“And little Chimera” Fred winked at Hermione.

“Found anything interesting?” finished George.

Harry grinned “Hi Gred and Forge. We’ve found a cool picture of some city which, if you put your finger right on the very top of the painted fountain, water spurt out of the picture.”

“I got soaked to the skin” chortled Theo, “Last time I ever listen to someone in a painting: they were laughing fit to burst.”

“Luckily, we researched household charms a couple of days ago in the DA and I dried him off in no time.” Said Hermione proudly.

George chortled “DA? Might want to rethink that…”

“Or all the little Gryffies will call you the Death-eater Army” winked Fred.

Draco flushed and Hermione and Theo looked at each other in alarm, possibly more due to the fact that they had missed something so obvious than the potential for the initials being misappropriated.

“The ‘little Gryffies’ can kiss my blind-cheeks” snorted Draco.

“Yeah, we ain’t doing anything wrong” said Greg “It’s just a stupid name.”

“‘Aren’t’, Greg, not ‘ain’t’” sighed Pansy priggishly “And there’s no need to be so crude Dray.”

“Could be dyslexic for ‘Ain’t Deatheaters’” smiled Vin, nudging Milly, who grinned and rolled her eyes.

“Brill!” laughed Fred. “Ronniekins will whine that it doesn’t make sense…”

“And then we can tease him about having the brain of a turnip” finished George. “Well, if you snakies want to investigate something interesting, you could look for the Legendary Broom-Cupboard of Necessity”

“The Legendary Broom-Cupboard of Necessity” drawled Daphne, raising an eyebrow.

“Poor little things…”

“Snape’s personality is already rubbing off on them”

“Hey!” retorted Harry, upset, “Professor Snape’s great”

“Yeah, he’s letting me get the world’s most deadly snake! She’s being delivered this week. I’m going to call her Isis!” bubbled Draco.

“Cool!”

“Mind if we have some of her venom!”

Draco opened his mouth eagerly and Blaise put his hand over it “What would your mother say if we told her you’d asked for that?”

George paled “Good point.”

“Anyway, this broom cupboard…” prompted Theo.

“It’s on the seventh floor …” said Fred

“Somewhere near a tapestry of Trolls in tutus.” added George.

“We were running away from Filch one day…”

“And we needed some place to hide…”

“And there it was…” Fred folded his arms and beamed at them.

“Are you sure that it’s not, you know, just an ordinary broom cupboard?” asked Hermione.

“Well, we’ve never seen it there again, Miss smarty-pants” teased Fred. The twins, blessed with a sense of fair play, always felt guilty over how the other Gryffs had treated Hermione and, while teasing was in their nature, with her they limited it to half-complimentary epithets.

“Cool. Thanks guys!” said Blaise cheerfully.

“Thanks” smiled Harry. Although a disappearing broom cupboard wasn’t exactly the most exciting secret to discover, it was still a secret.”

oOoOo

“We’ve searched every inch of this corridor, Blaise!” moaned Draco.

“Gred and Forge haven’t tricked us before, Draco” said Harry “We should look a bit more”

Pansy smirked “Maybe we have to hop in the air three times and shout ‘I believe in Gred and Forge’.

“‘I believe in Gred and Forge’. ‘I believe in Gred and Forge’. ‘I believe in Gred and Forge’.” Giggled Tracy, copying the balletic leaps of the troll in the portrait opposite her.

“Oh! My! Gods!” gasped Theo, pointing behind Tracy.

“A door!” cried Harry

“I was only joking!” whined Pansy, aghast at the sheer impossibility of the situation.

“Nice one Pansy!” laughed Milly.

“Hey!”

“And you, Tracy” added Daphne, giggling.

The Slytherins gathered around the door.

“Who should open it first?” said Theo.

Draco swaggered forward and grabbed the door-handle “I, Draco René Antonius Malfoy, hereby claim this broom-cupboard in the name of Slytherin.”

Draco opened the door and the first years gasped.

It was a huge, beautiful room: on the other side of the smooth, even, wooden floor, a vast mirror reflected the children’s amazed expressions. When they looked to their left, there was a wall, unadorned but for a long, horizontal bar at arm height. On the opposite side, lit with spotlights and adorned with scenery depicting dancing trolls, stood a red-curtained stage.

“This isn’t a broom cupboard” Blaise whispered, as if almost afraid to break the silence.

Hermione was staring at her reflection hard.

