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“Sweetie, I just don’t think―” began Harry over the pot-roast.
Ginny gave him an ever-so-patient smile, as though she were dealing with a four year-old. “You know we’ve discussed this before, Snookums.”
Across the table, Hermione and Severus exchanged one of those amused glances that only the couple sharing it can fully understand the meaning of. They’d discussed Harry and Ginny, and their nauseating nickname habit, before.
Now, passing the salt to Bill, Severus leant towards his young wife and whispered, his lips brushing her earlobe, “Are you sure you don’t have a secret desire to be called honey-cakes, mmm?”
Hermione turned beneath his lips, then pulled back slightly and raised her eyebrows. “Are you asking to be slapped, Professor Snape?”
“That depends, Mrs Snape, are you offering?”
Harry cleared his throat and Ginny fussed noisily with the potatoes.
The Snapes smiled and made polite listening-noises as Harry lunched into an appropriately boring story about Quidditch regulations. Everyone else looked fascinated.
Which was why it was only Severus who heard Hermione murmur, with the shadow of a smirk, “Besides, when I can hear my own name purred in that Voice of yours, why would I choose snookums in its place…?”