It was more than obvious that Hermione had purposely made it so that Harry and Severus were partnered up for the third time, but he couldn't quite figure out what she was up to. He knew he should feel nervous about what this all meant and how Hermione would later torment him about it, but he was more focused on the fact that he had a chance to talk with the older man again.

"Mr. Potter."

"Mr. Severus," Harry imitated in the same tone.

"What a…surprise….to have you as my partner again," he said sarcastically. "I can only hope this does not become routine."

Harry placed a hand over his chest and winced. "Don't you enjoy talking with me?" he asked.

"Not particularly, no," he answered curtly.

"You're just being grouchy because you're upset that we weren't paired up together in Round One," he declared.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Do tell what online site you received your degree in psychology from. I'd like to call and have them shut down immediately."

"Ha, ha, ha. Be honest. You missed me."

"Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. I had been praying all last night that you'd skip another meeting. Alas, the Devil brought you here and punished me further by pairing us together."

"This isn't the Devil's work, Severus. This is Fate," he said, gesturing in an overly-dramatic motions.

"If this is Fate, then I must have done something particularly heinous in my past life."

"Are you kidding me? To end up frien –"

"Friends, Mr. Potter?"

"-ds with a prince like me? That makes you the luckiest man in the universe."

Harry didn't even bother hiding his grin. It was crazy how much one evening could change things. Three weeks ago, they would have been all but spitting at each other's faces. Harry would have been tensed, waiting for the next jab. And Severus wouldn't hold back on his attacks, trying to get at any insecurity he should spot. Sure, they still bickered, but now things weren't as…intentionally hurtful as before. He could even say he even say that he was starting to enjoy their squabbles.

"Of course. I'm eternally grateful to have made your acquaintance."

"That sounds more like it," he encouraged. "So…how was your Round One with Mr. Blonde? Were you bored to death after you realized that he paled in comparison to moi?"

"Mr. Blonde, as you so call him, happens to be a stimulating conversationalist, unlike people such as yourself."

Harry frowned as he had a flashback to how Severus was leaned in across the table, avidly listening to his blonde partner. He promptly squashed the rising sense of irritation, though. The curiosity was too strong for him to let the subject drop entirely, but he there was no need for him to have an outburst now – not when they were finally getting along (so to speak). All he had to do was act nonchalant about the whole thing. Then Severus would probably explain that they'd been fondly remembering Harry's photoshopped picture or something like that, and that would be that.

"What did you guys talk about?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual manner.

"Our favorite positions," Severus replied calmly.

"Your favorite what?" Harry squealed, his voice rising a couple of octaves and eyes bulging. Heads turned their way, and the pub owner scowled.

"Perhaps your mother forget to teach you a little thing called your 'inside voice.' In comparison to the outdoor zoo where you live, you typically don't scream and when you're indoors. You act civilized."

The Stanford graduate was still boggled. How could Severus be so composed about all this?

"You talked about what?" Harry asked, barely keeping his volume in check.

Severus narrowed his eyes. "What we talked about, and what you continually fail to commit to memory, is none of your business because we swore to keep our conversations private. That means, in case none of this is getting through your tiny brain, that what I say to anybody in this room stays between me and that person. Is that understood?"

"Yeah," Harry mumbled, properly chastised. The man's cool demeanor was gone now, and Harry could see that Severus was truly becoming aggravated.

"Good. So does that mean you'll stop making grotesque faces whenever, God willing, we aren't partners?"

Harry's mouth dropped. Grotesque faces? (How rude!)

"No, not like that. That, I believe, is your signature 'Idiot Face.' Or I suppose we could just call it your 'Everyday Face.'"

Harry closed his mouth. "I was not making faces," he protested adamantly.

Severus crossed his arms. "I could hear you growling from across the room, Potter." Fuck. So Neville hadn't been lying. "The question is – What was it that got you so upset? Are you that much of a gossip that you throw hissy fits whenever you are left out of a single conversation? Or was that an expression of your true feelings about our affiliation? A slip-up?"

"You honestly can't believe those things," Harry said desperately, though by the looks his partner was giving him, he wasn't too sure what the man was thinking.

"Then how do you explain your open displays of hostility this evening?"

