"It seems you had a straining time while I had my chat with Cuthbert," muttered Flamel. "But we really should get back to business if we want to seperate those three in the near future. Did you find out about the lizard scale?"
Slughorn, being the calmer potions master present, gave the old alchimist a summary of what they had found out so far.
"The tip of the tail?" cried the small wizard. "You must be kidding! The odds of getting the tip of the tail when taking a random scale of a whole lizard are neglectably small! You must be cursed!" He observed the trio pityingly.
Slughorn grinned. "Just what I said."
"One word, Malfoy, and I´ll give you a scar on your pretty face!" hissed Harry.
The blond blushed. "You think I´m pretty?"
"We will not discuss that now!" Snape interfered before Harry was able to answer.
Nicholas Flamel withdrew to the far corner of the room after hearing the rest of Slughorn´s report. After a little while he summoned parchment and a quill from the headmaster´s desk and started to scribble, all the while muttering under his breath. From time to time, he scratched things out, only to start scribbling anew.
"Would it hurt to not leave us in the dark?" Snape growled after a quarter hour.
"Why would I bother to tell you when you obviously," – Flamel glanced at the young potions master meaningfully – "are not capable of contributing anything helpful? I´d say all that can be expected is you making things worse. And now be quiet and let me think." He resumed his scribbling, oblivious of Snape´s change of facial colour.
Harry and Draco braced themselves for another outburst of rage, which would – undoubtedly – result in another abuse of their neck, but it never came. Snape was too busy looking at his fellow head of house, Minerva McGonagall, who had just entered the office.
"Albus," said the witch, making a bee-line for the headmaster, "Potter wasn´t in the Great Hall for dinner! Do you know anything about him being in detention? Severus was missing, too, but so was the Malfoy boy and now I have no idea whether Potter is just scrubbing cauldrons for Severus or fighting with Malfoy somewhere in the castle."
"Don´t worry, Minerva," Dumbledore said kindly. "Harry is quite safe." He turned the witch gently.
"Thanks Merlin, Mr. Potter!" cried the Gryffindor professor. "I was, indeed, worried!" She only took in the assembly of wizards in the office now. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"
"He´s stuck to me," Snape informed his colleague with a sigh of resignation. "Slughorn and Flamel are trying to come up with a solution for the problem."
The witch stepped closer to the sofa. "What is this substance on your fingers?" she asked with interest.
"Magical superglue." As the witch was not a potions expert, Snape saw no reason to elaborate further.
"I see. Have you tried nailpolish remover?"
"We´re talking about a highly efficient potion, not about the muggle excuse for a sticking aid!" Snape was scandalized. He glared daggers at McGonagall.
"Anyway," the witch dismissed the idea, "Mr. Potter, how did this happen?"
Harry´s eyes darted the room for help, but there was none. "Malfoy and I experimented with our brews," he tried to gloss over what had happened. "It went terribly wrong."
"Experimented?" the Transfiguration teacher chuckled, but there was no humour behind the sound. "I´d rather think you tried to spoil each other´s work! Serve you right that you´re stuck!"
Snape cleared his throat.
"Don´t look at me like that," the witch snapped at her younger colleague. "You were responsible for them, so it serves you right as well!"
The potions master tried to protest, but McGonagall stared him down, her lips so thin they were barely visible.
"So, I understand you called Nicholas and Horace for help?" the witch turned back to the headmaster. "Any progress?"
"I´m a wizard, not a provider of miracles!" Flamel cried from his corner, where he was still scribbling frantically.
The following awkward silence was broken by a low grumbling sound. Everybody looked around to see what it was. McGonagall was the fastest to understand.
"Mr. Potter, have you eaten today?"
"Breakfast and a biscuit," muttered the boy, blushing crimson.
"Albus! What has become of watching out for your charges´ wellbeing? The boys are hungry!"
A little later two house elves delivered a huge tray of food. There was roast chicken, shepherd´s pie and stew with various side dishes of vegetables and potatoe, along with a huge jug of pumpkin juice.
Potter and Malfoy dig in as soon as the tray touched the coffee table in front of them, Potter shoveling shepherd´s pie onto his plate like a starved man. The Malfoy heir managed to show a little more dignity as he had had some chocolates earlier, but he, too, was rather quick to load his plate.
The boys continued spooning food into their mouth until Snape cleared his throat noisily. "Excuse me," he snarled, "but I think you forgot something."
Looking guilty, the boys started to fill the potions master´s plate. Draco adding vegetables only after looking at the man questioningly, Potter just as quickly as possible.
McGonagall watched for a minute before she sat on a corner of the coffee table and took a fork. "Let me do this," she ordered, "you boys eat." That said, the witch started feeding Snape bits of carrots, roast chicken and mashed potatoes.
The man shook his head vigorously when his fellow head of house spiked a piece of broccoli on the fork. He pressed his lips together as if his life depended upon it.
"Now, don´t be ridiculous, Severus. Broccoli is a very healthy vegetable. Open your mouth!"
Snape shook his head again.
"I must insist! This situation puts a strain on your body, you´ll need all the vitamines you can get."
"´T ta´tes bile," the young wizard pressed out without really opening his lips.
"Oh, come on! Don´t be a baby! Broccoli is a heavily underestimated plant. It´s delicious!" McGonagall wiggled the broccoli under Snape´s nose to tempt him with the smell.
The potions master made a face.
"It´s rich in vitamins A, B and especially C," the witch lectured, "and an excellent source for iron, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium and pottasium and," she added with triumph, "it´s nearly fatfree! – Open your mouth!"
