Sentience

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Goldensnitch18

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Rated M

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Summary: When the Room of Requirement returned to its place on the seventh floor, the Headmistress and Deputy Head were hesitant but excited. They quickly discover that something is wrong and call in Auror Potter to help them figure it out. No one knows why the Room of Requirement seems to be sentient and seeks to please, but Harry and Pansy are going to find out.

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Disclaimer: I am not profiting from this story.

Anything you recognize belongs to the great and mighty JKR.

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Chapter Two

It was always eerie to return to Hogwarts. Harry had been a few times over the years for this or that. McGonagall had asked him to come meet the students nearly once a year since he had left. When he could find no reason to avoid the fiasco, it was always a very long and awkward day with a lot of staring and him bumbling about like an idiot. The students barely spoke to him, and his old Professors made him feel like a child again. Ten years and he still hated the publicity which didn't seem to be going anywhere. People still seemed fascinated with him. Some days, he wondered why he hadn't taken his gold and bought an island to hide on for the rest of his life. The answer was easy, but he hated to admit it to himself, let alone to anyone else. He had no sense of identity out of being this person, the man who saved people and tried to do the right thing. That was who Harry Potter was. Harry Potter would hate living alone on an island with no one to help and nothing to do but think about the past.

That was why he was walking down the stone halls of Hogwarts with Headmistress McGonagall and her Deputy Head Neville Longbottom. Neville had grown up to be someone Harry could have never imagined him becoming. The man beside him was confident and sure of step. He was kind and generous, but Harry also had heard that he was very strict in his lessons and quite committed to safety. He was also set to marry Hannah Abbott, who Harry had only gotten reacquainted with through Neville, during the summer holiday. Harry had been invited plus one. He had no intention of needing the extra seat. Hannah had started working under Madame Pomfrey two years ago and was set to take over for her full time at the beginning of the following school year. Neville had risen seemingly quickly to Deputy Head, but he was apparently looked up to and respected by the majority of the staff despite his young age.

It was strange to see the people who had taken him in, treated him as more than a student, leave this place. They belonged here, part of the aesthetic, but things change, and people grow older. Hogwarts was moving into the next phase of its existence with a new staff slowly forming to care for the castle and its pupils. It was unsettling. As he walked, the familiar scents of torches, stone, and wood washed through him, bringing him back years and years to when he was a boy walking these halls. What would it be like to be a boy there now? Not Harry Potter, but just an ordinary boy who wanted to learn magic and fit in like all of the other students. He would never know what that was like. The closest he got to that feeling was Muggle clubs and women's beds.

"It's been a few weeks since it started working again," Neville was telling him, distracting Harry from his reminiscence. "I was trying to get in once or twice a month," he added.

"Of course you were," Harry laughed. He wasn't surprised in the least. If Harry was here every day, the temptation to check on the Room of Requirement would have been far too great to ignore. He imagined he would have been by more than once or twice a month to see if he could call back it's faithful walls. The loss of the room in the war had been, in many ways, the loss of security. That room had been so many things, and then it was just gone. They had tried to get back in within days of the battle, but nothing and no one had been able to summon the door, no matter how hard they tried.

"It was good to us." Neville shrugged, seemingly not embarrassed by his attachment to the room. "I always hoped it would be back. I'd given up though. Ten years is a long time. I was sure it was broken or dead."

"Dead?" Harry asked, a bit startled by the other man's choice of words.

"It always felt like more than magic, you know" - Neville shook his head - "like it was alive."

"It was not a living thing, Mr. Longbottom," McGonagall chided from the other side of Harry. "It was just another part of the castle, probably put there by the Founders years ago." Neville nodded in response, but Harry noticed he didn't look convinced.

"Anyway, the door appeared a few weeks ago, and there it was, our old DA room." Neville eyes sparkled as he spoke, apparently revisiting the wonder of the room opening to him again after all this time.

"And, something happened?" Harry asked, assuming that all could not have been well for them to call him. Neville wouldn't have sent him an urgent message just to reminisce.

"Well" - Neville glanced at McGonagall, and she nodded curtly - "it's a bit hard to describe really, but it's like it's trying to tell us something."

"Tell you something?" Harry asked, not sure what a room could be trying to tell anyone.

"Or, it's broken," Neville said quickly, giving their old teacher another glance. She ignored him, walking straight ahead with tight lips. Apparently, they disagreed about what was causing the problem as well.

"And, you want me to …" Harry trailed off as they drew up to the blank wall opposite Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach trolls ballet. Harry nearly smiled at the old image.

"I have lessons," someone hissed, coming down the hall from the opposite direction. "I realize that Potter must be a busy man, but you expect me to leave my seventh year students in the hands of that idiot and not say anything?" Harry turned as she spoke, taking in the sight of Pansy Parkinson stalking down the hall to him, hand on the hip of her professor's robes as she moved closer.

"Professor Parkinson, I assure you that Professor Flitwick is …"

"Going senile!" Pansy snapped. "He had the fourth years in the bathroom charming toilets last week. He's mad!"

"He's gone a bit eccentric …" Neville started defensively.

"A bit eccentric? He suggested I instruct my students on the lost art of rune portals. Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be? I know the man is a treasure most dear, but someone needs to sack him!"

"Hello, Pansy," Harry chimed in, unable to hold back the laughter in his voice.

"Don't start with me." She held up one hand in his direction as she began to pace before the wall. "I don't need a babysitter."

