Disclaimer: All characters are owned by JKR, obviously. Spoilers, etc. Set in Sixth year.
A Required Broom ClosetBy: TailFear
One-Shot
Harry cursed quietly to himself as he loped quickly up another flight of stairs in order to escape the sharp footsteps and quiet swish of robes following behind him. Really, he wasn't too surprised, especially since this tended to happen at least once or more every two weeks, but it sure was inconvenient. So far he was managing to keep a good distance away from the footsteps, but luck wasn't with him because no matter where he went the footsteps seemed to be following him, which could have been due to the castle's odd acoustics, but that was doubtful considering his day-to-day luck.
He took a moment at the top of the stairs to get a good look at his surroundings, and found himself on the seventh floor, near the hidden Room of Requirement. With only a split second to make up his mind he headed down the hallway, the footsteps on the stairs echoing ominously in his ears as they moved upwards in his wake.
I need a place to hide until it's safe to leave…I need a place to hide until it's safe, his mind whirred frantically as he paced back and forth in front of the area where the door should have been three times. The door appeared on command, set in the wall as if it had been there all along, making Harry exhale in relief before pushing the door open and entering, leaving the door to close slowly behind him.
Brooms were leaned in one corner, next to a tall stack of empty mop buckets and a few bottles of cleaner. The dark-haired boy raised an eyebrow at his surroundings, but shrugged, grateful for the shelter anyway. He turned around to face the closing door, only to see a pale hand catch it before it sealed shut. In a split second Harry hid behind a shelf cluttered with various things (some of them really were pretty indistinguishable) just as the door was pulled open and hastily closed.
Darkness fell over the whole room as the door was sealed, not even a magical flame bursting into life in the complete darkness. Two sets of harsh breathing filtered quietly through the room as two sets of hearts calmed down.
"Lumos."
The word lit a small ball on the tip of the other person's wand, illuminating a small sphere on the floor and ceiling around the person, and unfortunately casting light on most of Harry behind the bedraggled shelf. If he stayed still maybe he wouldn't be seen, but once again luck wasn't working for him. Just as he had resigned himself to staying still for as long as it took for the other person (whom he couldn't see clearly) to leave, his foot slipped in a puddle of something and sent him crashing sideways into the shelf, sending most of the odds and ends careening to the floor with an echoing crash.
"Who's there?"
Harry recognized the voice than belonged to the light as it echoed through the room following the crash. He only had the time to scramble to his feet before the light rounded the shelf, lighting upon him brushing the dust off of his shirt.
"Oh, Potter, it's only you," Draco's drawling tones caused Harry to frown as the other boy smirked at him from a few feet away.
"Malfoy, to what do I owe this honor?" since Draco was here, Harry might as well take advantage of the lack of teachers in order to bait the pale Slytherin boy.
"It isn't an honor, Potter, we're in a broom closet," the disdain in Draco's voice could be tasted from across the room. The blond boy took the time to look around the small closet with a sneer, his gray eyes clearly mocking his darker rival.
"Why are you here, Malfoy?" Harry's voice, and the snarl that it contained, were clearly heard by the pale boy as he moved back into the open center of the room.
"Hiding, like you," the sneer grew on Draco's face as he watched the other boy relinquish his hiding place behind the shelf. "Unless, of course, you're here because you actually like to hang out in abandoned broom closets."
"Even I don't like hanging out in broom closets," Harry snapped, rolling his eyes behind his glasses.
"You could have fooled me."
Harry ignored the other boy in favor of moving to the door and grabbing the door handle, giving it a good yank and intending to open the door and peek into the hallway to see if the coast was clear. To his surprise the door didn't budge, and even when Harry put all his weight onto the door, both pushing and pulling, it didn't even groan in protest. He also took a leaf from Hermione's book and cast a few unlocking spells, only to be met with null results.
"What the hell?" Harry murmured, leaning against the door and panting from his efforts.
"What? Are you too incompetent to even open a simple door?" Harry smirked up into Draco's sneer.
