The Hogwarts Poets' Society

"Open the door!" shouted Draco, kicking the door forcefully. Obviously, this did nothing to open the door and only managed to give Draco an aching foot.

"Er, Malfoy, I don't think kicking the door is going to help," said Harry. He was resigned to the fact that he was now stuck in a closet, enrolled in a Poets' Society, and was hungry. It wouldn't do any good to kick the door. Besides, it was more fun watching Malfoy express his anger violently.

"Would you rather I kick you?" asked Malfoy, sneering in his 'I-Am-Malfoy-and-Cower-Because-I-Am-Sneering-At-You' way.

"Not really, but all you're going to do is hurt your foot. The door will open eventually," said Harry, sitting down.

"How very Taoist of you to think that," grumbled Malfoy, looking around the dimly lit closet.

"Er, Malfoy?" Draco didn't respond. "How do you know about Taoism?"

"I don't know," said Malfoy. "Perhaps I just made it up."

"Ah."

Draco sat down and stared at the wall, the ceiling, and the door, trying to figure out a way to: a) get out of here or b) kill Potter. Either one would be just as satisfying. Though, of course, it might be creepy being stuck in a closet with a Dead Thing. Killing Potter would have to wait.

Meanwhile, McGonagall and Snape were busy shouting at Dumbledore.

"You old fool!" accused McGonagall angrily. "They'll kill each other!"

"No, they won't," replied Dumbledore calmly.

"What gives you the right to involve one of my students in your Plan of Imminent Doom?" shouted Snape, making several of the portraits on the walls cover their ears. Snape is very loud when he shouts.

Dumbledore was rather enjoying being shouted at. He found it rather amusing that they thought the boys would express their frustration of being stuck in a very small, damp, dim closet with violence. Harry would never hurt anyone unless he had to.

"I have a meeting in a couple of minutes. So, if you two are quite done, then would you please go away?"

They were both rather taken aback. Go away? Go away and do what?

"I suggest you both go down to the kitchens and enjoy some muffins," said Dumbledore happily. "I will send for you when I'm ready."

They both gave Dumbledore a Glare of Death and went down to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, back at the closet, both boys were feeling a bit claustrophobic. The lights had gone out for no apparent reason (this was, of course, part of the Plan of Imminent Doom) and they had both tried to stand up simultaneously. In doing so they tripped over each other and landed all tangled up.

"Get your elbow out of my thigh!" said Draco, his voice a bit muffled.

"Then get your knee out of my spleen!"

"I can't, you're head is in a, er, rather personal place!"

Both boys when pale (in Draco's case, more pale than usual), then a fuchsia-magenta color best described as "flamingo strawberry mousse", then turned the strange color of old oatmeal. It was not a pleasant color.

Back in the dungeons, Snape was ranting on to nobody in particular. He didn't notice an owl in the corner, who was waiting patiently for the rant to be over. It didn't seem polite to interrupt the infuriated man in the middle of a rant.

"That stupid old man!" Snape exclaimed, throwing a bottle at the wall. It shattered melodramatically. "Who the hell does he think he is, locking Draco up with that freak of a boy? And why won't anybody listen to me when I try to tell them about the PLAN OF IMMINENT DOOM?" Snape threw himself on his bed and sobbed bitterly. "Nobody ever listens to me! Not Mum, not Dad, not Lucius when I tried to tell him that Draco was due home any minute and we really shouldn't be caught in a compromising position by his son..."

At this point the owl sputtered a bit, realizing that he had just heard something that he wasn't supposed to hear, and couldn't wait to tell Hedwig so that she could to taunt Draco's owl. This owl was a bit of a gossiping busybody. He realized that he made a mistake when Snape, with a tear-stained face and a look of pitiful hopelessness looked up from his bed. He saw the owl. He saw the letter attached to the owl.

"What do you want?" he snarled at the owl. The owl tried to look innocent. Uneducated as he was about the facial expressions of owls, Snape did not know this.

It was a poem from Dumbledore.

