Disclaimer: see prologue
Guide: "Talk", Thoughts, ~letters and other written stuff~,
Rating: M for sexual themes and language, slash in later chapters
Beta: jointheclub and Makoto Sagara
Update of beta-ed version: 14th August
AN: Thank you for all your reviews, you are the best ^_^ Also, I am very happy to have nearly 100 story alerts. On a funny note, if the statistics of are to believed about fifteen people have skipped chapter 3.
Also the poll I was talking about in the last chapter finally is on my profile page, silly me forgot to check the box to make it show up on the profile.
Furthermore, this chapter is rather short, but I already told you last time that I decide to have 2 short chapters with a shorter waiting time in-between instead of a long one with a long wait.
But enough said, enjoy the first private moment between our favourite pair when they are exploring Room Zero...
-~-~- Altair -~-~-
-~-~-by Still waters are deep-~-~-
-~-~- Chapter 7 – Room Zero -~-~-
"So," said Draco to break the awkward silence, after the last of his year-mates had gone up the staircase and only he and Harry were still left in the downstairs common room. The teachers had left the room when the announcements were over.
"So," was Harry's meaningful answer. Even if the new clothes had given him more self-confidence and he already had accepted that he would need to get intimate with his partner, he still was rather shy when it came to start anything of this sort.
Draco, having gotten a feeling that Harry would not initiate anything, decided that he would have to take the lead. Therefore, he asked Harry: "Do you want to go upstairs and check out our new room?"
"Why not? So let's go," Harry said, grateful that Draco was taking the lead.
And so, the two of them went up the stairs together, moving towards the last room on the far left side of the balcony.
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When Draco and Harry arrived before the unspectacular door of their room (it being wooden like the other doors they had passed by; the only difference that it had the number zero painted on it instead of a higher number), Draco took the initiative again. With the words: "No reason to avoid the unavoidable. So, let's find out what makes the famous Room Zero so special," Draco opened the door, letting Harry enter the room first before he followed him in and closed the door behind them.
Looking around, they noticed that they were currently standing in a small beige coloured hallway, which had three maple* doors altogether. Through one of them, they had just entered the hallway they were currently standing in and the other two doors were opposite each other to the left and right of the entrance door, about three meters down the corridor. On the far wall, opposite the entrance door, was a brass clothes rack as well as a maple sideboard. All in all, the room radiated a nice, warm and welcoming feeling.
"Nothing special about this. It looks like the layout of the usual rooms Snape described at the end of last term. Since we are taking Altair classes, one of those doors must lead into the bedroom and the other one would lead into the special Altair room," Harry said, finding the light colour scheme of the room calming and inviting, making him feel comfortable enough to take the lead this time around.
"Hmm", Draco voiced in agreement to Harry's statement. He too rather liked the design of the room. "So, left or right first?" Draco asked Harry.
"Right," Harry said while going over to open the door on the right side.
Inside, they found a rectangular sitting room decorated in green and black. Opposite the door was a big window, which also had a comfy dark green window seat. The whole left wall was covered with bog oak* bookcases, which were separated in the middle of the wall by a fireplace. Before the fireplace was a coffee table, also made of bog oak, as well as two black comfy chairs and a black sofa with green pillows were arranged. On the right side of the room, near the door, was a small kitchen area and further inside the room was a dining table by a second window. Over all, the room looked rather comfy with Slytherin touches in the colour scheme because of the bog oak furniture and the green walls, sofa pillows and curtains.
"Nice, I did not know that you got your own kitchen and fireplace. But since this is neither the special Altair room nor the bedroom, I wonder where we will be sleeping and performing Sexual magic," Draco stated, a bit worried, but nevertheless finding the room to his liking. He had always loved a good mixture of black and green.
"It is not as bright as the hallway, but even if the room has a Slytherin colour scheme it is not as gloomy as the Slytherin common room," Harry commented.
"How do you know how the Slytherin common room looks like?" Draco asked, interested in spite of himself.
"That is my secret, but the room is still lovely, especially the view from the window," Harry said, having walked over to the window with the window seat while Draco had gone over to the bookcases. "I am worried about the lack of a bedroom though. As comfortable as the couch looks, I still prefer to sleep in a real bed."
"Me too. Maybe being assigned to Room Zero means that we do not need a special room to perform sexual magic in?" Draco said jokingly. "At least we have some interesting Ritual Magic books here," Draco said, pointing at some books on the shelves whose titles he had been reading with interest, taking one of them out from the shelf to look through it.
