Harry had spent most of the time between the incident before potions and his talk with McGonagall in the common room. He didn't dare go to dinner because he wanted to avoid another scene similar the one at lunch and he really didn't feel like running into Malfoy any time soon. For the most part, he sat in front of the fire pondering questions to ask McGonagall and at the same time, wondering whether or not Snape was back to normal again. Harry's experience with Snape was that he wouldn't ask for anyone's help unless there was absolutely no possible way for him to fix something on his own. Therefore, he knew that Snape would never intentionally show himself to anyone given the state that he was in, so Harry figured that he was safe for now. But in the back of his mind he thought that while Snape may be able to hide for a while, it would eventually become very hard to miss a very creepy tall man wearing all black and sporting a pair of fuzzy pink bunny ears and matching tail.
He sat and thought happily of the look on Snape's face for a long time before realizing that it was almost five thirty and that he should be getting ready for his visit to McGonagall's office. He remembered that she had told him not to bring anyone with him and he was of course going to obey her order. The only two people that Harry would ever bring along with him were currently under a fort that they had built out of quills and high heels and were occasionally pelting him with small rocks. Harry didn't even bother to wonder where they were getting this infinite pile of rocks but he was getting tired of them hitting him in the head every five minutes. Feeling agitated, he got up from his chair by the fire, pulled a dung bomb from his pocket and threw it inside the entrance to the fort. He then climbed the stairs to the dorm as he listened to the scrambling and dry heaving coming from underneath the fort and then eventually the fort's collapse. Smiling to himself, he shut the door behind him. He walked over to his trunk where he kept his wand and stashed it into his robes. He normally wouldn't take it just for a teacher visit but he had Malfoy to worry about and he didn't want to get caught without his wand if he were to ambush him from behind a suit of armour.
Feeling confident that he had plenty of questions to ask, he left the dorm and walked back down the stairs. As he reached the bottom, he saw that the remnants of the destroyed fort were gone and that Hermione and Ron were nowhere in sight. He looked around the room but no one appeared to be there. He still didn't feel satisfied that he was alone; the silence was too suspicious. Suddenly, Ron jumped out from behind an armchair and threw the same dungbomb that he had thrown at them right down the front of Harry's robes. Harry danced wildly for a good long time trying to free the dungbomb and all the while coughing and gagging. He finally managed to get the dungbomb out of his robes but by now it was too late, he already wreaked of old garbage.
"Ron! What is wrong with you?" Harry yelled between gags.
Ron laughed and started to sing. "Harry and the dungbomb sitting in a tree, R. E. E. K. I. N. G., first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Smelly in the baby carriage."
Ron continued to laugh and was then joined by Hermione who had come out of nowhere to laugh at Harry as well.
"That doesn't even make any sense!" yelled Harry angrily but the both of them continued to laugh harder.
"Yeah, Ron," Hermione said as she gasped for breath in between giggles. "Harry's right, that isn't how you spell wreaking."
Ron, still laughing, responded with, "Oh really, madam smarty pants? Then how is it spelled?"
She cleared her throat importantly. "It is spelled, W-R-E…"
THUD!
She had passed out onto the floor.
Ron shrugged and continued to sing his original song in Harry's face.
Filled with rage, Harry ran from the common room hoping to air out the smell as he went. Just before the portrait closed behind him he could hear Ron singing, "Harry smells like cabbage, Harry smells like cabbage…" over and over again in a taunting sort of way.
Ignoring the song, Harry ran toward McGonagall's office and on the way he tried a number of spells to get rid of the smell. None of the spells got rid of the smell completely but one of them covered it up nicely. However, the smell that replaced it was a very strong scent of lavender. "Great," he said to himself, "Now I smell like a girl."
He thought at least it was better than smelling like an unwashed toilet and he was no longer gagging and coughing.
After what seemed like forever, he reached McGonagall's office, regained his composure, and knocked on the door.
"Come in," her voiced sounded frustrated and angry. Harry cautiously opened the door and peeked inside to see her at her desk surrounded by piles of parchment and being bombarded by roughly 12 owls all scrambling to receive their pay.
"Pesky birds!" she yelled. "Be patient!!" The owls were clicking their beaks impatiently and nibbling on her ears and nose. Harry stood with his back to the door hoping with all of his might that he didn't get pooped on.
"Here, take your money and leave you obnoxious birds! Ouch stop biting me! Ouch! What was that for, you have your money! Don't you dare get droppings on that! Do not give me that look! Give me back that quill that is not yours! Stop smacking me with your wing, it's not my fault he stole your money! Drop that ink jar you beast! No not on my papers! ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!"
She had shot up out of her seat and seized a broom with which she began to smack the owls. The owls hooted indignantly and shot out the window leaving feathers all over her desk and droppings all over the room.
"Foul birds!" she yelled out the window and shook her broom at the retreating owls.
"Sit down, Potter!" she snapped as she had finally pried herself away from the window.
"Having trouble Professor?" Harry knew it was a stupid question but it was all he could think of after what he had just witnessed.
"Of course not," she said, rolling her eyes. "What would give you that idea? Listen, Potter, we have to make this quick because I'm swamped with work at the moment. The ministry keeps sending me urgent owls about the secret room. They all want to know the same thing. 'How long has it been open? What's being done about it? Who is responsible for it?' It is really getting annoying. And to top it off, the Headmaster refuses to talk about it and now we seem to be missing a teacher."