Snape unrolled the parchment and read aloud:

"There once was two boys trapped together

Neither of them were named Heather,

Snape was sad,

Minerva was mad,

But when they get out they'll be better!"

The owl was confused. Why was the angry man reading poetry? Why was there a badly written limerick in this story? Why was Dumbledore talking in the third person? And who was getting better; and from what? The owl flew off, disturbed.

Minerva, too, was ranting in her private chambers. This, of course, was unknown to Snape or the owl.

"That preposterous old man!" she shouted angrily. "Who the hell does he think he is? Potter has Evil Things to be dealing with, he can't be in a Poets' Society, or locked in a closet with that insufferable Slytherin boy! What is he thinking? Is he thinking? Does he ever think before he does things? Why won't Snape shut up about that stupid Plan of Imminent Doom? Why won't Snape stop stealing my muffin tops? And why, oh why, won't Weasley just snog the little Granger girl and get on with it?" She wailed in despair and threw herself onto her bed melodramatically.

There was a knock on the door.

"Minerva, you'll want to read this!" said Snape urgently.

"Go away, I'm in the depths of despair!" she said, acting as though the whole world was ending. Her voice was very muffled, which may explain Snape's confusion.

"You have fair underwear?" he said, disturbed. He didn't want to know the details of Minerva McGonagall's undergarments. On his list of Things to Never Think About, this was number five.

"No, you twit, I'm in the depths of despair! Now go away!"

Snape was very relieved.

"This is about Potter and Malfoy!" he said, whispering. It wouldn't do to alert any ghosts to the predicament of the missing children.

McGonagall opened her door, yanked Snape inside, looked around for any potential witnesses, and slammed the door.

"Tell me!" she demanded.

Back at the closet, things were staring to get interesting. The boys had finally untangled themselves. They had removed their robes and rolled them underneath their heads.

"Malfoy, are you asleep?" asked Harry into the darkness.

"If I was asleep, then how would I answer you, you twit?" Malfoy responded angrily. "How am I supposed to sleep when you keep asking me if I'm asleep every five minutes?"

Harry said nothing. There was a silence, much to Malfoy's delight. Just as he drifted off to sleep, that idiot Potter opened his mouth again. Malfoy wondered briefly whether or not he should decapitate the idiot, as sleeping was a necessity. It was necessary not only to maintain his charming good looks, but also to prevent him from becoming a more murderous and less self-controlled Draco.

"Malfoy, are you awake? I can't sleep!"

"Oh, for God's sakes, Potter, why the hell won't you just go to bed?" Malfoy shouted. His voice reverberated off of the walls in a satisfyingly intimidating sort of way. He smirked as he felt Potter cringe next to him. There was barely enough room for the two of them to lay down, which is why he could feel him cringe.

"I can't sleep!" Harry said quietly, almost guiltily in his inability to sleep.

"Why not?"

"I can't tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's personal!"

"Ah, well, thank you for being specific," Malfoy snarled angrily. "That helps us both get some shut eye in this waste of space!" Malfoy rolled over into a more comfortable position and was suddenly painfully aware why Harry couldn't sleep. It was touching the back of his thigh.

Meanwhile, Snape and McGonagall were busy trying to decipher Dumbledore's badly written limerick.

"No, no, it's Potter and Malfoy that are going to feel better when they get out!" said McGonagall.

"No, it's us! We'll feel loads better when they get out of that infuriating closet!"

"That doesn't make any sense!" they both shouted at the same time.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore was up in his office with a worn piece of parchment in front of him. He had ink splotches on his beard and face and hands, and was exclaiming triumphantly.

"My Plan of Imminent Doom is finally complete!" he shouted. Fawkes gave him a weary look. The look was supposed to say, 'Why would you start a plan without having all of the details work out?', but, of course, Dumbledore was too busy to worry about it.

So, with the Plan of Imminent Doom in place, Malfoy stuck next to Potter in a small, dark closet, and Snape and McGonagall arguing over a limerick, the owl fell asleep without a care in the world.