Sticky Sweet
"Professor." Snape greeted before Harry was all the way down the stairs, or even in sight, eyes not turning up from a bubbling sickly yellow potion that no doubt needed the utmost attention. Harry grinned at him, not all that surprised, because his lover had the tendency to know where he was at every moment. Sometimes he wondered if he had a marauders' map in his head.
He measured out precisely three hairs from a unicorn's tail, the potion instantly turning a simmering metallic silver, reminding Harry of unicorn's blood to a sickening degree. Setting that thought aside though, he placed a brown paper bag and a caramel colored bottle on Snape's desk, grinning widely at his coworker.
"Brought you some butter beer and pumpkin pasties. You've been working too hard in this dark dank dungeon." Flashing black eyes flicked up at him, and Snape gave him and indignant sniff, as though to say I like this dark dank dungeon, before turning back to his potion. Giving it a stir with a sense of finality and waving his wand at the fire, Snape joined Harry at his desk, resting against it with the pumpkin pasties and butter beer between them.
They didn't say anything to each other for a long moment, fingers lacing slowly, lips meeting just as slowly as their fingers, just as sweetly, the only sound the simmer of the potion in the cauldron and the fizz of the butter beer.
"What brought on this unexpected visit, Professor?" Snape asked dryly when they pulled apart, fetching two goblets and holding them out for Harry to pour the butter beer into. He lifted it to his mouth and took a careful sip only to grimace at the sweet taste while Harry chugged his.
"Severus, don't be coy." Harry said, smiling. "It's not exactly like I dropped in. You told me to come. You promised to help me sort out the textbook work before next year." Snape huffed, mouth set in a firm line, withdrawing a pumpkin pasty from the bag, staring at its sugar glazed surface, a jack o lantern face painted in icing smiling up at him.
He took a bite, ignoring Harry as he complained about some of his particularly thick students, who would be wonderful learners if they payed the slightest bit of attention to his defense against the dark arts lessons.
Instead, he savored the pumpkin pasty. He liked pumpkin pasties. He liked the subtle taste of them, the salty-sweet flavor of pumpkin mixing with the sticky sweet of the sugar and the pastry. It was one of the few things that he had liked for a long time, since childhood, as constant as his love of potions.
"You sure do like pumpkin pasties, don't you?" Harry gave him a bemused smile to accompany the question and Snape effectively ignored him, shooting him a single dirty look, chewing and swallowing what was in his mouth. It was a stupid question, because Harry knew that he liked pumpkin pasties and had the tendency to buy them whenever he could just to dump them on Snape.
Harry drew closer, smiling mischievously as though he had planned something quite clever. Snape would have raised his hand to wipe the crumbs from the corner of his mouth, if Harry hadn't beaten him to it, swiping the icing from his chin and liking it from his finger.
Black eyes narrowing, Snape watched Harry finish off the rest of the butter beer, sweeping forward and catching his face between his fingers. If there was one thing Snape couldn't stand for, it was being made fun of.
"You sure do like butter beer." And he swiped his tongue over the corner of Harry's mouth, despite a distinct lack of any butter beer on his face, pulling back and turning away just as quickly, as though nothing had happened. As though he hadn't left Harry stuttering and blushing behind him. Instead, he stirred his potion and tossed his next words over his shoulder. "Your textbook planner is on my desk. Take it and get out of my office, Potter."
Harry was gone in a moment, leaving the paper bag of pumpkin pasties, the only testament to the event, along with the empty bottle of butter beer. Snape snorted softly as he pulled out another to eat, not because he liked them or because Harry had brought them, but because he was hungry. Or something like that.
"Ridiculous." he muttered darkly to the empty room.
Owari