Title: Brewing Glory
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Severus
Content Notes: Angst, AU in which Severus is alive
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 3500
Summary: Harry never thought his lack of a Potions NEWT would conspire against him getting into the Aurors, but Kingsley is being scrupulously fair. And with Slughorn citing teaching duties and the severe lack of other great brewers Harry knows personally, he reluctantly begins to study with Snape.
Author's Notes: This is another of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, for jtsbbsps_dk, who requested Harry needing to receive his Potions NEWT and Snape having to be the one to teach him. The title, of course, is from Snape's speech at the beginning of PS. There will be a second part to this tomorrow.

Brewing Glory

Harry stood in front of the door to the small cottage and stared at it gloomily. He didn't like doing this. He hated asking favors of people. So many of them fell over themselves to offer him time and friendship and adulation as it was.

But he had sent an owl a week ago, and received a curt two-word answer: Come, then. He raised the knocker, shaped like an ouroboros, and brought it down.

The door opened before the echo had even faded. Harry blinked at the Snape on the other side of the door. He had short, utterly clean black hair, and a long series of scars on the side of his throat that looked almost like shark gills. But his sour expression was the same as ever.

"Come in, then."

Harry stepped carefully inside. The cottage was filled with photographs, vials, books, shelves, small tables, dangling fringed tapestries, and all sorts of other things that must have been in Snape's quarters at Hogwarts. He waited with his hands behind his back, half-afraid of bumping into something.

"I don't have much time this morning, Potter. Why are you here?"

"Because I need to pass my Potions NEWT."

Snape narrowed his eyes at him. "I brew potions, not miracles."

Harry clasped his hands tighter behind his back. He'd grown in the past year, when he'd had to attend funerals of people with powerful relatives and testify in trials and rebuild Hogwarts next to people he'd once hated. "I know that, sir. But I did receive an Exceeds Expectations on my Potions OWL. What I need to concentrate on are the potions I would have learned in my seventh year, and general reinforcement of my skills."

Snape was silent for a long time. Harry studied him from beneath lowered eyelashes. He looked—well, still sour, yes, but a little more relaxed. That he hadn't thrown Harry out already was proof of that.

"You received the marks you did in sixth year because you were cheating."

"Yes, sir."

"You need to learn to work under pressure greater than you received in my classes. There will be times that you need to brew in the field."

"Yes, sir."

"What mark will you find acceptable on the NEWT?"

Harry blinked, wondering if that was a trick question. Acceptable was passing, after all. Then he realized that Snape had asked him a more personal question. "I want an Outstanding, sir," he said honestly. "I don't know if I can achieve that. But I want to try."

Snape tapped his fingers on one of the tapestries, which proved that it wasn't going to burst into flames when someone touched it after all. It showed a fiery creature that might be either a phoenix or a dragon ascending into the air. "I owe you a debt for saving my life. This is the end of it. I will give you an Outstanding, and you will cease to make demands of me."

Harry clenched his teeth. He hadn't made any demands of Snape in the last year at all. He had saved his life, defended him through the necessary trial, and then ceased to have contact with him until he sent him this owl.

But he nodded. "Agreed, sir."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "You are going to work harder than you ever have in your academic life, Potter."

"I'm prepared, sir."

"We'll see."

And with that ominous statement, Harry's Potions instruction began.

"It is perfectly simple, Potter. What clearer words do you need for me to explain this to you?"

Harry didn't react, instead staring critically down at the mess in the cauldron. In fact, Snape's instructions had been so much less than clear that Harry didn't have any idea whether he was dicing or chopping these ingredients. And so he had ended up with a green sludge-like mess that might at any moment develop the power to climb out of the cauldron and eat him.

He waited until Snape wound down from the yelling. Then he looked up and asked, "Should I have diced or chopped the kelp, sir?"

"I cannot believe that you are asking me this question."

"I'm aware, sir." Harry kept his voices perfectly level. "It's still a question I have."

Snape paused. Then he turned away and picked up a piece of parchment with ingredients and instructions written on it, which he hadn't allowed Harry to see. Harry stifled the temptation to snatch the parchment out of Snape's hands.

