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* * *
He worked until noon, when Snape came back in and gave him his potion. Harry drank it down whilst Snape ran a quick eye over the essays Harry’d graded.
He glanced up at one point. “No favoritism for Gryffindors?”
“You favor Slytherins,” Harry said. To his surprise Snape only grunted and returned to his perusal.
“These appear to be acceptable,” he said at last. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Harry replied, handing back the phial. “It’s time for lunch.”
“So it is,” Snape said, squaring the pile of essays and putting it on one corner of his desk.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Harry went on.
“Is it.”
“I was thinking of getting a picnic together from the house elves.”
“Were you.”
“Maybe eating down by the lake.”
“Have fun.”
Harry sighed. “Severus.”
Snape stopped fiddling and turned around, wearing a ‘what on earth could possibly have possessed you to take that impatient tone with me?’ expression.
And suddenly Harry wasn’t impatient any more. He liked Snape. He liked him exactly like this, difficult and cranky and unromantic and sarcastic and determined to make Harry work for it – even if Harry couldn’t figure out why.
After all, Snape hadn’t killed him yet – that was practically true love.
He grinned. “Will you have lunch with me, Severus?”
“I really haven’t time, Mr. – ”
Harry hummed warningly.
“—Harry.”
“I’m starting to feel like a hairdresser,” Harry muttered. “I know you’re busy, sir, but you do have to eat. You said so yourself.”
Snape shook his head. “Not now. I have some medical potions to prepare for Poppy and some NEWTs preparations to make.” His gaze lengthened as he clearly ran through a mental list. “Then I need to finish that article for Potions Monthly and try to find a way to begin a credible sample of my special vampire repellent for the conference next month with the pathetically stale excuse for powdered harpybone the supplier sent me—”
“Okay.” Harry held up his hands. “I get the point. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Not unless you have some fresh powdered harpybone.”
Harry patted himself down. “Not on me. So, no lunch?”
Snape looked at the clock above his mantel.
Harry edged toward the door. “Sorry. I don’t mean to keep you—”
Still eyeing the clock, Snape said, “I should be able to take a short break around two, if that isn’t too late an hour for a ‘growing boy’ to eat his lunch.”
Astonishment slapped a grin onto Harry’s face.
Then Snape looked at him – rather severely, Harry thought, considering the fact that he’d just basically agreed to a date. “We shall have to eat here, and I won’t have much time.”
Harry saluted. “Two o’clock. Here. Not much time. Got it. I’ll let you get to work.”
He all but skipped from Snape’s office.
* * *
At five minutes to two, amply supplied with a basket of soup, sandwiches and apple pie from the house elves, Harry poked his head in Snape’s classroom and saw the students with their heads bent over their notebooks, but no sign of Snape.
He wasn’t in the front office either, but the door to his private office was ajar, so Harry passed through. Snape was seated at his desk, writing, his forehead resting against his left hand. He was in his shirtsleeves, his outer robes draped over the arm of the couch Harry’d slept on.
“You left them alone?” Harry transfigured the fireplace fender into a small table and set the wicker basket on it, carefully taking out the sealed tureen of vegetable soup first.
Snape glanced up briefly. “They are working on essays for the next hour, involving nothing more volatile than paper and ink. If that results in any explosions, rest assured, I shall have no pity.”
Harry didn’t bother saying that would be par for the course; he liked to think himself above cheap shots. He set out bowls, sandwiches, serviettes and cutlery on the little table, then stood watching Snape.
The man wrote with swift precision, delicately dipping his pen at regular intervals and occasionally rubbing his forehead with his left middle finger.
Harry’d had a sandwich at noon, so he wasn’t starved. Not for food. That was perhaps unfortunate, as he had no safe sensations to get in the way of the lust that crept over and under his skin as he observed the object of his real hunger.
“What are you doing?” he said, moving slowly around the desk.
Snape didn’t lift his head as Harry circled him, although Harry noticed that his quill stopped moving in sharp and acid flow across the scroll in front of him.
“Signing your death warrant,” Snape murmured.
“Oh. As long as it’s nothing important.” Harry stopped behind Snape’s chair, inhaling the man’s scent, feeling it on his tongue and in his stomach.
“You seem very tense, Severus.”
“And the connection between that and your presence has eluded you?”
Harry smiled, leaned closer. Snape sat straighter, no longer even pretending to write.
“May I?” Harry said next to Snape’s ear, laying strong hands on the rock-hard shoulders and giving them a firm squeeze. Snape gave vent to one heartfelt moan of pleasure – hastily cut short.
“Mr. Potter,” he began, the harshness of his usual tone crumbling like a chocolate bar as Harry massaged him. The quill fell from Snape’s uncurling fingers.
