What is your secret?

by Star Mirage

Disclaimer: Standard. The heroes are not mine. I wish they were…

Dedication: For you, D…

Part 5: Secret for two

"It's here." Harry pointed at a desert landscape, painted on the big canvas. "Here exactly I have found that mysterious room. After Malfoy's phantom vanished inside one of the liquid mirrors and I was about to go back to our dormitory, I specially marked the room on the Marauder Map. Here, look!"

He indicated a small cross on the map; a small sign was floating beside his, Hermione's and Ron's names.

"And how do we enter?" As always, Hermione was the first one to approach to a problem from practical point of view. She fetched her wand and began to scrutinize the picture, intending to find some clues.

Harry just shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, don't know. I just stood here, looking at the painting, and then a door appeared out of nowhere."

x–X–x–X–x

They had been studying the painting for more than two hours. But no spell from Hermione's wide arsenal could help her to find a door. The tricks, inherited from Fred and George, who in their time found the entrance to Hogwarts' kitchen, could not help Ron either. He touched, caressed, tickled, and knocked at the canvas, still in vain.

Harry's hypothesis that the room could be found in the way The Room of Requirement had been, didn't justify his hopes. However hard he tried to visualize the magic room, pacing the corridor back and forth, the door never revealed itself.

A desert landscape as if teased them, remaining lifeless and cheerless. Even the mirages on the painted canvas emerged extremely infrequent.

"No luck," Ron summarized. He absently scratched his head and added, "Harry, I think that if the picture doesn't want to let us in, then the room you spoke about is meant only for you."

Harry and Hermione stared at their friend, their eyes wide open, surprised with Ron's oh-so-rare wise thought.

"Seems like that", Hermione said. She absent-mindedly twiddled her wand, which appeared to be useless in their attempts to get into the secret room. None of Hermione's spell could reveal the door and the girl was more than deeply vexed.

All three Gryffindors dejectedly sighed and went back to their tower.

x–X–x–X–x

It was raining outside. But in this secret room, separated from the whole world by the thick walls of the castle, it was warm and cozy.

Harry dropped his mantle on the floor, remaining in a dark-green sweater and his old jeans, and took off his shoes. He comfortably sprawled out in an arm-chair, stretching his feet closer to the fire. After a long, tiresome day, it was very good to relax at the fireplace. Calm, gentle music of the harp, in spite of its endlessness, absolutely did not bother him.

"I wish I had a bottle of butterbeer…" The boy sighed.

Still, it was amazing that the whole secret place belonged to him only! Well… Harry looked around... Correction – to both of them. Just as last time, Мalfoy came out off a mirror surface of magic pool. The blond phantom smiled and also made his way toward the fireplace. Today Мalfoy was clothed in some stylish grey trousers and dark-grey polo-neck sweater. Like a personification of all Harry's wishes, Мalfoy carried a bottle of butterbeer in his hands. The phantom walked up to the Gryffindor, handed him a bottle and with a smile sprawled in the second arm-chair. Throwing feet over an armrest, he threw off his expensive shoes and socks and then turned toward the fire.

Surprised Harry lifted his eyebrows. "Wow! A ghost who likes to luxuriate at the fire! It is incredible!"

Meantime, Мalfoy closed his eyes with a pleasure and began to sway his bare feet. The pale slender feet, swinging back and forth in a mere meter from Harry, hypnotized the Gryffindor like a magic pendulum, and Harry found himself looking over the ghost. Long legs clothed in narrow trousers… slender body… hands with well-groomed thin fingers… elegant neck… shining platinum hairs… aristocratic, slightly arrogant features… and mischievous laughing eyes, looking at Harry with repressed amusement…

Harry blinked and, realizing that he was caught staring, turned red. Embarrassed, he dropped his eyes.
'Oops'. Then he remembered about the bottle of beer in his hands and said, "Eh… hm... thank you… for the beer."

The phantom, smiling, nodded "Not at all", and continued to dangle his feet in the air, while a very confused Harry, trying not to look at the blond, fixed his eyes upon a fire in the fire-place, listening to the music of harp and drinking his beer.

x–X–x–X–x

Draco was panic-stricken.

His heart madly thumped in his chest, sweat inundated his eyes, and the blond strands stuck to his wet face… But Draco cared less about his appearance. He was fleeing, non-stop, not thinking, just running. Fear drove him ahead as a scared animal.

Straight… to the left… to the end… to the right… dead end… backward… A Labyrinth as if laughed at his vain attempts to get out. Every passage-way of the Labyrinth was no different from the previous one. However, it was impossible to get out from the magic Labyrinth in muggle way, for example, sticking your left hand to a wall and on any road fork turning to the left. No, this Labyrinth was more perfidious; as soon as you turn away, a passage-way behind you would disappear or a new crossroad would appear in its place.

Draco could hear nothing but his own labored breath and sound of blood, hammering in his temples in unnaturally loud way. The blond was running at top speed, gasping, stumbling, but didn't dare to stop. That is because he knew: they were there, they chased him. He almost could feel a horrific look of those non-human, entirely red eyes on his back. As if in a mockery at the scared Slytherin, a loud laughter of their sinister owner sounded above the Labyrinth.

Draco sobbed and…

… woke up.

With a madly pounding heart, sticky with sweat, the blond sat on the bed and, gasping, tried to catch his breath. It took him several minutes to recover. Night air of dungeon quickly cooled his heated body and Draco lay down again. Wrapped up in a warm green blanket, the boy remembered his nightmare.

That was the third night already that he dreamt about the Labyrinth, whose enormous grey walls horrified the Slytherinto no end. The Labyrinth without the beginning and the end. The magic maze where unknown threat lied in wait behind every turn. The third night Draco tried to get out of the Labyrinth, but each time without result.

With their icy fingers, hopelessness and despair gripped the blonde's mind and heart. That was because he felt that each time a danger became closer.

In comparison with this nightmarish Labyrinth, all his previous dreams about him as a phantom that was enamored of Potter, seemed like a small nuisance.

Quivering with cold, Draco buried himself deeper under the blanket.

x–X–x–X–x

"Am I wrong or Мalfoy really looks somehow not like himself?" the famous Boy-Who-Lived said to his sidekicks and adjusted his famous eyeglasses. "Maybe he is ill?"

Harry had been studying the blond Slytherin for ten minutes already, absolutely forgetting about his own breakfast. Indeed, Мalfoy looked rather unhealthy. Much paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes, the blond absently dug up in his plate. For the whole morning he had not touched his meal yet.

Ron just snorted, eating greedily an extra sausage.

"Ha, suits him well," he said. "Let that sly snake die, that's all I care."

"Ron! Don't speak with your mouth full! That's gross!" To reinforce her argument, Hermione slapped him on the back of his head. Ron choked, frowned, but proceeded with eating – silently.

Harry glanced at his redhead friend in reproach. Earlier he would share Ron's opinion about Malfoy's condition. But now… Now he was extremely curious and somewhat worried about the blond. 'What happened to Malfoy?' he wondered.

Still silently pondering over different versions, he watched as the blond Slytherin rose to his feet and left the Great Hall.

TBC

A/N: My sincere gratitude to my dearest friend Unfading, who did a proofreading of my writing. Without your help it would be more unreadable :-)
And I'm very thankful to all people who did review my work! I appreciate that deeply!

© Star Mirage