While yawning, Harry stepped away from the window over towards Draco, saying: "I am getting rather tired. Come on; let's see if we find a bedroom behind the other door"
When Draco did not make any indication that he would start moving soon, Harry took the book out of Draco's hand and placed the book back onto the shelf, before taking Draco's hand and dragging him out of the room with him. Neither of them had noticed that the door was not made of maple, as it should have been, but of bog oak instead when they went through it from the living room.
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To their mutual relief, behind the second door was a bedroom.
"Puh, now I'm relieved," Harry said when he saw the big four poster bed* made of purpleheart wood* by the right wall of the room. Both the headboard and the footplate looked similar to a Gothic window. The drapes were made of a dark red velvet. And on either side of the bed was a bedside table also made of purpleheart.
Harry rather liked the Gryffindor colour scheme of the room, especially since the other room was designed in a Slytherin theme. Draco was fonder of the headboard and the footplate since they were ideal for tying someone up with all the struts they had. He already did imagine how it would look like if he would tie up Harry there with their neckties.
There was also a big window opposite the entrance, spanning nearly over the whole wall. On the left was a long sturdy table, which was usually found inside a potions classroom.
"This table must be for brewing sexual potions," Draco said pointing at said table along the left wall.
"Seems like it, even if I would have preferred to not have it placed inside the bedroom," Harry said, not happy at all to have to sleep in a room which reminded him of the potions classroom.
"I wonder where the other doors lead to, since there shouldn't have been any additional rooms," Draco wondered aloud, having noticed three other maple doors inside the room while looking around.
"There is only one way to find out," Harry said, going over to the door to the left of the entrance door.
"Cool, we have our own bathroom. Even if the bathtub is not as big as the prefect one, it is still rather spacious," Harry said after he stepped inside the room.
"And I thought that we would still be using the common bathrooms in our house dorms, since this is what Snape had told me when I've asked him about it. This must be a special feature of Room Zero. And I believe that I better not ask how you, a non-prefect and non-Slytherin, not only know how the Slytherin common room looks like, but also how big the prefects' bathtub is," said Draco when he joined Harry inside the spacious bathroom, which did not only contain the before mentioned big bathtub but also a shower, with enough room for four people, as well as a toilet and a sink made for two people.
Now, this is a shower ideal to have shower sex in. It's no wonder that they would place something like this inside Room Zero. It makes a great place for foreplay and other stuff, Draco thought, not knowing that Harry came to a similar conclusion regarding the existence of the private bathroom in general and the shower especially. It was a miracle that neither of them was given away by their blushing faces, but then both of them were lost in their own thoughts.
"Or it could be because you are Head Boy. I will have to ask Hermione tomorrow morning if she has gotten her own bathroom too," Harry said trying to think of another explanation for them to have their own bathroom, not trying to deny his previous thought of bathroom sex.
"For whatever reason we got it, I am glad that we have it. It is so much better than to walk up all the stairs to the prefect bathroom, only to take a bath. This way we can save time," commented Draco, meaning it, but also conveniently leaving out the fact that he was also glad of the sexual opportunities the private bathroom offered.
After a last wanton look at the shower, Draco walked out of the room, going to the next door inside the bedroom, which happened to be the one to the left side of the bedroom entrance.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-Altair-a life changing event-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Great, a walk-in closet. Finally, I won't have to leave half of my clothes inside the trunk because there isn't enough space to take them all out," Draco exclaimed happily when he inspected the small room behind the second door.
"And what about my stuff?" Harry asked, walking out of the bathroom after he heard Draco's exclamation.
"They are already in here. So don't worry. See on the right side, those must be yours, since I do not own so much violet and green," Draco said, pointing at the side which held Harry's clothing.
"Yeah, they are mine", Harry said, looking over Draco's shoulder into the walk-in closet.
"Since we are already talking about clothes, does us being paired together mean that I will be seeing the underwear Lovegood picked out with my help for you, in person?", Draco asked in a teasing voice. He just could not resist teasing Harry about it, after he had overcome the initial shock that the Luna Lovegood had tricked him into choosing Harry Potter's new underwear.
Harry turned even redder than he had some hours before on the train, when he remembered that bit of information about his new wardrobe during his talk with Blaise, but decided to answer Draco's question anyway. "It seems like it," he said in a low, shy voice.
Draco only laughed, finding Harry's red face cute and walked over to the last door, which was on the right side of the room, near the corner away from the window.