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. "Do I really have to say it?"

When he didn't get a response, Harry peaked one eye open to stare at the glaring pub owner. So he had no choice.

"I guess I was jealous," he admitted quickly.

"Jealous?" Severus repeated, his voice betraying his confusion.

"Well, it's just that I had never seen you and Mr. Blonde talk to each other before, but you seemed like you were actually enjoying his company. The two of you weren't even fighting like the two of us did the first time we met. You actually seemed genuinely interested in what he had to say. And…I don't know. I may have envied the connection you two seemed to have." He shrugged.

"I don't understand. Why would it matter if I conversed like a normal person with another partner? Is that not what you and your Knight in Shining Armor did?"

It took a moment for Harry to make the connection. "Neville? Yeah, but that's different. He's a nice guy." Severus narrowed his eyes. "No, that's not what I meant! I just meant that it's easy to get along with Neville. Actually, I don't know what I'm saying. Forget it. I'm glad you and Mr. Blonde had a good time. Can we just say our vows and move on?"

Severus watched him for a moment. "If that's what you want."

The banker nodded, grateful that Severus was letting him off the hook. "Yes, that's what I want. Let's start now, shall we? I vow to keep this conversation between the two of us."

"And I the same."

Harry clapped his hands. "Great! So what should we talk about?"

There were so many touchy subjects (add Mr. Blonde to the list) that Harry didn't exactly know where to start. They couldn't talk about work, that's for sure. They couldn't talk about anything related to the pub because that would be too close to the subject of how Harry planned on saving the pub from foreclosing. The same thing would hold true if they were to talk about Godric's. What do adults talk about beside work? The weather?

"How about your friendship with Hermione? I've always been curious about why such an intelligent young lady could bother hanging around a loafer like you."

Despite the insult, Harry was happy that the man had chosen a relatively safe topic.

"Hermione and I have known each other for years. We're childhood friends from way back. Everything began in Mr. Turner's English class. One day, when I was out of the classroom using the bathroom, Mr. Turner announced a book report we'd have to do in pairs. When I got back from the bathroom, Hermione was the only person left who didn't have a partner. You see, everybody knew that Hermione was the teacher's pet and would schedule countless meetings to read and discuss the book then outline, write, and edit the paper. Well, let's just say that no one else shared Hermione's passion for studying. We all just wanted to go home, play video games, maybe read the summary off of SparkNotes, and then write something quickly the night before it was due. Of course, if you were partnered up with Hermione, there was absolutely no chance of that happening. So they just chose to pair up with each other, and that meant that Hermione and I had to work together."

"This is exactly why I hated group projects in school," Severus muttered, shaking his head. "The smart are forced to be dragged down by the feebleminded who think they can freeload and leave with a free lunch. If you ask me, Group projects are medieval grading assignments that should be eradicated from every syllabus."

Harry laughed at the intensity of the man's boycott against group projects. "Well, you can imagine I was a bit nervous about the whole partnership thing. She has always cared more about school than I, so I thought she'd be really strict about everything. I was surprised when she patiently went through the book with me, telling me what all the long words meant and helping me figure out the message the author was trying to portray. She was super helpful and nice. We got a 98.7% on it, her lowest grade that year."

"You see! Exactly my point," Severus grumbled. Harry ignored him as that had happened to be his highest grade that year.

"Nonetheless, she didn't resent me for the score and we started to hang out together more," he continued. "I don't exactly know what made her stick around, but we eventually became best friends. I owe a lot to her, you know."

"Care to share an example?"

"Well, for starters, she helped me get my ass in gear in college. College was the first time I'd really left my hometown, and it was just really hard for me to adjust. I was skipping classes all of the time and barely passing my courses. I had tons of friends from home, but when I got the letter saying I was one F away from getting expelled from school because of my pitifully low GPA, she was the one who Skyped me every morning at seven to make sure I was awake and ready to go. She'd review class material with me in the morning and then check up on me at night to make sure I had finished the homework. Pretty quickly after this started, my grades started improving. I kept trying to convince her that she didn't need to babysit me anymore. It was clear that she wasn't getting any sleep, and I always worried about how she was able to keep track of her own work. She was already taking six classes a semester as it was. If you add on my schedule, it was like she was taking eleven. That wasn't mentioning all the clubs she was in and her weekly visits to professors' office hours. I was tired of just being another burden, so I stepped things up. I spent the next two semesters working my ass off – getting private tutors, kissing up to teachers, and drinking more than a healthy amount of coffee. Then, I surprised her junior year by showing up on her campus."

