Rowling owns, I do not. Any questions?
H/D, just to see if I can. Admittedly OOC, but really, aren't most slash stories? End of OOTP, after the return from the Ministry. Things have calmed down, and then this happens.
Harry stalked the fifth floor corridor with heavy footfalls. These days, the bad temper was preferable to the terrible ache that seemed to follow him around like Peeves, whispering recriminations and accusations in his ear. "Shouldn't have gone to the Ministry, Harry, why didn't you open the package sooner, didn't Sirius say that's what it was for? Communicating with him when there was no other way?" It was the same thing his brain had been saying to him for the last few days; nothing new, but it still cut just as deep.
Harry tried to bring his feet down a little harder, make a little more noise. It wasn't after hours, and he was perfectly within his rights to be walking around on his own, but the sound of footsteps behind him still sent a panic-jolt through his body, and he started to sprint forward. The following feet sped up as well, and Harry dove behind a tapestry to the stairs he knew were hidden there. He took them three at a time, not daring to look behind him. After his five years of sneaking around Hogwarts, the desire to avoid getting caught alone in the corridors by teachers, Filch or rival students became something like instinct.
Finding himself on the seventh floor, Harry gratefully beat feet to the portrait of the daft wizard being clubbed by trolls in tutus. Pacing back and forth three times, he wished for a place to be safe, where no one could hurt him. The door to the Room of Requirement seemed to sprout from the stone wall, and just as the labored breathing and running steps of a very determined pursuer rounded a corner, Harry closed the door with a sigh of relief.
He collapsed face-down onto a squashy pile of cushions, the same cushions they used to break their falls during DA meetings. Flinging his glasses carelessly on a conveniently close low table, he used the sleeve of his robe to mop his streaming face. Two floors worth of stairs at top speed, even with the adrenal kick of panic, is quite exhausting. As his breathing slowed and his heart pounded in his chest again instead of in his head, he became aware of another sound.
Someone else was in the room with him, just as winded.
A second kick of adrenaline ran through Harry, and he spun around on his pile of cushions. At first seeing nothing but a black and pale blur, he snatched his glasses from the table and shoved them in front of his eyes. Draco Malfoy was leaned against the blank stone wall where the door ought to be; he was red-faced and trying not to hold the stitch in his side.
Both boys just glared at each other for the thirty or so seconds it took their lungs to recover from the chase. Draco was the first to speak.
"Good thing you don't fly as slow as you run, Potter, or Gryffindor games would last for days!"
"I'll out-fly you any day, Malfoy, and out-run you, for that matter." Harry retorted, as he struggled to his feet. His body felt wiped out from the run, and the panic-high was wearing off; but it felt extremely weird to be lying on a pile of pillows with Malfoy in the room. Something was wrong here, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was, yet. Well, Malfoy himself was wrong here, but that wasn't it. "What do you want, anyway, why did you start chasing me?"
"Why did you run?" sneered Malfoy.
Harry was irritated. "Is there no other expression on your face, ever? Do you make that face at your mother?" When the look on Malfoy's face turned to surprise and anger, Harry laughed bitterly. "Ooh, mustn't talk about your mother, right? No matter how many insults you've given me about my parents?" Harry shook with his own rage now. Here in the Room of Requirement, there was no chance of a teacher coming along and spoiling his chance to get back at Malfoy for so many things. This fight is exactly what I need, thought Harry, as he drew his wand.
Malfoy was ready, and he brought his wand up. "Famous Potter, looking for a real fight? No one will save you here, you know!"
"Same to you, Ferret-face!" shouted Harry, and waved his wand to send the first hex. "Petrificus Totalus!" Malfoy's cry of "Rictus Sempra!" was almost simultaneous.
The effect was more than a little startling, to both boys. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not so much as a spark flew from either wand.
There they both were, still in the poses that signified that spells had been cast. Both were braced for hexes that never hit. Astounded, Harry stepped back a pace, keeping a wary eye on Malfoy who looked just as bewildered. When Harry examined his wand for damage, he found none. Cautiously, since he remembered how Ron's poorly repaired wand was apt to behave, he said "Lumos?" His wand tip lit, just as it always did. What the hell was going on here?
"What have you done to my wand, Potter?" Malfoy was livid. He kept pointing it at Harry, muttering curses and hexes, and a whole lot of nothing kept happening.
"Try something that doesn't involve hurting me, moron." Harry said impatiently, catching on to what was happening. Malfoy conjured a shower of green sparks, and the blond boy looked even angrier.
"Are you saying that this stupid room won't even let me duel with you? I'll have to get you out in the corridor, then." Draco spun on his heel to face the blank wall. "I want out of here right now!"
Now Harry realized what was really bothering him. The door they had come through had disappeared! With a sinking feeling, Harry remembered what his desire had been as he paced in front of the Room's magical entrance. I want a place where I'm safe, where no one can hurt me is what he'd repeated to himself, but his inner mind, where the pain and loss still lived had added a qualifier. And where I can't hurt anyone else. He groaned. "I didn't mean him!" Harry muttered. Malfoy looked at Harry like he was stark raving mad.
"Malfoy, tell me. What did you think about when you were looking for the door to where I was hiding?"
"I wanted to get to you, and I didn't want you to get away from me; a place where we wouldn't be interrupted."
"And in that sneaky, Slytherin mind of yours, it was a place with no way out?"
"Isn't that what I just…said…" Malfoy's voice trailed off, and an expression of horror drifted across his face. "Does that mean we're stuck here?"
Harry started to laugh helplessly, even as his eyes felt hot and prickly with tears. "I don't know," he gasped between giggles. "Not even Dumbledore knows how this room really works." Ashamed of the wetness on his face, but still shaking with laughter, Harry stumbled around to the other side of the big pile of cushions. Anything to put some distance between himself and Malfoy. He didn't feel right turning his back on his enemy, but there was no way around that, and the room seemed to have taken care of that.
From behind him, Harry heard Malfoy ask, "How long will…" in a tone that had a little actual fear in it. Harry wasn't able to worry about it just now, though, as he tried to get control of himself. But the next thought he had, after he said it out loud to Draco, sent him into howls of desperate laughter.
"Who knows; after all, it's the end of term. Maybe we'll be here until the new school year starts!"
Harry's laughter was almost drowned out by Draco Malfoy's shriek of denial.
Reviews of all kinds are welcome. If I want to write more, I will. Might be slashy in future, but obviously clean right now.