"It says chopped," Snape murmured after a long moment.

"That why did the instructions you gave me not say that?"

Snape turned and gave him such a terrifying look that it would have made Harry run for his life if he was still in sixth year. But he wasn't in sixth year, and he had survived a bloody war, and he would remember that even if Snape wouldn't. Harry stood and stared at him until Snape made a low ugly sound with his mouth and turned away again.

"I cannot be held responsible for you not understanding my instructions."

Harry picked up the parchment that Snape had given him and handed it over. Snape's eyes skimmed over the sentences, and then he smiled with half his mouth. "Nowhere in here did I use the word "dice," Potter."

"No, you said, 'Cut it up.' How was I supposed to know which one you mean?"

"I have brewed the Panacea Potion six thousand times!"

"So that excuses you for giving me the wrong instructions?"

Snape abruptly turned away and paced towards the other side of the room, his head lowered. Harry stood ready to leave, and then reeled himself sternly back in. He still had to pass the NEWT, and Slughorn was still unacceptable.

"It means," Snape said finally, "that I never thought to clarify the instructions, because I knew what they meant."

Harry paused. He had never expected even that much of an apology. Actually, it was more of an explanation than an apology, but one that steadied him, because it meant he understood Snape's motivations as well as everything else.

"All right," Harry finally murmured. "Why do you need to chop the kelp here instead of dicing it, sir?"

Snape gave him the kind of look Harry thought best reserved for Death Eaters. Harry still held onto his temper. You matured even if he didn't, you don't need to let him control you, he repeated to himself over and over.

"You chop it," Snape answered at last, "because irregular lengths are more effective at spreading the magic through the potion than uniform ones."

And Harry relaxed, and one hurdle was jumped.

"I want to know if you have the patience to brew Veritaserum."

Harry could have protested that he wouldn't be brewing Veritaserum for the Potions NEWT. It took a month to mature. Not even the most patient examiners were going to assign something like that.

But he had accepted the challenge from Snape without a word. He had gone home, and studied the notes that Snape had given him, and the instructions in the Potions books. He wished he still had the Half-Blood Prince's notes, but the book had undoubtedly burned with all the other objects in the Room of Hidden Things.

The Half-Blood Prince. Snape was the Half-Blood Prince. And that bastard's notes had taught him more about potions than Harry would have ever learned otherwise.

Harry thought about that while he was crushing moonstones and throwing them in the cauldron, and waiting for the precise moment of the moon cycle when he could work on brewing Veritaserum some more, and casting Stasis Charms until he knew he could do it with his eyes closed. He should have thought of it before. Snape was as precise and fussy as ever, and unhappy about helping Harry, but he was still the Half-Blood Prince.

That let Harry reach for a motivation he had thought had withered away years ago: the desire to impress his Potions professor.

He didn't think about avoiding scathing comments or anything like that. Not only was it an unworthy ambition, he honestly didn't think he was capable of it. Snape disciplined people in the classroom for annoying him or not ignoring the Slytherins well enough. No, Harry would work on what he could control: his own reactions.

He didn't flinch when Snape sneered at him, and went on performing the steps and nodding when he found the errors in his notes. Sometimes he glanced up to see Snape watching him with a peculiar look on his face, but then it would fade and he would bark something else.

"Don't cast the Stasis Charm like that, Potter!"

"Don't let those leaves fall in the cauldron!"

"What are you thinking, leaving those dandelion roots so near the quicksilver?"

"It's as if you want me to take House points when there are none to take."

There was information in there, even if it was only information on Snape's mood that day. Harry learned what to avoid, and what to study in the books. And he had the satisfaction at the end of the month of stepping back from the cauldron of Veritaserum and smiling at it.

He looked over his shoulder at Snape, wondering if the man would find a way to snap at him even with what he had done. But Snape stood blank-faced, staring at the cauldron as if he thought it would fly into the air and explode.

Then he turned to Harry and nodded. "That is well done, Potter," he said, his face stitched by the shadows of the flickering fire.

And Harry caught his breath, and something soft and warm blossomed to life in his heart.

After that, Harry worked harder than ever.

