Harry had seen Snape in various states of anger over the years. He’d seen him wear it cold on his stern face, black eyes seething beneath the surface, and he’d seen it unleashed in a violent rage with flying robes and screams of indignation. But this was dramatically different. Harry stepped away from the sight of Snape bent in half and clutching his head with a punishing pressure. Snape was completely silent, and if it weren’t for the white hands tangled in his greasy, unkempt hair, Harry would have assumed his professor was merely taking a few moments to think.

***

He knew he should offer something- perhaps his gratitude that Snape had so quickly Apparated them away from the wreckage- but seeing Snape in this state made something well up inside Harry’s chest; a twisting tendril of pain that seared and mended all at once, like a bitter healing potion. No one deserved to be on the receiving end of Snape’s unforgiving, unrelenting anger; not even the bastard himself.

Snape’s face was hidden in shadow and shame, so Harry reached for his professor and traced the line of buttons that marched from wrist to elbow. It was all he dared.