Journaling

Harry shuddered and collapsed on top of Severus' damp chest. "That's five hundred, then," he murmured into the sweaty crook of one arm.

One black eye opened, then narrowed in suspicion, giving Severus a lopsided, half-sated, half-apprehensive look. "Five hundred what?" Severus asked, something that sounded like dread already pooling in his voice.

Easing himself free of Severus' body, Harry chuckled, and bumped their hips playfully, miming what they'd just done.

Disbelief dripped off Severus' words. "You keep count?"

Sheepishly Harry nodded and reached under the pillow pulling out a worn sheet of parchment. Severus unfolded it with silent apprehension.

"Hang on," Harry said, reaching for his wand beside the bed. He tapped the parchment and said.,"Journaliarmus." He looked down to the bottom of the page and pointed out the new entry.

"Five hundred! Topped. Told Severus." The entry was bracketed by a simplistic drawing of a prick, his symbol for topping. As with all wizarding graphics, it was moving slightly. Harry felt his cock twitch. He liked those symbols.

Both of Severus' eyes were open now. Still clutching the parchment, he hauled them both upright in the bed, giving the pillows a fierce punch before settling back. The parchment slid through his hands until he could see the entry nearest to the top.

"Made love with Severus for the first time!" was followed by "Stayed the night! Morning sex!"

"That's how it started," Harry explained, leaning over and reaching for his glasses, strewn haphazardly on the opposite nightstand.

"So I gathered from the number one beside the entry and the plethora of exclamation points," Severus said, lifting his knees then looking at Harry's glasses. "Those are mine."

Harry, who was squinting through the lenses, pulled the glasses off and looked at the frames. "Right." He handed them over and fumbled for the second pair, reaching across Severus' knees.

Severus settled his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, letting Harry settle in beside him. He ran his finger down the column. "Every time?"

Harry nodded, and rubbed his thumb over one of Severus' nipples, earning himself a glare. "Every time."

"Five hundred?"

Harry nodded again, still not certain how Severus was taking this. "Even this one." He peered over Severus' arm and found the entry he was searching for. It said, "Covent Garden. Nearly caught. Came."

"You came, you mean," Severus said, shifting his knees enough to knock Harry off his arm. "I don't think that should count."

"It's my list." He butted his head on Severus' arm until he lifted it to admit him. "Besides, I made it up to you - " He scanned down the list and pointed. "Here."

The entry read, "Topped and bottomed after Ministry party!!" Another series of exclamation points. Two symbols, a cock and a rough outline of arse cheeks, on either side of the listing.

"You're quite exclamatory, aren't you?" Severus asked, without looking up. "I'm not that good."

Harry was fiddling with the lank hair draped over one shoulder. "You were pretty exclamatory a few minutes ago," he said, trailing a lock of the black stuff between his fingers and letting it slide back. He looked over at his list. "I only counted that one once, because - you know -" He colored.

"How much time did you spend on this?" Severus asked, ignoring Harry's blushes.

"Not that long," Harry said, coming to his own defense. "The charm isn't that complicated once you - " He dropped his forehead onto the upper part of Severus' bicep. "You think I'm a freak, don't you?"

"No more so than usual," Severus answered, obviously distracted. "What's this one? I can't figure out the symbol."

Harry's blush was working its way down to his chest. Or else the blood was just rushing south of its own accord. "Sixty-nine. You know when we both - " He sucked one finger into his mouth to demonstrate.

"Soixante-neuf?" Severus scanned the list. "We've done that quite a bit."

Severus' French accent always had a pleasant effect on Harry. He licked a bit of salty sweat off the side of Severus' neck. Hm, maybe it was sweat. He was going in for another taste to compare when Severus said, "You have obsessive qualities I've never realized before." He favored Harry with one of those things only Harry would call a smile. "You might have made a go at Potions after all."

"I wouldn't have told you if I'd known you were going to be insulting," Harry said, nuzzling the side of Severus' neck.

"Why did you show me?"

Harry stilled, mid-nuzzle. "Er, felt a little guilty, keeping something from you?"

One hand dug into his hair, stroking along the back of his scalp. "You spend countless hours obsessively chronicling our most intimate moments and you feel a little guilty?"

Harry was trying to decide on the proper response for that when he noticed Severus' finger running up and down the list, looking for something. Finally he looked at Harry over the top of his reading glasses. "Do you have the first time I, er, said -?"

Harry did. It was near the beginning of the list. The entry read, "Severus said it. Slipped out before he fell asleep. Holding him to it in the morning." The symbol for that entry was two slowly bobbing hearts with a glittering stream of fireworks endlessly spurting between them.

"As early as that?"

Harry nodded. "It was very gratifying."

Severus stroked his chin. "Yet, you waited for secondary confirmation here -" He jabbed the parchment a few entries down, "Before saying it back?"

Harry didn't have to look at the entry to recite it. "More kisses than I could count," he said, actively demonstrating. "You already knew, or you'd never have said it first." The symbolic hearts were overlapping now, and pulsing slightly as if beating. It had taken Harry a while to figure the charm for that one out.

Severus made a non-committal noise, then took off his glasses, setting them on the nightstand. He plucked off Harry's as well. "So, what did you have planned for five hundred and one?"

"Planned?"

"Surely someone with such ridiculously unexplored anal-retentive tendencies has something wildly exotic next on the agenda?" Severus reached for his wand and thought a moment, then tapped the parchment. A tiny, but recognizable image of a whip and an equally tiny set of handcuffs materialized in the empty space.

Harry's eyebrows dove upward. "Doesn't seem your sort of thing," he said. Snape tapped the journal again. The restraints vanished and a feather appeared.

Harry laughed. "Not my thing."

Before too long Severus was tapping successively outrageous symbols directly onto Harry's skin, and Harry was long past thinking up a suitable symbol for what he wanted.

Not long after that, number five hundred and one passed without a feather or a handcuff. So that by the time the parchment journal slipped unheeded to the floor the entry read, "Made love to Harry. Plan to do so again."