Of course, Snape was teaching him potions that would more than likely be on the NEWT exam now, and that meant he demanded more work. Harry had to be able to read crabbed instructions at a glance, to know in an instant that dew gathered from a spider's web at full moon was different from the same dew gathered from the same web at the dark of the moon, that re'em blood would react with gold dust before it happened. It involved more memorization than he had ever hoped for.

But it didn't matter. He was also working to impress Snape, and now he knew it was possible. This man and the Half-Blood Prince were one and the same? Then Harry wished to be worthy of their attention.

He glanced over his shoulder at one point and found Snape's eyes fixed on him with a faint frown marring the man's brow, as though he didn't know where Harry was getting this stamina. Harry bowed his head and kept working on the Draught of Wisdom in the cauldron before him, the softness and warmth striking through him again.

"Potter!"

The sharp word was meant to interrupt him, Harry knew. But now that he knew why, it made all the difference. He stepped back smartly and cast the Stasis Charm with a flick of his fingers, freezing the Draught of Wisdom so that no harm could come to it. "Yes, sir?"

"What are you doing?"

"Brewing, sir."

Snape came up and stalked around him, staring him in the eye. Harry stared back boldly. He knew that Snape might use Legilimency to slip into his mind and read his thoughts. Harry hoped he did. It would surprise him, and Harry would get to see another expression on Snape's face that he'd never seen there before.

"That was wandless magic," Snape said, turning around to regard the cauldron under the Stasis Charm.

"Yes, sir." Harry twisted his head a little to the side as Snape whipped around to face him. "I've been practicing it long enough that it doesn't make sense to use my wand, sir."

"And do you have the slightest idea of how the Draught of Wisdom reacts to wandless magic?"

"Not at all, sir—"

"Ha!"

"I mean the potion doesn't react at all, sir. The bicorn hoof shards in it keep it magically inert when it comes to the method of casting the spell."

Snape stared at him with his hands planted on his hips, then turned towards the cauldron once more. He drew his own wand. Harry watched narrowly. If Snape ended the Stasis Charm, then Harry would need to cast another one at once. Even a moment's hesitation would be fatal to the success of the potion.

But Snape only studied the cauldron from a few different angles, the wand twitching in his hand, before he hissed explosively and put it away. "You are getting instruction from someone else," he said, still turned away. "You must be, or you would not be succeeding so well. Why do you not merely study under them and leave me alone?"

Harry blinked. "I'm only reading the books and studying the recipes that you assign me, sir. Well, and I'm reading extra books on magical creatures and plants to understand the ingredients better."

Snape glanced over his shoulder. "I did not tell you to do that."

"No, but it seemed the obvious next step, sir."

Snape frowned at that. "Most of my students never get that far."

"Most of them are younger than I am, sir," Harry said diplomatically. He wasn't going to say that he was a great brewer, because he knew he probably never would be. And Snape might react negatively to those words, anyway.

It was becoming a matter of importance to Harry that Snape not react negatively to him.

Snape stalked a few steps towards him. Harry didn't feel the brush of Legilimency against his mind, but then, he never had as a student before his Occlumency lessons, either. What he did know was that Snape's direct gaze was fixed on him, and it was thrilling.

Snape didn't stop walking towards him until he was only a few inches away. Then he bent down and breathed, "I think you are lying, Potter."

Harry glanced to the side. It took him a moment of searching to find it, but there was the vial of Veritaserum he had brewed, sitting among the others on Snape's shelves. "Why not use the appropriate potion on me and find out if I'm telling you the truth, sir?"

Snape was working hard, obviously, to prevent his jaw from falling. "You," he said, his voice thick with disbelief, "would willingly undergo interrogation by Veritaserum."

"Only by you. I trust you, sir."

Snape stood there for a second as if he thought that he might wake up from a dream. Then he stalked over to the shelf and pulled down the vial of Veritaserum. He studied it as he returned to Harry.

"I have not tested it," he murmured. "For all I know, it might make you explode or turn into a frog. You did brew it, after all."

"Then you can say that I was well-warned, sir."