"So, the last door most likely leads to the special Altair room"
-~-~-~-~-~-~-Altair-a life changing event-~-~-~-~-~-~-
The special Altair room had a hexagonal shape, made out of stone, and gave off a dungeon-like atmosphere, which was increased by the lack of natural light since only some torches illuminated the room. The shackles on the right corner only added to the dungeon feeling. In the left corner, there were shelves filled with various sexual toys, for them to be used during Sexual Potions or Ritual Magic. On the ground, in the middle of the room, was a hexagonal ornamental border, which spanned about the size of a swimming pool.
"I gather that we may need those shackles for some of the rituals, even if I personally would prefer not to use them," Draco commented, not liking the feeling the room gave off. It reminded him too much of Voldemort.
"I agree, but at least it seems like we won't need to buy any additional equipment since the shelves are full of them already," was Harry's answer. He too did not like the room much at all and wanted to leave it as soon as possible to go to sleep instead, having gotten even more tired during the exploring of their rooms.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-Altair-a life changing event-~-~-~-~-~-~-
After both Harry and Draco took their turn in the bathroom and had changed into their sleepwear (boxers and a t-shirt), they walked over to the bed.
Harry, having gone into the bathroom first, was already standing near the right side of the bed. While he was lifting the dark red bedcover, Harry told Draco: "I never would have thought that we would end up together. We were only joking around when we mentioned it on the train."
"Me neither, but how goes the saying 'Opposites attracts'. And it is not like I am not happy to have gotten you as my partner," Draco honestly told Harry.
"Thanks, I am rather glad to have ended up with you too," Harry said in answer, starting to crawl into the bed.
Truth to be told, he was very happy that Draco was his partner, not only because they were very compatible according to their assigned room, but because Draco Malfoy never had been someone who had worshipped him. He had not been friendly to him either: but at least, to Harry, it felt like Draco had not engaged him in fights because he was the Boy Who Lived, but because he had refused Draco's hand of friendship at the beginning of their first year and Draco had still been angry about this.
Harry did not know what he would have done if his partner had turned out to be a hero-worshipper. So, he was really happy that Draco was his partner, even if they had a history to overcome. Since after the war both of them had grown up and ceased to constantly fight, Harry was rather hopeful that they would be able to become friends.
Suddenly, Harry let out a shriek.
Draco had been looking out of the window but when he had heard Harry unexpectedly shrieking, his head had turned around from the window to look at Harry.
"What is wrong?" he asked his new room-mate, not seeing what had made Harry shriek.
"My clothes just vanished."
"Your clothes vanished?" Draco asked unbelievingly but noticed that Harry was hiding his body with the bedcovers.
"Yeah, when I got into the bed, they disappeared."
"Try getting out of it again and see if they return," Draco suggested, having a feeling that the spell was placed on the bed and would not affect you outside of it any more, before he turned around to give Harry some privacy. Even if they would have sex soon, he knew that Harry would prefer to not be naked around him before that time.
When Harry announced, "Oh, they're back," Draco turned around again.
"It seems like you have found the catch to the famous Room Zero. No clothing allowed while being in the bed. It could have been worse."
"Yeah," was Harry's answer as he crawled back into the bed, preparing to go to sleep. Draco joined him soon after, taking care to leave enough space between them, since he too was affected by the magic of the bed and therefore was naked under the covers as well.
"Good night, Malfoy," Harry said snuggling into his pillow, trying to get comfortable. The sudden lack of sleepwear did make him feel a bit uncomfortable since he was not used at all to sleeping in the nude.
"I think that we should start calling each other by our first names, don't you? So, good night, Harry," Draco said, not only wanting to leave the old days of name calling and hexing, which were in his mind connected to their surnames, behind, but also wanting to become better acquainted with Harry, so that soon, when they would not simply be sleeping together in this bed, they would not have a wall between them.
"Yeah, G'night, Draco," was Harry's sleepy response, after he finally had found a comfortable sleeping position.
And with that, they both fell asleep.
-~-~-~-~-~-~-Altair-a life changing event-~-~-~-~-~-~-
woods used in this story: if you are interested in the colouring look up the wood types here: www. Schreibgeraete-manufaktur. de/ shop/images/Holzarten%201. jpg (erase spaces)
picture of the bed: it's metal here though: www. Knockomie. co. uk /userfiles/image/big/the%20benromach%20four%20post er%20room. Jpg (erase spaces)
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AN_2: I hope you liked this chapter and the little fun I had, with the bed not allowing them to wear any clothes. Also I hope that you noticed that Harry was touching Draco quite a bit.
Next (?): First Altair lesson, a bit of Ron and morning woods but I can't promise it since the chapters have a life of their own. So maybe I will only come as far as breakfast, who knows?