A New Story

Chapter 34

The teachers, Snape and McGonagall quickly strode to the front of the crowd, 

'Students, please do not gather around the corridors. Others need to go to their classes and so do you. Now, come on, hurry along.' McGonagall made a shooing motion.

'You three, stay here.' McGonagall told Harry, Ron, and Hermione as the people slowly fanned out until there were none left except the three. 

They soon found themselves under the suspicious gaze of the two teachers. 

'We had nothing to do with this, Professors.' Ron quickly blurted out, already familiar with being blamed for things that they didn't do. 

Harry nodded, 'We would never do something like this, we were just walking to our class,'

Snape and McGonagall judged them with a hard stare as if they were trying to stare into their souls and see if they were telling the truth. Then, Snape turned to McGonagall, 'Perhaps they are not lying, just, at the wrong place at the wrong time,' 

McGonagall turned from Snape to the three children and after a moment, she sighed and told them to quickly go to their lesson.

That night, Snape sent a note to Harry via house elf, telling him to go to his living quarters. The raven-haired boy mentally prepared himself and set off to the dungeon, his mind thinking of more things for him to worry about as he walked. Before he knew it, he had descended the stairs to the lowest floor of the Hogwarts castle and right in front of his guardian's office which leads to his living space. He breathed a lungful of air and breathed it back out and knocked on the door loudly thrice. 

He heard two people conversing and some loud footsteps, the door opened and Harry could see the exhaustion on his adoptive father's face,

'Good evening, Harry. Come in.' Snape opened the door wider for him to pass through and Harry walked past Snape's desk to walk into an open doorway that led to his living room.

Harry was surprised to find his History teacher making his way out of the room and office. Regulus nodded a quick 'goodbye' to him and went away. He heard his dad closes the door behind him and settled on the sofa. 

Snape regarded Harry for a split second and sat down onto the plush, dark, sofa with him.

'You must be wondering why I sent for you.'

Harry shook his head, 'It's obvious it's because of what happened this afternoon, isn't it?'

Snape nodded, 'Is there anything you wish to tell me, Harry? I've noticed you've been a bit on edge these few days.'

Harry thought back to all the sounds he's been hearing and asked himself if he should tell his dad, he might think Harry was crazy but screw it all, he had to take a chance. He was worried that the voices he had been hearing were somehow related to what happened today and even more worried about this happening again.

'I-I've been hearing things. Things that no one else can hear. I don't know if I'm becoming mad or what but I keep hearing some voices. I don't know if I can call them that, they are more like hisses, I guess. At first, I tried to ignore them but then, I heard them more often and Ron and Hermione couldn't hear them at all,' Harry took a moment to breathe. 

Snape also took a moment to gather his thoughts. 'Do they seem to come from any direction?' He asked.

'They always come from the walls. I don't know how it's possible but they do. They may be related to what happened to Mrs. Norris.'

 'Have you told anyone about this? Your friends, perhaps?' 

Harry shook his head, 'No. After I asked them if they heard the sounds the first time and they said no, I didn't bring it up with them again.'

'Thank you for telling me this, Harry. It might prove to be useful while we are looking for what truly happened. And, I am not angry at you, Harry, I know you would never do a thing such as this.'

Harry felt a wave of relief as he said that since he was blamed left and right for things he couldn't control at the Dursleys, he never had anyone believing him. Even at Hogwarts, he was frequently the one under suspicion just because of his father's mischievous behaviour when he was studying there and the fact that he defeated Voldemort. He was happy someone knew he wasn't a trouble-making teenager.