"If it´s so great, why isn´t there a single potion using broccoli?" roared Snape, scandalized.
McGonagall used the outburst to place the broccoli in her colleague´s mouth with a little cry of victory.
"But there is!" Flamel made himself heard from his corner of the room. "Nodo. It came out of fashion about 300 years ago. It twists the drinker´s guts into knots. I, myself, brewed the antidote for Nodo on many occasions."
"That was mean, woman," hissed Snape at McGonagall, "Don´t forget that I won´t be stuck to these sorry excuses for wizards forever!"
"What do you want to do?" chuckled the witch, "Forcefeed me," – she wiggled another piece of broccoli in front of Snape and pushed it into his mouth when he opened it to utter another threat – "broccoli?" She chose a piece of chicken to go into the man´s mouth next.
After the meal the head of Gryffindor made her peace with Snape by transfiguring a snippet of carrot into a long straw and thus enabling the man to drink without help.
"Are you finished?"
Flamel had left his corner and joined the group at the sofa. "I have something I think is worth trying." He put the parchment onto the table, which the headmaster had cleared with a wave of his wand. "I think an infusion of tomatoe blossom and gillyweed is the solution to our problem."
"What?" Snape cried. "Tomatoe blossoms can only be used fresh. It would take Madam Sprout at least three weeks to provide them! And gillyweed is best harvested at the full moon! And that was last week! You don´t mean to tell me that I´m going to be stuck with Potter and Malfoy for nearly a month!"
"I´m afraid so," smirked Flamel. "You really should be more careful in class."
"We will not stop working while we wait," Dumbledore said kindly. "Perhaps we´ll find a quicker solution in the meantime, but I suggest we put Nicholas´s plan into practice immediately. I´ll go and notify Madam Sprout."
"I´ll be back when you have the ingredients or when I think of something else," said Flamel and threw a handful of floo powder into the fireplace.
Horace Slughorn took his leave shortly after Flamel. He only stayed a little bit longer to reassure his former student that he was going to do his best to come up with a quicker solution. "You know," the fat man said proudly, "I know some exceptionally gifted potions experts. I shall talk to them about your dilemma, and I´m sure your problem will be solved in a whim!"
Snape made a face. Just what he needed, his mishap being revealed to the potioneering community. The teacher groaned. His reputation was going to be ruined forever! It wasn´t so much himself he was worried about, as he was used to being unpopular, but so far his name had bought his graduates a good start in working society. But what good would it do to mention that you were taught by the wizarding world´s laughing stock?
The young potions master fought down the urge to throttle Potter and Malfoy singlehandedly and gave in to the inevitable. "Headmaster," he said instead, "may I bring another problem to your attention? As we won´t be seperated successfully today, we will need to make sleeping arrangements."
"What?" shrieked Potter. "There´s no way I´m going to share with Malfoy!"
"As if you were a catch to brag about having shared a bed with you," snapped the blond boy.
"Better the Boy Who Lived than a deatheater in training!" Potter snapped back. "Who´d want to even admit they had shared with you, let alone brag!"
"At least I´m pretty! You said so yourself!"
"Of course you´re pretty. If one likes them pale and pointy." Potter smirked.
"Pale and pointy? I´ll give you pale and pointy!" Malfoy tried to hit the Gryffindor, but this time Snape was prepared.
"Do something, Albus!" he demanded. "How am I supposed to survive the night? Or worse, next week?"
The headmaster stroked his long beard pensively. "This could become a problem," he admitted, stopping Snape´s with a raised hand. "Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, I have to ask you to behave in the future or I will have you sedated every night in order to grant professor Snape his sleep."
"What about lesson?" McGonagall made herself heard. "Will Severus go to the boys´ lessons or the boys to his?"
"Minerva, you know that we can´t afford to pay two potions teachers. Severus will have to teach."
"Teach?" Snape piped in a highpitched voice. "How am I supposed to teach when I can´t use a wand? Who is going to prevent desaster when something goes wrong?"
"Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy are very capable of using a wand. They can do it for you." Dumbledore smiled happily.
"Those two?" Snape´s voice went up a little higher. "Are you crazy?"
"Severus," The headmaster said sternly, "I really don´t mean to rub it in, but you had a wand in your seventh year lesson and see where you are!"
Snape glared daggers at his superior, but said nothing.
"So, where are they going to sleep?" the head of Gryffindor came back to the heart of matters. "They can hardly go to one of the dormitories and Severus´s quarters would be highly inappropriate." She looked at the headmaster expectantly.
"You´re right, Minerva. I guess it will be best to assign them special quarters while this situation lasts."
"A teacher residing with two students? Really, Albus. The press will have a field day and the parents will have your hide."
"So what do you suggest?"
"A chaperone! They can´t stay without a chaperone!" The witch said sternly. "Anything else would cause trouble."
"Hm. It would be good, if the chaperone was one of Severus´s superiors. That way we´d take him out of the line of fire."
"That´s very good of you to volunteer yourself, Albus." McGonagall smiled.
"But I´m not!" the old wizard flashed his colleague a brilliant smile. "You are my deputy after all. And seeing that has his head of house nearby, it´s only just to grant the same privilege." Dumbledore beamed as if Christmas had come early.
"What?" shrieked McGonagall.
"It´s settled," the headmaster ignored her. "I´ll help you set up your living room for Severus and the boys." He led the way to the door. "You three can get up from that sofa without help, can´t you?"
By the time they had reached the inconspicious little door near the headmaster´s office the witch was fuming. Nevertheless she opened the door obediently.