Harry's face went red. "Er…who's missing?" he said, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
"Professor Snape," she said. "I asked the Headmaster if he had sent him on another mission but all he said was 'Nizbit Hinklebob' and ran away. So we are now short a potions master and Professor Dumbledore is clinically insane."
There was a minute of awkward silence.
"Anyway, what have you come to…" she had stopped speaking and her nose twitched back and forth like a dog that had caught a scent. "Is that…lavender I smell?"
"Er…I don't smell anything." Harry said quickly, widening his nostrils in a mock sniff.
"Are you sure? Because it's quite strong."
"Nope, nothing. Can I ask some questions now?" he said very quickly to change the subject.
"Alright go ahead," she was still sniffing the air and craning her neck forward to find the source of the smell.
Harry knew that McGonagall would only tolerate a few questions so he decided to go straight for the most important one.
"I want to know what the secret room has to do with me?"
McGonagall looked puzzled. "Is that all?" she said. "I would have thought you'd have figured that out already."
Harry shook his head.
"Well, Potter since you are the only person at this school who can speak parseltongue then you are the only one who will not go crazy upon entrance to the room."
Harry already knew this fact and he raised his eyebrows expectantly.
"Once the room makes you insane you wont be smart enough to figure out how to close it. Because of this you are the only one who can seal it shut, forever," she said looking very grim.
"But, I saw a lot of people after they had been in that room and not all of them are the same. Some people were acting like complete idiots and others were rather … normal."
"Oh really?" she said. "Who was acting normal?"
Harry sat and thought for a moment.
"Fred and George Weasley," he said suddenly. "They told me they've been in that room hundreds of times and they still seem normal. Although, I hadn't met them until they were in their third year here but I've heard stories about them from Ron and they seemed as crazy as they are now."
McGonagall was silent for a minute as she sat and thought. "Now that you mention it I did hear things about the room affecting every individual differently. People who were already pretty…odd for example would probably stay the same. Then again, others who were perfect law-abiding citizens would most likely go insane. Of course some people are only affected while they are inside the room and are completely normal once they emerge. It also varies from person to person. That was merely another side effect of the initial spell going awry."
"So does that mean that other people who haven't been hugely affected by it can somehow close the room?" Harry asked as his hopes went up. He thought maybe he didn't have to be the one to do it after all.
"I'm afraid not, Potter. It is still crucial that the person to seal it must be a parselmouth."
Harry's hopes were punctured like a balloon.
"What about the person who opens it? Do they have to be a parselmouth?"
McGonagall sighed, "I only wish it were that way. No, anyone can open it. It's only a matter of stumbling across it. Although it is pretty well hidden, I've been told."
"So who opened it in the first place?"
Harry had two ideas of who it could be: Malfoy or Snape. The two people at the school who would take the most pleasure in seeing Harry so miserable. Of course he knew that Snape wouldn't be so irresponsible but it was fun to imagine him being removed from the school for such a thing.
"That is exactly what I have been trying to figure out," she said as she started to go through the piles of parchment on her desk again. "It seems to me that it would be the work of You-Know-Who considering that he can use you to start attacking people."
Her last words stunned him, "Attacking people? Me? What do you mean?"
She looked at him apologetically. "Don't you remember last year when he was using you to do things for him, to show him things? Well, since the room is opened and the people are slowly going crazy he can start attacking people through you. They won't be so hard to get rid of when they're too busy running through the halls screaming 'Nizbit Hinklebob'."
She rolled her eyes as she said those words.
Harry sat there completely stunned. He wanted to run away but he felt that he was glued to his chair.
"Because of this you have to do a couple of things," she said, avoiding his eyes for some reason. "First you'll need Occlumency lessons, that is if Professor Snape ever turns up. I think it's safe to say that you really didn't accomplish much in that subject last year."
Her voice was rather stern at that comment and Harry felt his face redden.
"Then you'll need to close the room on your own for good."
Harry couldn't believe his ears. He had to take Occlumency lessons with Snape again? He couldn't, it was impossible. Harry was half the reason why Snape was currently part bunny rabbit. He would murder him upon first sight.
"Then of course we'll need to find the person who opened it and put them in Azkaban, student or not. They will most likely be a Slytherin with a connection to a death eater no doubt."
Harry was angry at McGonagall's nonchalant attitude about his impossible tasks but he thought about Malfoy as soon as she had said, "connection with a death eater".
"Well Potter if you have no further questions," she started but at that very moment another round of owls swooped into the window and collided with her head.
"MINISTRY OWLS!" she screamed as the largest one, a huge brown owl landed on her head and started pecking her continuously. She jumped out of her seat and waved her arms rapidly at the circling owls.
"GET OUT OF MY OFFICE, YOU PESTS! JUST WAIT UNTIL I GET MY HANDS ON FUDGE! I'LL GIVE HIM A TASTE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE!"
McGonagall continued to shout out furious remarks at the owls and then ran over to a closet for the reason Harry assumed was to get a bigger broom. Harry took this opportunity to flee from her office and run like mad towards the common room.
He charged up the stairs, yelled the password and flew through the portrait hole. Harry was happy to find it empty and even happier to find Ron asleep in the dorm. He didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment. He climbed into bed without changing and closed his eyes hoping to fall asleep fast and wake up to find that it had all been a dream.