Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble-- A Next-Generation-Harry-Potter Tale.

PART II: Not Alone

Chapter 11: Damien Malfoy, The Room

Damien Malfoy

The Room

"Hey, little brother," Scorpius spat out. I stopped in my tracks. I'd been trying to sneak out of the common room without him seeing me.

"You going to the ball with anyone?" he jeered.

I weighed my options. I could tell him I was going with Lucy Weasley, as a friend; or I could lie.

"No," I lied almost instantly. No need to tell my brother I was going to the ball with a Gryffindor. After saying that, my best option would be to run as fast as I could in the other direction.

"You should go with Zanth," he said, grabbing a second-year Slytherin by the scruff of her neck as she tried to walk to the fireplace. "Hey Zanthia, you wanna go to the ball with Damien?"

Zanthia Zabini was awful. She was cruel to all the other houses and everyone, including the Slytherins, that was younger than her. She was scrawny and skinny with sleek black hair, cold dark eyes, and an evil menacing smile. Her skinniness was misleading, however. She was stronger than a griffin and could physically beat people up. And she knew some pretty lethal spells to do the job for her as well. Just last week, she'd sent Lily Potter to the hospital wing with teeth the size of large daggers.

In other words, not someone I wanted to go to the ball with.

"Um, that's okay," I stuttered before anyone could say anything, and speedwalked out of the Slytherin common room.

I liked to walk. I'd ventured around the edge of the Forbidden Forest, walked through the rose gardens they were preparing for the Ball, and gotten lost just for the pleasure of having to find my way back to the common room. I'd found dozens of empty classrooms just filled with things- but there was one in particular I wanted to go to now.

I found the stretch of empty wall easily and paced back in forth in front of it, clearing my mind of all thoughts but one.

And then the door appeared.

I stepped up to it, yanked on the handle, and went inside to The Room.

It was large, square, and wooden. The space was filled with old-fashioned furniture instead of the things with glass and metal and sharp corners that covered our house back at home. A wizarding wireless buzzed in the corner, telling news of the match between Puddlemere and the Cannons. No prizes for guessing who was winning.

There was a tub of Pumpkin Juice and Butterbeer in the corner, with a fat squishy armchair that was perfect for reading in. There was a bookshelf full of things, and a Sneakoscope in the corner that alerted me if my brother or any fellow Slytherins walked down the hallway outside the room. There was also a highly realistic portrait of a Firebolt Three in the corner, which I couldn't ride but I could admire.

It was the room where I could forget I was a Malfoy and just be Damien.