Title: The Sketchbook, the grump and the wheelchair

Written for: meeee

Ratings and Warnings: Mentions of genitalia, also strong language at times

Word Count: Around 33k all together

Summary: The Boy Who Lived had grown up to be The Man Who Lived in a Wheelchair, and although he's quite happy with a life of solitude and sketching - everyone else seem to think they know better. Will the reappearance of Professor Severus Snape in his life change things for the better, or will it end in aggravation like always?

Author notes: I don't have a beta so I apologise for pacing issues or grammar mistakes. This is a story I started like three years ago. The first 10k words are from then, and I've only changed them a little bit. The next 10k words are from about a year ago, and the final 10k are from the last week or two, so there's bound to be continuity errors also. It's not some masterpiece or anything, just a fic I finally finished haha.

**THIS WORLD AND ITS CHARACTERS ARE NOT MY PROPERTY AND I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THEM. I JUST LOVE THEM AND ALSO WANT THEM TO LOVE EACH OTHER**

Harry Potter had grown up to be half the man he was supposed to.

He thought that was a good joke, but Hermione disagreed when he'd told it to her. He wondered if any of the newspapers had run anything along those lines, although it was technically not correct. The other half of him was there, he just couldn't use it - The Boy Who Lived was now The Man Who Lived In A Wheelchair. They'd definitely used that one.

He was broken, if the public or papers were to be believed. No matter that he was one of the five strongest wizards to live in the last hundred years, or that muggles managed to get by in wheelchairs just fine - and he had magic to help get by. Nope, he couldn't walk and so that was that. It was a pain for sure, but the worst part about his disability wasn't anything to do with it or him. It was everyone else. All the people, the way they looked at him and the things they said. The ways they tried to help and the presumptions they made about him. He couldn't stand it - so he didn't.

They wanted him to go cut ribbons and announce grand openings, parties and the like. Or at least they had, for a while after his reappearance.

He stayed at home and did what he wanted instead, and that was drawing.

Even if he couldn't use his legs, his arms were still perfectly functioning. Overly functioning, even. He was constantly suffering from the fidgets, fiddling with everything he could get his hands on. He picked things up without realising, sometimes accidentally shoplifting. He would dutifully return or pay for the objects, but no one seemed to mind. He was disabled, wasn't he? As if that had anything to do with it.

When he wasn't fiddling, he was sketching. It hadn't been an intentional thing. It had started off as something his hands did without engaging his brain. During eighth year post-war-catch-up lessons, when the still-recent pains and memories kept him up at night, and the experimental healing potions messed with everything from his coordination to his skin colour, he had taken to doodling around the edges of his parchment. When he realised that no one was going to pick him up on it, the proportions had slowly inverted until he was writing class notes around the margins of his pictures. The only one who'd forced him to pay attention was Snape, and he hadn't begrudged the man that – he'd been the one dedicating countless days and nights to the potions Harry needed, in addition to repairs, lessons, detentions and head of house duties. For that year, he was the only person at Hogwarts who looked more worn out than Harry himself.

After the final exams were done, Harry had taken off without consult. It had been expected that he would stay there through the summer with Snape to find some cure or other, despite the fact that no new progress against the curse had been made in five months. His friends and teachers had talked at great length on the subject – where his rooms would be, his schedule, how often they would write each other. Without so much as a by your leave, they had assumed his future for him. It was like having a wheelchair was the same thing as having no brain. So he'd left.

He'd planned to travel. Europe first, then Asia and who knew where after that. He'd live the life no one thought he could.

First stop – Gringotts.

First problem – the steps.

During his attempts to acquire assistance, he had also gotten himself a lot of attention. Here was Harry Potter, finally out of Hogwarts. The real deal, right in front of everyone's eyes, and - well, broken. Upon finally entering the bank, he had not been able to get into the cart to access his vault. The public were watching, having followed him in off the street and the goblins were decidedly unhelpful despite the fact that Harry couldn't be the only wheelchair-bound wizard in all of London. It didn't help matters that he'd barely slept in weeks.

The least said about that day the better, though some tabloids begged to differ even years later.

He'd escaped the crowds, out into the streets of muggle London where he had checked himself into the nearest hospital and claimed amnesia. After his release into society, he had lived in a small high-rise flat where the lift was always broken, saving his living allowance for train tickets. It took six months for him to find out there were bills he'd been unaware needed paying, that he now had no chance of being able to pay. This took his saving capacity to about £-20 per month, if he was very careful about his food.

It took his friends almost two years to find him, during which time he had lived alone in a flat he could rarely leave, eating supermarket-brand microwave noodles and speaking to no one but the occasional social worker and his addict neighbour Gary. Whatever grand thoughts of travelling the world had existed before were well and truly wiped from his mind. His world was four walls, a chair and his sketchbook. A great many sketchbooks, really, all of which had been briskly shrunk down by Hermione for transport back to Hogwarts.

A lengthy and rather heated discussion about living arrangements had quickly followed, which Harry won. There wasn't much she could say in the end, when he demanded she treat him as a human being. He could remember it clearly, one of his few fogless memories of the time. "I'm a wizard," he'd said. "I'm a fucking wizard."

She'd snatched the cigarette from his hand in retribution. A very recent habit that he'd not much liked, but continued later just to spite her. To spite everyone.

She'd helped him find a single-floor cottage in a muggle town on the coast. He couldn't take his chair on the beach, though he was certain there should be charms for that sort of thing. If only spell crafting were his forte, he'd have got his new life sussed in no time.