Harry's head snapped quickly to McGonagall, who appeared annoyed, and Neville, who looked quite guilty. "A babysitter? For what?" he asked, but Pansy was already pulling the door open.

"For this," she told him, stepping back. Harry turned his head the few inches necessary to take in the sight of the old DA room. His jaw dropped as his feet stepped unconsciously forward to walk through the open door.

"Merlin's …" he muttered. There were no words to describe this. Each foot, each inch, of the walls was touched with glittering gold ink, or paint, or … something. Runes covered every surface of the walls from top to bottom, shimmering even as he stared.

"What do they say?" he asked when he had found his voice again. He turned to face Pansy who was gazing almost reverently at the gold marks.

"I don't know. They won't let me in long enough to translate them. That's why they've called you. Apparently, you can protect me if the room tries to eat me while I study them." Her words made him want to laugh, but given this was Hogwarts, and he in fact faced being almost eaten by several things, including a troll and a giant snake, he wasn't quite sure that the room wouldn't try as well. Harry turned to the wall beside him, reaching his fingers out tentatively.

"Can I touch them?" he asked. Pansy shrugged, her expression blank as if she couldn't care less. McGonagall nodded slowly behind her, but none of the three Professors gave him much encouragement that they knew what to expect. His fingers inched forward slowly, and then he caressed the wall as gently as he would slide his fingertips across the apex of a perfectly round thigh. This was beautiful magic. Magic like he hadn't seen in years. It made his heart pound in his chest as the runes seemed to respond to him, dancing beneath his fingers. "When do we start?" he asked, unable to tear his eyes from the movement.

"I have to get back to my class, assuming that nitwit hasn't killed them all. I'm done today at three thirty. Meet me back here then," Pansy told him before she swept out of the doorway. He could hear her heels receding as they hit the stone floor.

"I should get to the greenhouses," Neville told them. "I have to get ready for my third years."

"Go on then," McGonagall told him. Neville nodded to Harry before exiting, his own footsteps much less dramatic as he left them.

"I wouldn't have sent for you if I had another choice," McGonagall told Harry as she came to stand beside him.

"I'm happy to help, but surely one of the other Professors could?" Harry asked her. It was an odd job for the Deputy Head of the Auror Office to indeed be babysitting one of the Professors of Hogwarts. Pansy was no child. She was one of the most renowned members of her field. She had slipped away, all but disappearing after the war to study Ancient Runes under a mentor, a job that Harry had overheard Blaise Zabini tell Hermione suited her because she was often alone. Harry had no idea why she had accepted the position here at Hogwarts when it had been offered to her. If Blaise was correct, it seemed a move in the wrong direction.

"She will be in here every spare moment of the day. I don't have anyone to spare at the moment. Though Professor Parkinson is perhaps slightly dramatic about it, Filius does need to retire at the end of the year. Horace has already told me this will be his last year as well, though he's said that for ten years now, so who knows if he will follow through. The interviews have been horrendous. I'm beginning to understand why Albus hired Gilderoy."

"It can't be that bad," Harry offered. "Surely people want to teach at Hogwarts."

McGonagall reached up to run her own fingers across the runes, and Harry noticed, or perhaps imagined, that they did not respond in quite the same way to her touch. "Apparently, they do not. I would like to give Neville another ten years to prepare to take my role, but who knows if that will be possible. Our time is coming to an end, Mr. Potter. The staff grows old and weary, and the castle will need younger Professors to take our places, and there are few people willing to do the job correctly."

"It's hard to imagine Neville as Headmaster," Harry told her, his mind running circles around her words. Hogwarts had been his home as a child. His professors had almost served as pseudo parents, helping him to grow into the man he was today, some making better additions than others surely, he thought, thinking again of Lockhart.

Professor McGonagall actually smiled at that, her face crinkling as she glanced over at him. "He was such a forgetful boy and magic has never been easy for him, but sometimes the things that are the hardest for us turn out to be the most worthwhile. He is good with the students. They like him, but more important, they see themselves in him. It's hard to see yourself in an old bat like me."

"You aren't an old bat, Professor," Harry said quickly, as if on reflex.

"We both know I am." She shook her head, still smiling softly as she turned to leave the room. "I'm afraid I don't have the energy left for much adventure, and the castle seems to insist on carrying on with them anyway."

"Do you have any guesses about what is going on?" Harry asked, following her out of the room. The door sealed behind them, disappearing into the wall.

"None at all. I've never seen anything like it before, but then again, I'd never seen anything like the Room of Requirement before. Albus didn't even know where it came from or who could have put it there. It's an extraordinary feat. I can't imagine the power behind such an act."

"Maybe Pansy will be able to tell you," he suggested.

"Maybe," McGonagall agreed, but she didn't seem very optimistic. "I don't expect you to stay long, Mr. Potter, but I would appreciate if you could go over the room to see if you can find anything we missed that may have changed and stay with her for just a little while and make sure that the room should not, in fact, eat her."

It took a considerable amount of effort not to laugh at her words. "It's no trouble. I can stay a few days if need be. I'm owed some time off."

"I'm sure that won't be necessary," she told him. "Now, I have to get back to my office. Feel free to go down to the kitchens or the Great Hall for some lunch." Harry paused to nod as she continued forward, and then he started down the stairs and towards the kitchens. If he was going to have to spend the afternoon with Pansy, he may as well be well fed.

A/N: Glad to have everyone on board for another fic! Hope you liked this chapter and seeing some familiar faces!

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