Chapter 2
By Corgi
Both men promptly clamped their mouths shut when the beds started moving, though they both glared at each other. The beds ended up only a few inches apart and both men sat in their respective beds completely shocked.
"Don't say I didn't warn you both!" Poppy snipped at the two men and abruptly left the room.
The glares were instantly transferred to the retreating back of the matron until she was no longer within their line of sight. Harry laid back in his bed and stared at the ceiling retracing once again the cracks located there. He tried very hard to forget then man in the next bed and while he contemplated the ceiling he could feel the other man's cold gaze upon him. He tried to ignore it, but unfortunately for him images of the man in his trousers invaded his mind. Harry decided his mind must have left because it decided to undress his professor, which left Harry the impossible task of hiding his body's reaction. He desperately tried to think of anything to turn off his hormones. 'Think, Harry!' He thought to himself in a mild panic. 'Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall in bed together with whipped cream? No, that's not going to work.' Harry's mind decided to wonder how Dumbledore kept his beard out of the way. 'Filch, Mrs. Norris and Lockhart in a three way.' No that just made Harry sick to his stomach. 'I've got it now; Voldemort in a pink lace negligee that should work!' And work it did. Harry's obvious interest in undressing his Potions Professor disappeared in a flash.
Now that his immediate crisis was over it was time for the bigger one to rear its ugly head again. Not soon after that thought crossed his mind the doors to the Hospital Wing banged open and Professors McGonagall and Flitwick sailed in. They first stopped by Madame Pomfrey's office for a quick discussion then moved on to terrorize Harry and Snape.
"Good evening, Professor Snape, Mr. Potter."
"Evening Professors," was Harry's polite response.
"We've brought you both some reading material to occupy yourselves until morning."
"There's nothing wrong with me, so there's no reason for me to stay," Snape growled to Professor McGonagall.
"Madame Pomfrey wishes to keep you two here until she's sure you aren't suffering from your falls." Professor McGonagall looked at both men with a stern eye. "Also we need to make some changes to your quarters, Severus."
"My rooms? What changes do you have to do to my room?"
"We can always fit another bed into the seventh year dorm in Gryffindor tower if you'd prefer that, Professor," Harry responded in a bland voice, while flipping through the book brought to him. A puzzled look crossed Harry's face and he cocked his head to the side and looked like he was trying to listen to something far away, as a result he missed Snape's look of horror.
While Harry was off in his own little world, Professor Flitwick was explaining which hexes the two students in question were using and how they could have combined to form the emoticon bond. While Professor Snape argued against the possibility that those two particular curses combining without a third spell to homogenizing them, Harry continued to listen to the laughing voice echoing in his head. He wasn't alarmed, because he knew it wasn't Voldemort playing around in his head; it had a familiar sort of warmth to the voice. Suddenly the pieces fell into place and he was able to pay attention to the voice in his head and his arguing Professors.
"There is no possible way for those two hexes to combine in that way without a third party, a powerful third party." Snape growled at his two colleagues.
"Severus, who could have possibly done so and why would they?" Flitwick chided the younger man.
"That's easy enough that Potter could answer it. Albus. He's not only powerful enough to do so he's manipulative enough to do so."
"Severus! How can you possibly insinuate something like this?" McGonagall's shocked voice rang out in the empty Hospital Wing.
"Easily enough, Minerva, the old coot has been after me to cut Potter some slack and he'll do anything to make me, as he put it, 'play nice' with Potter."
"He didn't do it." Every head in the room turned to Harry as he shifted in the bed, his eyes slightly glazed at he tried to listen to two conversations at once.
"Potter, kindly keep your nose out of conversations you're not paying attention to." Snape glared at Harry and didn't notice the shocked look that crossed McGonagall's face during the exchange.
"I am paying attention and the Headmaster didn't combine the spells."
"Then do enlighten us, Potter!" Severus' black eyes flashed with anger as he stared at Harry and he waited impatiently for his response.
"The castle did it."
