Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I'm using him without shame.

AN: I'm skipping along pretty quickly, I don't like to muck around too much with stuff that isn't interesting anyway. The good stuff is coming soon. I'm just getting you and myself into the story.

Rifts

Chapter 2: Peace

It had been a very long journey and after a full eleven hours of travelling all the students were exhausted. Even the adults accompanying them had become snappish and problems were dealt with swift and severe. Not that there were many problems, the students were way too tired to do much of anything.

First they had taken the train in Hogsmead to King's Cross, there they made their way to platform 2⅓ where they boarded another train, which was bewitched to be unplottable, untraceable and even had blinded windows so no one could see where they were going. When they arrived on another train station, of which no one but the chaperones knew where it was, they took a muggle train. After that they had to run to catch a bus and one hour and a long walk later they had almost arrived at the school. Before going up to the school, everyone quickly enlarged their luggage, so no one would get suspicious.

Waiting by the front gate of the enormous building, not as gigantic as Hogwarts but still very large for a muggle school, was a short, bald man wearing a neat dark blue suit. After he talked with Remus Lupin, one of their chaperones from the order of the phoenix, the muggle guided them across the grounds, through the school and to the dormitories, which were especially arranged for them since the muggle children didn't sleep at the school.

Now they were all standing in a broad hallway lighted by extremely bright white lamps and with the light reflecting of the even brighter white walls, it was like walking in a hospital. Even though the school had looked impressive on the outside, it was cold and empty on the inside, at least this part of it, they hadn't seen the school part after all. There were four other equally white hallways branching off the main one on their left and large windows on their right, showing the night sky.

"Alright everyone, pay attention please." The droning voice of their guide reminded Harry eerily of Binns, the history of magic teacher and the most boring person.... ghost, he had ever come across, until now that was, and this guy was still alive. "Now I understand your class is divided by 4 houses, so each house will have a hallway. I will see you all in the morning, good night." At that the man made his way through the mob of children and left, probably to go to bed himself.

Harry looked down the first hallway and noticed it wasn't really a hallway, but more a niche with two doors on either side. He walked back out and saw the houses split up to find their beds, which Harry thought would be a wonderful idea.

The other Gryffindors had already walked past him to the doors in the first 'hallway' and into the rooms, while the Hufflepuffs took the corridor next to them, in the third set of rooms were the Ravenclaws and at the end of the main hallway were the Slytherins.

Following his dorm mates inside, he took in the room. It wasn't as small as he had expected. Across from the entrance was the door to the bathroom, which held a toilet, one shower and two sinks with a mirror on the wall above them. Walking past the doors after closing the one behind him, Harry saw that the room became much broader past the bathroom and held two bunk beds, one on either side of the room. In between the beds, under the window, was a table with four chairs. The room was as bare as the corridors and a lot smaller than their normal dorms, but it was only for three months and right now all of them were too tired to care.

That was until Harry realised there were only four beds and there were five Gryffindor boys.

This was his chance.

Maybe now he could get away from his overbearing roomies. No more people checking if he had slept, if he had been dreaming, if he had put up silencing charms again. No more having to talk after he had a nightmare, no more concerned glances and annoying questions, like if he was alright or did he want to go see the nurse.

Right when he wanted to bring up the lack of a bed, Remus Lupin walked in. Apparently he had noticed the fact that there would be a problem too and had come to solve it.

"Good evening boys." At their nods he continued. "As you've probably seen, you have only four beds. Now I'm afraid we can't just add another bed as this would go against safety regulations, so one of you will have to move in with the Slytherins."

Harry couldn't help but think how typically Remus this was, no twisting around the fact of the matter. He was also wondering if a little peace from the Gryffindors was worth rooming with the Slytherins.

"Slytherins? Can't we switch to another room or something?." Ron asked, clearly upset with the, to him al least, horrible arrangement.

But Remus quickly dashed in that hope. "All rooms are the same size and since every house has either three or more boys and girls, none of them can switch. You'll have to decide who will go."