"Well, if you're so perfect, then why don't you open the door?" Harry rolled his eyes as the blond boy brushed past him, trying to knock him off balance.
He had to admit, it was amusing to watch the blond push and pull and cast spells on a door that wasn't going to move, but it wasn't so amusing when said boy whirled around with an eerie gleam in his eye that seemed to be intended for Harry himself.
"What did you do?"
The question was simple enough, but it still took Harry by surprise. He scuttled backwards as the blond boy advanced on him, reminding him of Snape when he was in a towering rage.
"What did you do?" the dull roar that issued from Draco's mouth caught Harry again by surprise, making him jump at least another foot backwards.
"What do you mean, what did I do? I obviously didn't do anything!" Harry yelled back, regaining his composure.
"You obviously did something if the door won't open," Draco snarled, pulling his wand out of his robes and pointing it at Harry.
"I didn't do anything. Besides, when did I have the time to do something to the door? I was behind the shelf when you came in!"
Draco fixed him with a scathing look as he considered this, but he did put his wand away, "So, if this room just locks itself on its own, what room is it?"
Harry raised an eyebrow at the other boy as he moved to find a relatively clean space of floor to sit on. When he was finally settled with his thin arms wrapped around his knees did he even start to give Draco an answer. "Why would I know which room this is?"
"I'm not stupid, Potter," Draco snarled, moving so that he could tower over the darker boy. "I know that you and your little friends were up here last year, so you obviously know where you are, since I doubt that you all "practiced" in a broom closet like this."
Harry blinked up at the angered boy innocently, his face pleasantly blank, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Draco snorted, still glaring down at Harry and his indifferent look, "Really, Potter. You have to know exactly where you are, of you wouldn't have just ducked into a broom closet that locked itself."
"I didn't think that it was going to lock me in, I'm not stupid," Harry snapped, still keeping his face carefully calm as he looked up at the pale boy above him.
"So you do know," Draco was on the admission in a flash, his eyes gleaming dangerously in the dim light cast by his wand.
Harry sighed, "This is the Room of Requirement."
"The Room of Requirement?"
Harry smiled at Draco's question, but it wasn't a nice smile. His bright green eyes flashed up at his rival as he answered, "Take a guess."
Draco snarled at Harry, drawing back his foot as if to kick the other boy, "Don't play games with me, Potter, you won't like the outcome."
Harry jumped to his feet, crossing his arms over his chest, his nasty smile still stretched across his face, "It's the Room of Requirement. Whatever you require, you'll find."
"So I could request a butterbeer, and one would appear?" Draco mused, a sneer spreading across his face before disappearing again.
"Not exactly, wanting something because its easy is different than a need or requirement," Harry said, keeping an eye on Draco. He didn't want to be the one who ended up knocked out on the floor or worse by the time the room decided to unlock itself.
"So, because I "required" somewhere to hide so that I wouldn't get a detention or worse, the room appeared?" Draco asked, raising an eyebrow at the shorter boy standing in front of him.
"No, it appeared because I required it, you just squirreled in on the opportunity."
Draco sneered, crossing his arms over his chest mockingly, "Using Muggle sayings now are we? You can't just say that I took advantage of a good opportunity? How pathetic, even a mudblood like you should be able to do better."
Harry rolled his eyes and didn't answer, instead he returned to sitting on the floor, this time leaning against the wall and stretching his feet out in front of him. Draco's taunting was starting to reach an unusual low for someone who could make it rich slandering people in the media.
"What's the matter, Malfoy? Having problems coming up with good insults? Because I'm sure that I've heard those before."
The blond boy fumed, bringing his hands down to his sides. There was just something about Harry, or really a group of somethings mashed together, that just made him furious. Whether it was the other boy's stupid scar, his hair, his arrogance, his fame, or all of them and a number of other little things, he wasn't sure, but he knew that the other boy just rubbed him the wrong way, and almost always had.
