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Harry gave the cauldron another stir, widdershins. “Finished.”
“Adequate.” The voice above him drawled. “Leave it alone now. It needs to rise to a roiling boil, and then cool.”
“Yes, Sir.”
A snort disturbed the silence of the basement. Harry glanced up and winked. “You’re just jealous.”
“Well, you might have had that blithering idiot paint me some decent ingredients.” Severus stalked back to his work table and waved a rather withered looking bunch of leeks. “What am I supposed to do with these? Make soup?”
It was an old argument. Harry smiled and ran a hand along the portrait’s cheek. “You can always forage the other portraits. You know the whole forbidden forest is up in the parlor.”
Severus might be the only portrait in the house, but Harry had landscapes a-plenty in all his rooms, not to mention the collection he kept behind warded curtains in the bedroom.
He never wanted Severus to feel trapped.
The potions master occasionally visited Professor McGonagall, but Harry had the feeling that Severus didn’t like leaving too often.
Ron kept sending him on dates, and Hermione lectured him how unhealthy he was, but Harry had stopped listening.
He finally had his Prince.