Cupid Wings

20. 'Professor Snape'

'Well?' said Harry slyly, looking at Severus as they took breakfast together on Monday morning before lessons.

'Well what?' Severus barely managed to mask his irritation. 'Goodness, did no one teach you to construct even a simple sentence using a pronoun, a verb, and a noun. You can even add adjectives and adverbs to create in infinitely more scintillating pattern of speech and even fashion superior understanding by adding compound and complex structures to your idiotic questions...'

'Oooo!' Harry said in a sing-song babyish voice. 'Someone's got a grumpy little head this leaden and misty Monday morning. Did you not get enough vital and much-needed rejuvenating sleep because you were sitting up too late into the dark and chill night, whispering sweet-nothings in the delicate ear of your new female friendsy-wensy?'

Minerva coughed lightly into her cup of earl-grey tea.

Severus scowled, 'we weren't whispering sweet-nothings. We were discussing a fascinating case-history Maddie is working on.'

'Maddie?' said Harry with a raised eyebrow. 'Quick work, Sev.'

'Do not raise your eyebrow at me like that!' he snapped. 'And stop calling me Sev! She asked me to call her Maddie, actually.'

'I see. Was that before or after you seduced her with your scintillating patterns of speech and your superbly fashioned rhetoric?'

Minerva had actually turned away and Harry could see the tendons on her thin neck twitching as she fought to contain her laughter.

'I didn't seduce her, you impudent brat...' he said dangerously, pinning Harry with a supercilious gaze.

'Forgive me, Severus. I didn't realise sexual frustration made you into an infinitely greater cantankerous old git.'

'Excuse me,' Minerva said, her voice somewhat higher pitched than usual. 'I must go and prepare for a joyously anticipated meeting with the governors. Enjoy your leaden and misty Monday morning, gentlemen.'

Harry did so enjoy amusing the headmistress at Severus's expense.

'You do realise,' Severus snarled. 'That one day I might be headmaster of this school and I shall be looking amongst my staff members for a deputy head...'

'You don't need to threaten me, Sev. The way things are going, I won't be around that long.'

'There are a large number of people working very hard to ensure otherwise, Harry. It would serve you well not to forget that.'

'I don't forget it; I feel bloody guilty about it. Adding to which I've just embarked upon a relationship with a man a care deeply about and maybe about to leave in the worst possible way. I am, despite my attempts at humour, deeply worried.'

'Yes,' said Severus, his tone pinched.

'As the Hunter, I could sense your interest, I could smell your bloody pheromones,' Harry muttered in a low voice.

'Attraction needs to work both ways, Harry,' Severus said, slightly sourly.

'I am well aware of that.'

'Maddie hasn't shown any sign that she's interested...'

'...beyond sitting up until gone midnight in your rooms, talking to you about her research.'

'She's very academically minded.'

'She's also part-Veela, very diluted, but, if it helps you, she would prefer recognition for her work and not her looks.'

'I am only interested in her mind!'

'Of course. And?'

'Are we back to lessons on sentence structures?'