Fury started to well up in the blond's body, boiling his blood and overflowing into his actions as he stared down at the darker boy lounging on the floor as if nothing was happening, casually throwing his insults back in his face. He was Draco Malfoy, a pureblood wizard, rich, from an affluent family, someone not to be trifled with, and yet here this stupid half-blood boy was defying him and screwing up his life at every turn. From day one the Potter boy had stood up to him, dismissed his hand and his friendship, and meddled in his plans while insulting the Malfoy family and Draco himself.
"You know what you are?" Draco hissed, surprising Harry from his perusal of the floor around him, "You are just a stupid Gryffindor who has had his head swelled by fame and luck. You associate with paupers and mudbloods and idiots and then have the gall to tell me that I'm pathetic, stuck-up, and spoiled? You would be nothing without your press, nothing. You, and your little idiotic friends, know nothing."
"I know nothing?" Harry's bangs, as shaggy as they were, concealed most of his face, hiding his scar and anger darkened eyes from Draco's prying sight.
"That's right, you know nothing," Draco snapped. "You know nothing, because you are nothing."
"I know nothing," Harry was nearly laughing, his sides heaving as he suppressed as little gasps of self-deprecating amusement. "That's rich, coming from you."
Draco's face twisted nastily as he growled at the laughing boy on the floor, Harry's amusement fueling his anger more. His gray eyes flashed as he reached down, and with one hand pulled the laughing boy to his feet, then closer so that their faces were inches away.
"You are just a stupid boy, hyped up on fame, who sent my father to Azkaban. Azkaban!" Draco's breath was blowing hot over the black-haired boy's face, ruffling the bangs still obscuring half of his face.
"Oh yeah, you're still angry about that, aren't you?" Harry's voice was still mocking, but the tremors coursing through his body had stopped.
"I'm still angry about that? Of course I'm still angry about that! You sent my father to Azkaban!" Draco shouted, sharply shaking Harry as his voice grew louder.
Harry looked up, and Draco caught a glimpse of rage churning behind sparkling green eyes before one of Harry's slender hands wrapped around his wrist and twisted, forcing Draco to let go of his clothing.
"I did send your father to prison, but he, oh, did only try to kill me," Harry's voice was deceptively calm, the tone of voice he'd developed over the summer to deal with the Dursleys. "I didn't really think that it was harsh at all, especially since he's second to Voldemort on the list of people trying to kill me. I'm sure you understand."
"My father is following those he's chosen to serve," Draco said, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. Harry hadn't missed the way the blond had flinched when he'd said Voldemort's name. Apparently even Junior Death Eaters didn't feel safe enough to utter his name aloud.
"Then your father can make the prison comfortable for those who follow him. But, you know, he'll probably escape soon enough anyway, especially with the Dementors publicly switching sides," Harry's smirk contrasted with his eyes in a jarring fashion, giving Draco the feeling that he was look at someone who wasn't entirely stable. "But, then again, your father doesn't seem to be the brightest without someone else holding the reins."
"You prat! Where do you get off talking about my father at all?" Draco felt the anger bubbling back up, testing his tight self-control. "What about your parents? Your father and his friends took pleasure in tormenting students in the other houses, especially students in the Slytherin house. Your father is a glorified jerk who was allowed to do whatever, whenever, and who got away with bending every rule he came across!"
"Do you think that I'm proud of that?" Harry's soft voice deflated some of Draco's anger. "Do you think that I'm proud knowing that my father took pleasure in throwing hexes just because he could? Do you think I'm happy to know what kind of person my father was at school?"
Draco's mouth opened as he floundered for an answer, but Harry cut off any attempts he could have made by continuing, "Do you think that I like knowing that the person whom everyone honored and glorified was someone I hope to never be? So what if I'm famous? I never asked for anything other than a family that didn't hate me, and now the only person who fell into that category is dead!"
"What, do you want pity now?" Draco's sneer was back, firmly set in his face by sheer willpower. "Do you want everyone to say "Poor Potter" and send you fan mail because you have such a sob story? Get over yourself, you're just a stupid, short body with an ego the size of this castle."