“Something wrong, Hermione?” asked Daphne

“She’s probably never seen just what her hair looks like” said Pansy snidely “I expect no mirror’s ever been big enough to reflect it all.”

“Don’t be such a cow, Pansy” said Theo “Hermione and I are just wondering whether the room, which looks like a ballet studio, might have anything to do with the painting behind us.”

“How dare you Theodore Jeremy Nott! I am going to write home and tell my father you said that and then you’ll be sorry!” Pansy cried shrilly.

“And I’m going to write and tell my father that you deserved it” said Draco shortly.

As Pansy stomped off, Hermione turned to Tracy “Um, you were pretending to be a ballet dancer, weren’t you?”

“I guess” said Tracy intrigued.

“So maybe this room adapts to what the person is pretending to be?” ventured Theo.

“I don’t think Gred and Forge were pretending to be brooms.” Laughed Blaise.

“Maybe they were trying to run faster than racing brooms” Harry said brightly.

“That’s a good point.” replied Draco thoughtfully.

“We’ve got to experiment and see what works” said Hermione,

“Let’s discuss other possibilities first” said Daphne “We don’t want to lose this as soon as we’ve found it.”

“But let’s go inside, right,” said Greg “this is our secret, we don’t want the whole school to know!”

Milly nodded “Yeah! This’d make a great meeting room for the DA!”

“Okay, inside everybody” called Draco, his silver eyes sparkling with glee.

OoOoO

Once the children were sitting down in a circle, Blaise said “Okay, everyone needs to think of how this room works. It can’t just come into being because we wished to find it because, if that was the case, we’d have found this room right away.”

“Yes” replied Hermione “When Tracy was jumping, she jumped the length of the portrait three times, once every time she said ‘I believe in Gred and Forge’, is that right Tracy?”

“Yes, I think so. I was just mucking about really” said Tracy with a smile.

“And what were you thinking about?” asked Theo.

“I don’t know, really, just that I wanted to dance. At home I go to ballet lessons three times a week but Hogwarts doesn’t offer it as an extracurricular activity. I kind of miss it.”

“Hmm… Tracy said the names of Gred and Forge. They were the last people in here.” said Vin thoughtfully.

“Yeah but, unless Flich was the last person to use this room before them- which I doubt considering that he’s a squib- then I think it unlikely that they’d just say, totally at random, the name of the last person to enter” added Draco sceptically.

“Random has worked for us so far” laughed Harry.

Blaise grinned “True enough but I think Draco has a point.”

“Good idea, though, Vin” Hermione added kindly. The large boy blushed and looked down at his hands.

“It might have been because they were thinking of Flich, whose a caretaker, and the room morphed itself into a broom cupboard, which represented his job.” Theo said brightly.

“Were you thinking of Barnabas?” Daphne asked Tracy “He taught ballet as a career, I think.”

“Barnabas?” asked Harry.

“The nimrod in the portrait, the one getting his head bashed in” supplied Draco.

“Oh.”

“I guess I could have been” Tracy replied “Not particularly though.”

Over the next two hours, the Slytherins tried out every option repeatedly: Vin and Greg pretended to be racing brooms but, although the door opened, it just showed a plain, empty room.

To everyone's dismay, the door disappeared completely when Blaise thought hard about his uncle, who had been an artist.

And the door-handle didn’t reappear when Harry strode back and forth three times in front of the painting, saying the names of the DA members, either.

After a little brainstorming, various members of the DA tried crossing the boundary three times whilst jumping or hopping or running or walking, getting more and more dejected as each attempt failed.

Then Theo had the idea that volume of voice might be relevant, so they experimented with that too.

When that didn't work, Tracy ventured that it might be to do with the number of people: since Gred and Forge were two people and it had last worked with one person, her, maybe two people should try it.

Unfortunately, the door didn't reappear with two, three or four people in on the experiments either.

Slowly, the children tired and their little group started to disband. Tracy and Daphne wanted to dress for Sunday supper and Milly, who was hot and tired after helping with the experiments, decided to return to the Serpents’ Nest with them, so she could take an early shower.

Half an hour later, Vin and Greg couldn’t resist the pangs of their stomachs any longer, so they disappeared down to the Great Hall for dinner, promising to return later on.

Finally, Blaise slumped against the wall which Harry and Draco were sitting with their backs against. “I give up, it’s hopeless.”

“I suppose we’d better make our way downstairs” sighed Draco “At least we’ll get some pudding. Come on, brainboxes!” he called to Theo and Hermione, who were standing in a huddle, talking earnestly.