Snape still eyed him dubiously as he took out a small stirring rod, dipped it into the potion, and placed three drops on Harry's tongue, but Harry ignored that. He swallowed, and the world went soft and fuzzy. Snape shoved a chair behind him, and Harry dropped into it and found himself staring at the ceiling. He'd never noticed before what an interesting pattern of cracks it had in it.

"What is your name?"

"Harry James Potter."

"Why did you come to me?"

"To get a good mark on my Potions NEWT." Harry found himself responding to the questions as if telling the truth was the most natural thing in the world. Well, he knew his name and he knew the reason that he'd come to Snape. He passively waited for the man to ask him something really difficult, a complicated question that he would have to give multiple answers to.

"And did you read the extra books that you claim you read, to acquire advanced knowledge of Potions?"

"Yes, I did."

There was a long pause. Harry felt a vague disappointment that he was probably not going to get asked more complicated questions after all. He tried to open his mouth and suggest some, but it was as if the potion had sealed his jaws shut. He couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but sit in the chair and blink vaguely at things.

Snape finally asked, with a noise like a low snarl, "What is your goal now? Is it still the same as the one you started with?"

"To gain your respect. No."

Snape paused this time as if he was stunned, not as if he was struggling to come up with questions. "Why do you want my respect?" he finally asked.

"It's not like it was in school, when I never thought I'd get it. I know that you can give it to me. And I want to impress you. I want you to see me as someone close to an equal, the way you never would have when I was a student."

Abruptly, Snape opened his jaw and forced the antidote down his throat. Harry swallowed through the thick fuzziness and moved his tongue around. It was a relief to know that the weight that had kept him from speaking was gone.

"You cannot mean what you said."

Snape was standing on the other side of the room, his arms folded. "You heard me speak the truth, sir," Harry said, watching him carefully. Would not even the truth potion convince Snape? That was disappointing, and Harry wondered what other tactic he could use.

Snape bared his teeth. "Veritaserum makes you speak what you believe to be the truth, Potter, no more than that. And you believe that you want to gain my respect. If you think about it, I'm sure that you will see you are both desperate and pathetic."

Harry restrained the impulse to snap something. "Why?"

Snape gestured sharply, making his sleeve flap. "Look at me!"

"I honestly don't notice the scars any more, sir. I'm sure that no one would who actually spent time around you."

Snape stalked towards him and shoved his nose forwards so that Harry had to lean back in his chair a little. "You are making fun of me, Potter," he hissed.

"No," Harry said. "I promise, sir. I've come to respect you a lot more now that I can see what the foundations of your knowledge are and that I realize there were more reasons for being careful in Potions class than I ever thought there were. I'm not lying about that. I promise."

Snape's hands clenched, and then he went for another stalk around Harry. Harry enjoyed the time to just sit still and recover. The Veritaserum had made his head spin a lot more than he'd ever thought it could. He tilted his head back and breathed a little.

Snape's voice sounded from closer than he'd expected it to, right next to his ear, making him jump. Snape only looked amused about that, of course. "Have you ever seriously thought that I would see you again after your Potions NEWT is passed?"

Harry blinked a few times. Snape hadn't asked him any questions about that under the Veritaserum. "I was hoping that we might meet up afterwards," he said slowly. It was true. "But if you don't want to, I certainly can't force you."

For some reason, Snape stepped back and looked offended about that. "Of course you could not force me, Potter."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You are staring at me with an odd expression that is not perfectly respect, Potter. If I find this is another joke…"

"Not a joke, sir. But I know that you probably don't respect me in return, and you don't expect me to be an impressive Potions student. That's what I'm trying to change."

Snape stared. Harry waited. If Snape did decide this was all an elaborate joke, Harry couldn't stop him from throwing Harry out, either. Harry would hate for that to happen, but he did think he knew enough now to pass the NEWT.

He just wanted to spend more time with Snape, that was all, and he wasn't even entirely sure how he would defend that desire. He just knew it was what he wanted.

"Get out for today, Potter," Snape said at last. "Come back tomorrow."

It was a better result than Harry could have hoped for, given that Snape had started out the conversation sure that Harry was mocking him. Harry rose, inclined his head in what he hoped was the right angle for a respectful bow, and quietly left the room.