"Your barbs sure do sting, hit me with another," Harry deadpanned, his eyes hardening and swallowing his emotions. "But, oh wait, I've probably heard most of them."
"Sure, Potter. So what, you've been called names," Draco rolled his eyes, smirking at Harry's sneer. "It's the famous Harry Potter, our newest-"
"Celebrity," Harry finished for him. "I remember that, first day of Potions with Snape."
"I'm glad to see that you know your place."
"No," Harry said, stopping Draco before the blond could really get started. "No, that was only a drop in the bucket. That was added to a long list that includes: boy, useless, freak, mudblood, abnormality, celebrity, worthless, abomination." His voice grew colder and colder with each word, making Draco take a step back from the venom held in the shorter boy's tone. "'Maybe the magic will be squashed out of him if he spends more time in the cupboard' or 'We don't want your kind anywhere near our sweet Dudleykins' or any of the other remarks that are too many to mention."
"Cupboard?" the question had escaped Draco before he could contain it, earning himself a look that he couldn't decipher.
"Oh, most people don't know about that," Harry's voice was dead as he spoke, but his eyes were filling again with anger. "When I was young my room was the cupboard under the stairs. I would be locked in it for days if I showed signs of anything…abnormal."
Harry sneered and turned away, returning himself to his spot on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees. Draco stayed standing, rooted to the spot as his mind sorted through the information he had just been presented with. It wasn't that the other boy had told him that he was wrong, it was that he had done a better job of belittling himself than Draco had. He blinked his gray eyes for a moment before frowning and turning his back on the other boy.
Perfect Potter, even mentally the sneer didn't hold the venom that it had held even half an hour earlier. He frowned, then sighed with frustration. I am a Malfoy. I shouldn't be feeling anything but anger for this, this boy but anger, but disdain. I shouldn't be feeling like he's an actual person, because he's just a pawn.
But Draco couldn't even convince himself mentally anymore that Harry was pawn. That realization struck a chord in him, and his anger welled up again, pushing down the sympathy and the feeling that Harry might actually be a person.
With a crash another shelf was toppled over, the victim of Draco's bubbling anger. He whirled around, intending to start in on the sitting boy, his face a mask of rage, only to find that Harry had turned himself so that he was facing the wall, his back to the angered Draco.
"What the hell is your problem?" Draco yelled, his hands balled into fists. "Do you just expect everyone to pity you, to fall all over you with words of comfort, doting upon your every need? What, is this just another ploy for attention?"
"You know what?" Harry's voice was quiet compared to the harsh breathing that was filling the small room. "I hate the attention. I hate everyone swamping me with questions, expecting me to have the answer, the solution to their problems. Maybe I don't want to be the savior of the Wizarding World, maybe I don't want to be the Boy-Who-Lived, but I am, and I have to live with that. So if you don't like it, you can just SHUT UP!"
Draco's mouth shut with an audible click as he glared at the boy who wasn't even looking at him.
"Oh, the door probably won't open for a while, at least until it deems the atmosphere 'safe'," Harry commented.
"What?" Draco was thrown for a moment by the seemingly random change in subject.
"The room responded to me needing a place to hide until it was safe to leave, so we could be in here for a while. I'd prefer it if you stay over there, but you are a Malfoy, and won't listen to anything I say anyway," Harry spoke while still facing away from the blond.
"Fine," Draco muttered, his anger fleeing again, "Whatever."
He found a spot closer to the locked door and sat down, his back against a stone wall. For a while he amused himself with a few simple spells before he gave up and transfigured a broken piece of pottery into a pillow so that he could at least try to get some sleep before classes started up the next morning.
Harry only turned around when he heard Draco's breathing even out as he fell asleep. He watched with his green eyes as the other boy's chest rose and fell softly and as a few soft strands of white blond hair fell across the softened planes of his face. He found it odd that the other boy could look so hard and cold during the day, but by the faint light still being cast by his wand he looked as if he were harmless. It was confusing to Harry to see the other boy so different from his normal self, to see him curled up in a protective ball, all of his vital and soft parts hidden in his curl of arm and leg.