“Wait!” cried Hermione “I think I have it!”

“Yeah?” said Blaise, straightening up.

“Tracy wanted to dance, right?”

“Mmm” said Theo, stroking his chin.

“Well, what if she was thinking that she wished Hogwarts had someplace for her to dance?” said Hermione with a grin.

“You mean that the room becomes what you want?” asked Harry, beaming.

“Or need!” added Theo excitedly “The Weasleys needed somewhere to hide, like a broom cupboard!”

“Right. Okay.” Said Draco, striding over to the portrait and walking back and forth across the boundary “I want a room where I can fly, I want a room where I can fly, I want a room where I can fly.”

The door reappeared.

“Bloody hell, it worked!” squealed Draco, throwing open the door to reveal a colossal room, about five hundred meters long, wide and high. It was carpeted with thick, mossy grass and, far into the distance, they could see two sets of quiddich hoops and, even better, by the doorway lay a beautiful racing broom.

“Wait!” Blaise called as Draco reached out for the broom “We don’t have much time before curfew, let’s try it out some more.”

Draco reluctantly agreed and, over the next ten minutes, the room became a sumptuous bedroom, a library full of rare and impressive volumes, the foyer of the Natural History Museum in London and Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour (but sadly without the ice-cream).

Finally, Harry, Theo, Blaise, Draco and Hermione stood on a crescent-shaped beach, very similar to the one outside Uroborus.

Hermione looked at her watch and sighed. “I guess we’d better head off. I wish we didn’t have to walk down eight whole floors!”

Draco walked over to the door and held it open for Hermione “Ladies first”

“Thank you Draco” said Hermione, hurrying towards the doorway.

There was a thudding of paws and something huge stuck its muzzle through the doorway, baring teeth as long as daggers.

“It’s a giant dog!” screamed Hermione, staggering back.

“It’s a fucking Cerberus” cried Blaise “Nothing else gets that big!”

“Close the door!” Yelled Theo.

Harry stood and breathed in, feeling the magic drain from every atom of his being into a big ball in his chest.

“Expulso!”

The Cerberus shot backwards and Draco slammed the door.

“That hasn’t happened before!” said Theo shakily, leaning against the doorway.

“Where did you learn that spell” Draco added, his voice a little high.

“Professor Snape gave me a list of useful Defence Spells.” Harry sat down on the sand. “Oh God!”

Hermione burst into tears “We almost got eaten a…and it ww…was all mmm…my fff…ault.”

Blaise gathered Hermione in his arms “Don’t be silly. You didn’t do anything.”

“Yy..yes I I I dd.did. I I I ww…wished ww...we dd…didn’t have t…t…to w....walk so f…far.”

“Oh!” gasped Draco “You mean our wishes might effect where in Hogwarts this room's door opens?”

Understanding flooded into Theo’s face like sunlight “That must have been the third floor!”

“What?” replied Harry.

“Dumbledore! He said that we shouldn’t go onto the third floor on pain of death.”

“Because he’s keeping a Cerberus!” Draco cried shrilly “Just wait until my Father hears about this: Dumbledore will be out of Hogwarts before my ink has time to dry!”

“You can’t tell anyone, Draco!” said Theo “If the teachers find out about this room, they’ll block the corridor off!”

“The room could be considered unsafe” added Blaise “In the wrong hands, of course.”

“Besides” said Hermione, rubbing the tears out of her eyes “You’ve just got Dumbledore to agree to you keeping a highly venomous snake: maybe the next headmaster won’t allow it.”

“Well, it’s still very irresponsible!” Draco said, his voice rather high. “Now listen here, room, you’ve had your joke. Release us into the dungeons.”

Harry tiptoed across the sand and cracked open the door. He breathed a sigh of relief and opened the door “It’s all clear!”

“We must keep the Cerberus secret” whispered Hermione as they crept back to the Serpent’s Nest.

“But what if someone opens the door into the third floor, they might get hurt” replied Harry.

“We’ll just tell them that you have to specify a floor and to remember that the third floor is out of bounds” said Draco, as they reached their Common Room entrance. “Come on, I’ve got a cake and some bags of crisps in our dorm.”

oOoOo

As Harry snuggled down in bed that night, having helped Draco and Blaise describe the wonders of the Secret-Room to the half-jealous, wholly excited first years, he hugged Reggie’s soft, lithe form to his chest and fell asleep with a smile of pure, blissful contentment on his face.

The voices didn’t come back after that night.