BTW, JKR Owns. I do not.

Ch 4 Off Balance

The fire whiskey didn't seem as hot now. It still tasted terrible, but when you were just letting it flow down your throat, swallowing instinctively, it was just easy.

Neither Draco Malfoy or Harry Potter was willing to stop first. The carved, wooden cups they held were not large, but there was something about the fire whiskey that felt dangerous. After the first half was gone, something in Harry's mind said that it was a deeply stupid thing to do, to drink so much so fast of such a strong drink. But the stubborn look on Malfoy's face made him keep going.

Malfoy's pale, pointed face was turning red, but he was not stopping. Two thirds of the cup was empty now, and it felt like forever since he'd taken a breath. To make things worse, he was starting to feel a little dizzy. Despite his boasting words earlier, his only previous taste of fire whiskey had been stolen, during one of his parent's rare social occasions. He had no experience with deep drinking, and had never been drunk before.

Harry was the first to stop drinking; his cup had only about half an inch left of the amber liquid. Panting, he set the cup on the ground in front of him, followed almost immediately by Draco.

Malfoy's look was triumphant at first. Then his eyes went out of focus and he leaned forward, putting both hands on the cold stone in front of him for support.

"Whoa."

Concerned, Harry tried to get up. The blood rushing to his head caused him to collapse back down again, somehow landing between the piles of pillows. "Are, are you okay?" he asked from his place on the floor.

"I'm fine, I'll be fine, no problem," Said Draco, leaning farther forward to put his cheek against the floor. "I'm just so hot suddenly."

"It is warm, isn't it? I wish there were a fan or a breeze or something." Harry spoke most of this into a pillow, as his arms were not obeying his stern commands to push him up off the ground. His glasses were digging into the sides of his nose, so once he got his face out of the cushion, he whipped them off, rubbing at the sore places. When Harry looked around without his glasses, all he could see were splotches of color. This wasn't anything new, that had been true as long as he could remember. Only now, for some reason, it was wildly funny.

Draco looked up at the sound of Harry's giggles. "Hey, have you lost it again?" Or at least, that's what he meant to say. It came out more like, "Ey, you wostit agin?" When he didn't get a response, Draco carefully got up on his knees to peer over the heap of cushions.

To Harry, it was like watching a white ball of fuzz rising from the other colors of fuzz. It only made him laugh harder, especially when his mind added Draco Malfoy's mad face to the blur like a cartoon.

Draco was kind of mad. He didn't like being laughed at, especially when he didn't know what for. Intending to get to the other side of the mound to see what the joke was, he started crawling. It was so difficult, for some strange reason, just to make his way across some pillows. But when he tried to stand up, his feet wouldn't stay underneath him, so he crawled. As he was trying to make his way, he saw Harry put his glasses back on. The black haired boy's laughter died as he saw what Draco was doing.

Of course, once Draco had started his all-fours trek across the cushions, it had become an end to itself. It took all his concentration just to keep from falling over. "When did this room get so damn big?" he muttered, not realizing he was speaking out loud.

That set Harry off again, and he giggled madly, watching his nemesis struggling to keep his balance. But Harry moved towards Draco, intending to help.

"Where are you going, Malfoy?" During one of his course corrections, the blond boy had gotten turned, and he was busily trying to crawl up the high pile, instead of making his way towards Harry.

Draco lifted one hand to point in the direction he was going, and promptly tipped over. Frustrated now, he let himself fall, rolling down the side of the seemingly huge pile of cushions.

"Graaaahhhr!" He yelled, his wordless cry echoing only slightly in the small room. Grabbing the nearest pillow, he flung it around, hitting whatever he could without losing his grip. On the second or third swing, he caught Harry a solid blow on the shoulder and sent him flying.

Landing unharmed in the center of the pile, Harry retaliated with a thrown pillow. It struck Draco in the chest. Draco's look of surprise was so comical that Harry started giggling again, only to be stopped by a pillow to the face.

How long the pillow-fight went on was impossible to judge, but before long, both boys were red-faced and gasping. The cushions had been totally redistributed, so there was a carpet of them covering the entire floor of the small room.

"Who won that?" asked Malfoy. They were again on different sides of the room, but the pile between them was gone, and they were both sprawled on top of the newly-cushioned floor.

"Who cares?" groaned Harry, looking straight up at the ceiling. "All I know is, if this room doesn't let us out soon, these pillows won't be fit for anything."

Now Draco giggled. "Is the fire whiskey bottle empty?"

"No, it's not, and eeeew."

Draco blushed. What had made him say that? Now Harry would think he was gross like that. I must still be really drunk, he thought.

Harry spoke again. "But if we don't get access to a bathroom soon, it'll have to do." There was a pause, then Harry sat up a bit, propping himself on his elbow so he could look at his fellow captive. His green eyes were still unfocused behind his glasses, and there was a flush to his cheeks, but his tone was serious. "This is going to sound a bit weird, but maybe if we both wish for it…" He trailed off.

Draco sat up too, coming to a cross-legged position. His face settled into a solemn expression. He placed his wrists on his knees, slowly and deliberately. He closed his eyes, made a circle with the fingers on each hand and said, "Oooohhhmmm," in as deep a voice as he could manage. He opened one eye just enough to see Harry's reaction, and collapsed into giggles, losing his mock-meditation pose.

Harry laughed too, but he'd gotten a strange feeling watching Draco do that. "Hey, do it again. Maybe if we both do it, we'll get a bucket or something."

It took some doing, for both of them to maintain the serious pose for more than a few seconds. They did it, though.

With both of them concentrating, eyes closed and saying "Ohm," anything at all could have happened in that room. What did happen, was that a door appeared. Not in the wall both of them had originally come through, but on the other side of the room It was a plain, wooden door, much like the rest of the doors in the castle. Except this one had a silver crescent moon attached to it. The appearance of the door made no sound; nothing moved in the room.

Harry decided to chance a peek, and opened his eyes. With a shout of joy, he tried to leap to his feet and rush to the door. He managed it, but only barely, as the treacherous cushions tried to slide out from under him. When he reached it, he pushed against the door and revealed a full bathroom and toilet facilities, tastefully separated by carved wooden dividers. It looked a bit like the prefect's bathroom as Harry had seen it in his fourth year, but older.

He turned to announce the find to Draco, and was startled to find that he was directly behind him, also inspecting the facilities from the doorway. The were only inches apart.

Suddenly shy and uncertain, Harry gestured for Draco to precede him. "I can wait, if you need to use it first," Harry said, trying very hard to ignore his increasing need to pee.

"No, you need it more than I do, right now," Said Draco unexpectedly. Then he grinned wolfishly. "Besides, if you take too long, I'll use the fire whiskey bottle."

"Don't you dare!" cried Harry, vowing to take as little time as he could.

X x X

Could be my longest chapter yet. Also, reviews are requested. They don't have to be long, they don't have to be ConCrit; a simple, "Rox!", "Sux!", or "Meh." Will suffice. Am I taking too long to get to whatever it is you want to see in a story like this? Am I doing terrible characterization? Am I skipping something all together? Tell me, and I'll listen. You may not get what you want, but you might. I could do a Stones quote here, but I'd rather not date myself unnecessarily.