns away. He busies himself with pouring more whiskey into his tumbler, and if it wasn’t for the slight tremble in his hands, Harry would never have guessed that he was remotely bothered by the conversation at all.
”It’s getting late”, the man says, with his back still turned to Harry. ”You need to leave.”
”But—”
”You need to leave. Now”, Snape barks out and drains half the glass in one deep sip.
Harry sighs, but pushes to his feet and shuffles out of the room obediantly. He hesitates in the doorway and glances back at Snape for a moment. The man is glaring down at the tumbler in his hand, seemingly unaware of Harry completely but when Harry opens his mouth to speak, he visibly tenses up further, giving himself away. Harry just sighs again. He knows he won’t get another word in with Snape now that he’s in this mood anyway, so there’s really no point in making the man any angrier with him.
”Bye Severus…” he mumbles, and leaves quietly.
*
One evening, Harry is sitting under one of the windows in the Gryffindor Common Room, pretending to work on his Herbology homework while actually revisiting the memory of his latest visit at Snape’s quarters and the story he’d been told, and like every other time when he’s reminisced over that particular moment, his thoughts eventually drift into the less straight-forward conversation that had followed… Snape had told him that he would never get with a student, he’d been quite adament about it, as if even suggesting such a thing was a great insult about his person, and knowing Snape as well as Harry does now, he probably did take it as an insult.
Who’d ever have guessed that Snape took his role as Professor so seriously and would have such integrity in his post? Harry certainly wouldn’t have, not before. But now it seems ridiculous to suggest otherwise.
”I want to talk to you, Harry”, Hermione says and plops down next to him on the sofa, breaking him out of his reverie.
”What about?” he asks suspiciously, because she had that stubborn frown on her face that usually lead to more revising.
”The so-called Half-Blood Prince.”
”Oh, not again”, he groans. ”Will you please drop it?”
Harry haven’t dared return to the Room of Requirement to retrieve his Potions book yet, his performance in Potions suffering massively for it, but he’s certain that Snape suspected something and still does, and he will not risk revealing the Prince’s book by going back for it so soon.
”I will not drop it”, Hermione says firmly. ”Not until you’ve heard me out. Now, listen. I’ve been trying to find out a bit about who might make a hobby of inventing Dark spells —”
”He didn’t make a hobby of it!” Harry says hotly. ”I’ve already told you a million times, he just made a note of the spell for himself, he didn’t write ’Go on, use this spell’, he probably never even meant for anyone to read it—!”
”He, he — who says it’s a he, anyway?” Hermione exclaims.
”We’ve been through this”, Harry all but yells at her. ”Prince, Hermoine! Prince!”
”Right!” she yells back, cheeks blotchy with angry patches of red. ”Look at this!”
She pulls out a very old piece of newsprint out of her pocket and slams it down on top of Harry’s Herbology book. The moving photograph, yellowed with age, shows a young girl around their age, very skinny and quite sullen-looking, her face long and pallid. She’s not very pretty, Harry thinks. But there’s a certain air about her, a grace that feels familiar somehow, but he can’t really put his finger on it.
Eileen Prince, Captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones Team, the caption underneath the photograph reads.
”So?” Harry says.
”Her name”, Hermione says and jabs her finger at the printed name to emphasize. ”Eileen Prince. Prince, Harry!”
”What!” Harry says, half-chortling. ”You’re mad, Hermione! No way!”
”Why not? Harry, there aren’t any real princes in the Wizarding world! It’s either a nickname, a made-up title somebody’s given themselves, or it could be their actual name! No, listen! If, say, her father was a wizard whose surname was Prince and her mother was a muggle, then that would technically make her a half-blood Prince!”
”Yeah, very ingenious, Hermione…” Harry scoffs, although if he’s honest with himself it is quite clever, but it doesn’t matter, because this time Hermione is wrong, he just knows it. ”I can tell it’s not a girl. I can just tell. Okay?”
”The truth is you don’t think a girl could be clever enough!” Hermione says, her shiny eyes glittering with a stung look and Harry feels marginally guilty.
”Hey, look”, he says. ”That’s just ridiculous. How could I have hung round you for five years and not think girls are clever? Come on… It’s not that. It’s just… the way he writes, I don’t know… I can just sense it. The Prince was definitely a bloke. This girl, she’s got nothing to do with it. Where did you find this anyway?”
”The library”, Hermione replies predictably. ”There’s a whole collection of old Prophets up there. Well, I’m going to try and find out more about this Eileen Prince…”
”Have fun with that”, Harry mutters and rolls his eyes, glaring after her as she strides across the Common Room and disappears through the portrait hole.
”She’s just never got over you outperforming her in Potions”, Ron says conspiratorily from the other end of the sofa, before returning to his own homework.
”You don’t think I’m mad, wanting that book back do you Ron?”
”Course not! He was a genius, the Prince… Anyway, without his bezoar tip…” Ron trails off and draws a finger significantly across his throat. ”I mean, I’m not saying that spell you used on Malfoy was great—”
”Nor am I”, Harry agrees quickly.
”But he healed alright, didn’t he? Back on his feet in no time.”
”Yeah”, Harry says, feeling the weight of guilt in his stomach all the same. ”Thanks to Snape…”
Ron fidgets awkwardly with his quill for a second, then resumes working on his Herbology essay and leaving Harry to brood alone. His thoughts are almost immediately interrupted however when Jimmy Peakes sidles up to him and holds out a scroll of parchment.
”Oh… Thanks Jimmy… Hey, it’s from Dumbledore!” Harry says excitedly as he unrolls the parchment. ”He wants me to go to his office as quick as I can!”
He looks up and Ron stares back at him.
”Blimey…” the other boy whispers. ”You don’t reckon… He hasn’t found…?”
”Only one way to find out!” Harry says and forces a smile onto his face that does nothing to ease the worry on his best friend’s face.
”Blimey”, he mutters again faintly.
”I’d better go”, Harry says and jumps to his feet. ”I’m sure it’ll be fine. See you later!”