Snape was willing to see me much earlier and more willingly than I had expected, possibly because our next Potions class had turned into chaos so quickly that he didn't dare let the class near any ingredients. Still, he was almost as nasty as usual when I finally did get to talk to him after class, a week after the incident. "And what did you have to discuss, Potter? I trust you're not wasting my time with questions you could answer yourself out of your textbook." He looked a bit harried, and didn't bother to put his usual amount of venom into his tone. I was heartened.
"Sir, I think that the antidote you gave us all last week didn't quite get rid of the effects of that potion." I knew I could have put this more diplomatically, but talking to Snape always made my stomach burn and my brain forget whatever diplomacy I'd ever learned; I felt lucky to remember salient points when I talked to him at all.
"And what makes you think so, Potter? Have you become a Potions genius while I wasn't watching? If it could be treated, it was. Is that all? If so, get out of my office." I picked up the faintest touch of uncertainty in the second half of what he was saying; it gave me the courage to stay despite his dismissal.
"Sir, I've noticed very unusual behaviours in both my housemates and my Slytherin yearmates. Are you sure this is nothing to do with the potion we were splashed with last week? It's the only class both years share where anything memorable happened…' I ran out of things to say; I know I'm not the most articulate. But I'm the Boy Who Lived, dammit. I don't need to be articulate most times.
Snape frowned for a moment, then said, "Potter, I told you, if it could be treated, it was treated. There's nothing more that can be done. Unless some freakish emergency comes up, forget about it and wait for the effects to pass." He actually didn't seem to be blowing me off entirely as he usually did, so I took his word for it and left.
By next Tuesday, most of the effects had passed. Everyone slipped back into normal behaviours, and answered queries about their earlier behaviour with a blush and evasion. I didn't mind, as long as they were purged of the potion's effects. But even Hermione showed no interest in looking up the possibilities of what we'd all been sprayed with, or why Malfoy and I had shown no side effects when everyone else had.
Things passed back into normal; we all went to class, performed adequately, left, no one displaying bizarre behaviours or growths. Everything seemed to be back to normal.
Until the morning I woke up and couldn't speak.
I could move, to a limited extent, which really meant I could jerk and stumble about just enough to seriously hurt myself; Ron and Hermione half-carried me to the hospital wing, where Crabbe and Goyle were already dragging a similarly-affected Malfoy to the attentions of Madam Pomfrey.
Obviously I couldn't tell her what was going, or about the potion we'd been exposed to, and neither could Malfoy. We couldn't even keep from making grunts, or gargling sounds, or any of those idiotic and unhygienic sounds most people make when they're choking (or acting like they're choking). She made us both as comfortable as she could and hurried off to her office, immediately immersing herself in huge textbook tomes, presumably trying to figure out what was wrong with us.
After a bit, and it really doesn't take very long before one gets tired of making truly disgusting sounds and twitching violently with no real beneficial effect, we both gave up on communication or real functional movement. I personally viewed this as a kind of defeat, and was both irritated and somewhat panicked about the situation; yes, so the others had apparently recovered, but none of them had stopped speaking and moving properly! What if this didn't go away?
:Oh shut up, Potter.:
Now, that didn't feel in any way like an internal voice, and (understandably I think) I was more inclined to hope that it was an external voice than a sign of incurable madness. I thought back at it as hard as I could, :Don't tell me to shut up. Why don't YOU say something worthwhile then?:
There was silence for a long while.
:I don't have to answer to you, Potter.:
If I could turn my head, I would have; I'd have liked to see what Malfoy was doing, or rather whether there was any bit of the dismay I was feeling written on his face, but I'd learned my lesson at this point about trying to move. I held still and fumed to myself.
:Tell me this is all some sort of delusion. You're not real. I'm just confused. Just confused, that's all. I'm imagining things. Stupid damned potion has me imagining that Malfoy and I can hear each other's thoughts.:
There was an even longer silence.
:Either I'M imagining this, or we're not imagining any of this. I can't believe this. Of all the people I could be stuck with, I've got to have YOU in my head? Gods, just let me die.:
:The feeling is mutual,: I snarled. :Now just shut up for a while. I don't want to have to deal with you. It's bad enough I can't move properly anyway.:
:I wasn't the one babbling, Potter— you interrupted MY pleasant and singular thoughts. YOU shut up.:
The longest silence yet.
:Oh, bugger.:
:I heard that.:
:Shut up, you bug-sucking arselicker—:
The insults flew for the next few hours.