The quiet sounds of bolts falling into place alerted him to the door being unlocked. With a quiet sigh he pushed himself off of the floor with one hand, drawing his legs up under him as he stood. A few steps took him within nudging range of the sleeping boy, and after a few seconds he made up his mind and nudged the other boy with the toe of his shoe until the Malfoy boy stirred, blinking up at him with sleepy eyes.
"The door's unlocked, you're free to go."
And Harry left, leaving Draco on his own in the Room of Requirement. The blond watched as the door shut behind the darker boy, leaving him alone in the sphere of light still glowing faintly at the end of his wand.
Ron and Hermione looked up as Harry made his way to the breakfast table, a proverbial thundercloud looming over his head as he stalked through a crowd of first and second years. They shared a look as Harry sat down beside Ron, a scowl on his face as he snatched some bacon and toast from the platters nearest to him.
"Where were you last night, Harry?" Ron asked, watching his friend as he angrily tore his toast to pieces before stuffing the individual pieces into his mouth.
"Out," he muttered between mouthfuls.
"Well that was obvious," Hermione said, rolling her eyes when Harry shot her a nasty look. "Oh don't go starting this again, Harry. We went through this enough last year, so stop giving me that look."
Harry sighed and stopped glaring at his friends, but didn't stop tearing his toast to bits before eating it.
"So, where were you?" Ron asked again, dodging Harry's new glare by taking some more eggs.
"I was taking a walk and got sidetracked," Harry replied, shrugging his shoulders at the reproving looks that his two friends were sending in his way, inadvertently catching a look at the Slytherin table. Once again he started glaring, only this time at the back of a blond head that was equally slumped over his own breakfast.
"It looks like Malfoy got run over by a troll between waking up and appearing for breakfast," Ron commented, smirking at the disheveled look that the Malfoy blond was sporting this morning.
"I overheard Pansy Parkinson saying something about Malfoy not getting in until late last night either," Hermione's eyes were watching Harry carefully as she said this, but she was disappointed to find that he didn't even so much as blink in response to her comment.
"Serves that git right, where ever he was," Ron muttered through a mouthful of eggs.
"Yeah, where ever he was," Harry murmured. "Where ever he was."
Ron and Hermione shared another look over their friend's head before both shrugged and continued on with their breakfasts, leaving Harry to dwell on his thoughts in silence.
"What did you do to me Potter?"
Draco's voice floated into his ears, angry, yet confused at the same time. Harry turned to see the blond boy alone, without his usual accompaniment of thugs and simpering girls.
"What do you want Malfoy?"
Harry knew that his voice reached the other boy by the glare that he was receiving. Instead of stopping and waiting for the cold boy to catch up he slowed his pace to allow the other boy a chance of catching up with him.
"What did you do to me? Why don't I hate you as much?"
Draco's voice was ringing in his ears, trying to force its way into his brain. He turned, fixing his brilliant green eyes upon the taller boy and his angry face.
"Where's your usual guard, Malfoy? Waiting around the corner for a convenient place to jump me?" Harry snapped, his eyes flashing before he turned away again and continued on.
"No, they aren't here. I told them that I had something else to do, something to do alone," Draco's voice was irritated, annoyed that he was in the situation that he was in.
"Why should I believe you, when every time you open your mouth it's an insipid threat or a lie?"
Draco stood against the accusation, his eyes flashing in defiance as he looked at the boy with black hair, his gray eyes flashing.
"What did you do to me?" Draco insisted, his voice rising slightly. "What did you do to make me see you as human, to make me see you differently?"
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, abruptly stopping and turning to look the taller boy in the face. "What do you mean "make me see you as human?""
"You did something to me, something to my head, and now I can't hate you! Now I can't just give you over like I could have before, like you're a pawn in some game. So I'm asking you, what did you do to me?" the venom in Draco's voice overcame the confusion as he spoke, his words getting colder as he became more confused. "You made yourself into something more than just a statue on a pedestal that's good to throw rocks at! I want to know what magic you used on me! Why can't I hate you?"