As it was, he stayed off the beach - or anywhere outside of the house, if he was honest - he ate, bathed and sketched. He kept everything he drew so that he could do better next time. He'd never had art lessons, never drawn anything growing up except in the most dire cases of boredom, but it was different now. Like there was some energy in him that could only be expended this way. He couldn't put pen to parchment without sketching, and couldn't bear the feeling of his empty fingers otherwise.

It had been a few more years since, and his drawings had changed so much that even he was surprised – and he was the one spending hours every day with his hands greyed by charcoal, smudging his nose every time he pushed up his glasses.

His earliest doodles had been of classmates, teachers, figures from the war. People he knew. Then as he became more focussed, it was whatever was in front of him. He drew accurately, learning new techniques by mistake as this mysterious energy poured from arm to paper. There were ten or more books filled with images of the walls, windows and furniture of his old muggle flat, and his own hands. The view down to his weedy-looking legs.

After that, he'd gone back to what he knew. People and places, mostly from memory. He copied magazine photos. His friends knew to bring him something when they visited, if they wanted the courtesy of tea.

Tea was another good subject. He had a beautiful teapot from Molly, whose intricate and ever-changing pattern had managed to elude his pencils for six weeks already. Sometimes, the patterns cast shapes of light over the table. Sometimes, it cast a shadow instead.

Presently, his hand deftly flitted between pink and yellow hues for the very edges of its curves. He was working against time if he wanted to capture its interaction with the Spring's first sunset, which glowed through the small kitchen window behind.

"Honestly, did you listen to a word I just said?" Hermione admonished, reminding him that he wasn't alone. Tea, right. Tea meant guests. He looked up, giving her his usual brief smile.

"Of course," he replied, dropping the lemon pencil in favour of his box of fags. He flicked one out and lit it wordlessly. "We were talking about work. Ron is doing desk work again, and you want more hours."

Hermione held eye contact too long. He'd missed something – he took a long drag to win time. Having guests always made him remember the past, which was part of the reason he tried not to let people come and see him too often. "And?" she asked. Her hair bobbed, and he was momentarily caught in memorising how the curls lay through the folds of her dark robes. She snapped her fingers at him. "Merlin, Harry! Could you pay attention for just a second, please?"

Her tone took him back to first year, and he smiled sheepishly. She looked down at her hands. Her nails were immaculately kept, all trimmed to the same length and buffed to a neat shine without lacquer. He thought her hands too small though, and her fingers in particular were too short. Huh, he hadn't drawn hands in a while.

He used to draw a lot of hands in potions class. Long-fingered hands, with broken and stained nails.

"He's willing to give it another shot, Harry. Won't you think about it?"

Ah, he'd gotten distracted again. Who was she talking about? He supposed it didn't matter, nothing out there had anything to do with him in here. "Whatever you say, 'Mione. I trust your judgement," he said. It seemed like a safe bet.

She grinned, gripping the table edge with excitement. "That's so great. I just knew you'd say yes eventually. It's been so long, and I really think this we can crack it this time. You'll finally be able to get out there again and have a life worth living," she practically squealed the last words.

He held his face still to prevent a sneer from escaping. "My life already is worth living," he argued softly, but without hope of her listening. When it came to this topic, she would always make such a big show of listening to the words he said, considering them, and then completely ignoring anything he thought or felt on the subject of his own life. One would think she'd have learnt the lesson when he escaped the first time, but she only got more resolute with time. What exactly had he agreed to?

He was caught up in his own mind again, and only the mention of his least favourite name snapped him back to the room. "-think Ginny'll come to her senses, once she realises-"

"I'm busy," he said quickly, not wanting to hear anymore about it. He already knew all about Hermione's views on his long-dead relationship, and was not about to spend an afternoon rehashing old arguments. He banished the tea set to the sink, including the cup that Hermione had been in the process of lifting.

With another spell, her chair scraped along the floor towards the fireplace, and she almost fell out of it. With a quick step and a finite, she sent him a vicious scowl as she grabbed a handful of floo powder from the dish. "Honestly, Harry. You can be such a child sometimes."

"Bye!" he called, already turning away.

When she was gone, he reopened the sketchbook and drew a preliminary sketch of her outraged expression. Fucking people. Fucking Hermione. There was only one person who knew what was best for him. It was not her, and it most certainly was not Ginevra Molly Weasley.

She'd made it perfectly clear that she didn't want to be a part of his life after his return to the wizarding world. Granted, he'd up and left her at Hogwarts without a second thought, but he had neither told nor expected her to remain faithful all that time, pining for his lost love or whatever, the way she had. And yes, he'd been a bit ill-mannered and grumpy on his return, but then he was unused to having people talking to him all the time, touching him and expecting things. Expecting him to talk about his feelings, to apologise, to go back through everything he had run away from in the first place. Picking out his clothes and what he should eat, and complaining when he turned down this party invitation or that quidditch match.

They'd officially 'broken up' a few months later, but so far as he was concerned there had been nothing to break from, other than her invading his house and his space.

He sketched more furiously to banish unpleasant thoughts, getting lost instead in the small world in his lap. It was almost dark by the time he realised he still didn't know what he had agreed to, and then it was quickly forgotten again in the difficulty of capturing the colours of a flickering candle.

So it was that he was extremely surprised to find Professor Severus Snape standing on his hearth rug on Saturday morning.