He remembered her face as if it were yesterday. Her curly brown hair had been particularly unruly that day, and she had quickly shoved it into a messy bun. She was in line to get her morning espresso when she had spotted him and promptly dropped her books on the ground before running over to squeeze him tightly. In fact, it was probably his favorite college memory.

"She thought I was at Stanford for a surprise visit, so she was shocked when I told her I'd transferred there as a student in their joint bachelor's and MBA program. Once Hermione saw in person how serious I was about my studies, she was able to focus on her own work more. We still met up to have coffee every other day, but she didn't have to keep an eye on me anymore. We could finally talk as friends instead of tutor and tutee. She graduated first but decided to stick around to get her Ph.D. in psychology, so we got a few years to hang out together and have fun... I never thought I'd be having sleepovers in college, that's for sure."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "I think that's one of the things most men look forward to."

Harry did his best not to gag. "Ew! No! Hermione's like a sister to me. Jesus, Severus!"

Instead of appearing apologetic, Severus seemed more amused at making his partner squirm. "How was I supposed to know?"

"Well, I guess it might be hard for an outsider to tell. Ever since I left Stanford, we haven't been as close…"

He'd been taking over Godric's, and it'd been a stressful transition. There was just so much work to do that he barely had any time for anything beyond a text or two. Thankfully, Hermione was relentless and refused to let their relationship go down the drain. Were their moments when he got sick of her nagging? There were too many to count! But now he was grateful for her persistence and glad that she didn't give up on him even after having to deal with weeks of evasive answers and cold shoulders.

"These STA meetings have brought us back together, though," Harry added, glancing briefly at his psychology friend.

"How wonderful for you," Severus drawled.

"All right. Since you seem bored by my story, why don't we talk about you? Do you have any close friends or family members?"

"Well, I guess you would say that I'm fairly close with my godson."

Harry pointed at himself. "Me? Why would I say that?"

"Because you just admitted that you were jealous of our relationship not twenty minutes ago when he and I were talking about people's different positions about the meaning of equality."

The dark-haired man groaned as he dragged a hand over his face. "Mr. Blonde is your godson?"

"That would be correct. Spectacular deduction skills, if I may say so myself."

Harry ignored him. "So I basically just made a fool of myself."

"Indeed."

The banker groaned.

"I wouldn't fret over it too much. You already do a sufficient job of presenting yourself as a basic idiot on a day-to-day basis, so I doubt anyone noticed anything peculiar about your behavior today."

"How comforting," Harry grumbled.

The side of Severus's mouth quirked. "I apologize, Mr. Potter. Please instruct me on the proper way a friend comforts his associate who so happened to have made asinine assumptions that led him to miserable misinterpretations of a familial bond and thus imitate the noises of a cross canine?"

Harry glared. "You and your alliteration enjoy making me feel stupid, don't you?"

Severus smirked. "Few things please me more. Now what is your answer?"

What did Harry have to lose? Severus already thought he was a "basic idiot." Whatever damage he caused from this next move would add very little to the overall wreckage of this meeting was turning out to be.

"Well, he might try to make his 'associate' feel better by treating him to some cookie dough ice cream from Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour down the road."

Severus's face was pinched. "Cookie dough? Raw?"

"Yes, it's my favorite flavor."

"Then you can surely buy your own." Two fails in one night. Harry wished he could say it was a record. "But I suppose someone needs to talk to these shopowners about serving raw dough to their customers. Imagine how many other health violations they must be breaking! It is my duty as a responsible citizen to go there immediately after this meeting and stop this lunacy."

It took a moment for Harry to determine that the other man was joking (one could never tell with Severus). Harry decided to play along. "That's all well and good. But can you wait to have that confrontation after I get my order?"

Severus sniffed. "I suppose."

Harry grinned. Maybe tonight wouldn't be a complete failure after all.