"Whatever I did Malfoy, it pales in comparison to what you've done on your own. Besides, I see you as human, and I still hate your guts."
With that Harry left, leaving Draco alone in the hallway to glare at his retreating back as he tried to figure out what he was going to do with his new revelation.
It had been months since that day near the beginning of term when he and Draco had been locked together in the Room of Requirement. It wasn't as if the experience hadn't been an eye-opening one, it had been, it was just that there had been so many things going on between now and then, (classes, fights, the beginning of the war), that the memory had been shoved into the back of Harry's brain. Sure, he still remembered, but the only thing he really gleaned from the memory was that he should stay away from Draco until the other boy had stopped looking at him with murderous intent.
The war had brought interesting changes to life in Hogwarts castle. Now students rarely went outside where there were outer wards that were becoming strained under the increasing pressure of the dark energy rolling off their enemy in waves. Somehow the teachers had even managed, with the help of the castle itself, to recreate the greenhouses and even a holding pen for all of Hagrid's odd critters so that students could try to pretend that life was going somewhat normally, even if they knew that they were learning spells to aid them in a fight and survival skills along with their normal lessons.
But it wasn't until the outer wards were breached did it really become apparent that the remaining students (those whose parents hadn't called them out as soon as the first hint of a threat had appeared) were actually going to have to use some of this newfound knowledge in battle, whether it be helping Madame Pomfrey with the injured, taking turns strengthening one of the various inner wards, or actually doing some fighting.
It was on one such occasion that Harry found himself alone in one of the higher corridors, closer to where the actual fighting was going on. He'd been with the main group, but in the midst of explosions, flying spells, and dodging rock shards, he'd gotten separated from the rest of the group and was now on his own to find his way back. The problem was that the acoustics in the castle were such that they made it hard to figure out in what direction the fight was actually happening in. He suspected as well that the castle was also making it more difficult than usual to get anywhere, especially since there were moving staircases that hadn't moved before.
"So, Potter, alone in the middle of a battle, are we?"
Draco's drawl had really been the last thing he wanted to hear, especially since he had gone out of his way to avoid the other boy since the blond seemed to want to rip into him even more than normal every chance he got.
"Can we hold off on this little confrontation for a while? I actually need to help save the castle, instead of plotting its demise like you," Harry's tone held more venom than normal, probably due to stress, but it worked because the other boy's face dropped its sneer and started frowning instead.
"I'm actually not coming to kill you Potter, no, I have an ultimatum," Draco's voice was still confident, haughty, but his eyes were flashing quickly from side to side, making sure they were truly alone, or just a nervous habit.
"An ultimatum? Like what?"
"See, after thinking about your little speech in that closet-"
"What, are you going to yell at me again, or try to call me names that have been overused?" Harry rolled his eyes sarcastically.
"Let me finish," the command in the taller boy's voice was strong, cutting Harry off before he could finish his thought on the matter. "As I was saying, you got me thinking, and I decided that I wanted to be the one to kill you," he held up his hand before Harry could speak and shook his head, "but I realize that you already have a long list of people who want to kill you as well. So my ultimatum is that I protect and help you until those people are out of the way, then I get my chance."
Harry blinked at the other boy for a moment before breaking out into a small grin that quickly became a full blown smile, "Why, Malfoy, that is probably the most Slytherin thing I've seen you do yet."
"So you agree," Draco's voice was smug, "Well, then. You have to make sure that your little friends don't do anything stupid after this, or I may withdraw my offer."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it."
And Harry left once again for the fight, leaving Draco Malfoy alone in the hallway, smug with victory. Despite the fact that he had effectively just placed himself on the opposite side of everything he had grown up believing in, he had still won, because in the end, he was going to be the one who won against Harry. Those fools just didn't know that yet. With that last comforting thought he followed Harry into the midst of battle, where they later came out smoking, but victorious.
FIN
Sorry to everyone who was expecting a HN update...er, I'll get to that, I really will. I promise. Oops.