"What?" Both Snape and Flitwick questioned at the same time, while Professor McGonagall stared in shock.
"The castle homogenized the spell so it would form an emoticon bond between Professor Snape and myself," Harry said slowly, as if the people around him were simpletons.
"Mr. Potter, you can hear the castle?" McGonagall asked her voice barely above a whisper. "How long have you been hearing it?"
"Yes, but at first I wasn't sure what it was... I thought I was hearing snakes for a while. It started in September, it was just intermittent at first, but has become clearer and clearer until just now when I realized it was the castle."
"Idiot boy, hearing voices in your head and you don't even bother to mention anything!" Snape snarled at Harry causing the beds to inch closer once again. "It could have been the Dark Lord you fool! The snakes you thought you were hearing could have been under his control."
"It didn't feel like Voldemort's presence, ever. There are snakes all over the grounds. There are even five of them in the Slytherin dorms. None of them had Voldemort's taint on them." Harry stated with a forced calm. He watched out of the corner of his eyes as Snape flinched when he mentioned Voldemort. "Does hearing the castle have any significance, Professor McGonagall?"
"Yes it does. All of the Headmasters and mistresses as well as their deputies must be able to hear the castle. The castle has become somewhat sentient over the centuries since it was built, due to all the magic used to build it and practiced in its halls."
"Let me guess, this little fact is how the Headmaster seems to know everything that goes on in this castle?" Harry asked but he didn't require an answer from his head of house. The castle was more than happy to provide the answer.
"As fascinating as this conversation is, we've got more pressing business to discuss," Snape hissed from between clenched teeth.
"What specifically do you need to discuss, Severus?" McGonagall asked while filing away their previous discussion for a later date.
"My JOB, Minerva! I can not do that if I have Potter needing to be nearby."
"That's an easy problem to solve, Professor."
"How so, Potter?" Snape had a doubtful expression plastered across his face.
"You've just acquired a pet cobra, Professor." Harry elaborated as he noticed the confused expressions the Professors had, "My animagus form is a cobra. Professor Snape can bring me to the meetings. All that has to be done before he goes is to smear some ink, or something similar, on my head to cover my scar."
"You're not in the registry, Harry," McGonagall chided.
"I wasn't about to advertise my animagus form to all the Death Eaters and Voldemort. I want to have a means of escape if I'm cornered. They're haven't been many reptilian animagus' and they wouldn't expect me to be a snake now would they? They most likely would look for a stag since that was my dad's form."
"That actually made sense. I think the world is ending." Snape's sarcastic reply set Flitwick to twittering.
"Now that we've got Severus' problem out of the way, Minerva, what should we do for Mr. Potter's classes?" Flitwick queried since there was no way for the two to be in each other's line of sight if the younger of the two were attending classes.
"I don't know. We'll wait for the Headmaster to return and get his input. For now we'll just cancel Severus' classes and say both he and Mr. Potter are sick and under quarantine until further notice." When she received a nod of acceptance from all involved she and Flitwick left after informing Harry that his belongings were being relocated to Severus' quarters.
Harry watched them leave and wondered if they actually remembered he was there while they were talking or if they considered him part of the staff. Normally they wouldn't address each other by their given names while a student was in the room.
Meanwhile in the other bed Severus was wondering why the brat wasn't demanding attention when it seemed that they were talking about the situation. The simple fact that the boy had a solution to the Death Eater meetings surprised him and that he trusted him with the information about his animagus form was another. He couldn't help but speculate on whether the brat was going to throw some more revelations at him. His train of thought was broken when he heard soft laughter.
"Stop laughing, Potter."
"It's not me, sir."
"Then who's laughing!" The laughter grew louder and a sense of triumph invaded Severus' consciousness.
"The castle," was Harry's simple reply. "Apparently it's been trying to talk to you for years. This is the first time your barriers allowed it to do so. It's quite happy now."
Severus let out a groan of despair. What else could possibly happen to him? Little did he know that he was going to regret even thinking about that.
~tbc~