"Oh man three months with the Slytherins, I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Came the dramatic tones from Seamus, who was already sitting on the left upper bed.

"I'll go." Harry made it sound like he was making a gigantic sacrifice, but on the inside he was cheering. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle would probably leave him alone if Harry ignored them, after all, they wouldn't want to fight for three months straight when they would have to sleep in the same room, would they?

"What! Harry, you can't go. Malfoy will probably kill you in your sleep or something." Ron of course, always quick to judge, but the other boys were trying very hard not to show their relief.

"Are you sure about this?" Remus asked, looking at him suspiciously. Apparently even with Harry's well known 'self-sacrificing' nature, they hadn't expected him to do this.

"Yeah, it's fine. Who else would you send? Ron? With his temper there would be a fistfight every day." At this the so called boy turned bright red, but didn't say anything. It was the truth after all. "And we just couldn't break up the love birds, now could we?" He said, forcing a smile on his face while pointing at Dean and Seamus.

"I can go?" Came the uncertain voice of Neville.

Now a true smile, though small, made it's way to Harry's mouth. "No offence Nev, but even though you improved a lot last year with DA and all, they would still eat you alive."

Neville gave a small nod, looking a little ashamed, but again couldn't hide his relief at not having to sleep in the same room as three sons of deatheaters.

"It's fine, I'll see you lot tomorrow at breakfast." At this Harry picked up his bags and made his way to the last corridor. Remus was following him, probably to make sure there wouldn't be any trouble.

He couldn't wait to see the look on Malfoy's face when he realised he had to bunk with the boy-who-lived.

He had been right.

The sight was priceless.

The blond Slytherin was actually staring at him in shock as he entered the room and set down his luggage.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Was the first reaction he got.

Before Harry could answer anything, Remus walked in and explained the situation. Five minutes, one talk and three horrified slytherins later, Remus told them to go to bed and left.

"Drawn the short straw Potter?" Malfoy sneered, while making up his bed with the sheets and blanket that had been lying on the mattress. The other two boys were already lying in bed and were looking at the two rivals with interest, ready to interfere at any moment.

"Nope, I volunteered." He almost laughed at the look he got with that statement, almost. But tired as he was he made his way to the only empty bed, the one above Crabbe and across from Malfoy. Putting sheets on his own bed he realised how lucky he was to get the top bunk, it might be a higher fall if he had another nightmare, but at least he would be able to sit on top of comfortably when he couldn't sleep once again. Something that happened quite often nowadays.

All the while the blond had been muttering about things not being fair and having to put up with a bloody Gryffindork.

Harry pulled a sleeping shirt and a pair of boxers out of his bag, but before he made his way to the bathroom to change, he turned to the Slytherin who was most likely to make trouble for him. "Look, I'm not any happier with this arrangement than you are." Well he probably was, but that had nothing to do with them. "And I'm not interested in fighting with you for three months while sleeping in the same room. So lets make a deal, I'll leave you alone, if you leave me alone. We'll ignore each other and we'll get by just fine."

"Fine, Potter," Malfoy snapped at him as he put on another shirt. "Just don't bring any of your friends in here."

While turning out the light and making his way to his bed, it suddenly hit him what a weird day it had been. Before clearing his head in order for his occlumency to work, as he had finally mastered it over the summer when he was taught by Dumbledore, he had a final thought that maybe now that his friends couldn't watch him twenty four hours a day anymore, he could finally have the peace to be who he really was, especially in the muggle world, where no one would recognise him anyway.

No need to play perfect anymore so they don't worry.

He fell asleep with his mind clear and feeling like a great burden had lifted off his shoulders.

But he did forget one thing though.

His silencing spells

End chapter 2.

Wow it's actually 10:40 in the morning now, I pulled an all nighter, oops....

Thanks to:

Kagomepotter, for being my first reviewer for this story and

Oracale

Insanechildfanfic

Purity-in-Black

Gboygirl2002

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