Taboo

Two feet traced the same path in front of a wall, exactly three times back and forth, while their owner thought hard about what he wanted. Afterwards, the boy walked up to the wall, already reaching his hand out for a knob that wasn't there. The boy stared in irritation at the non-existent door.

Why isn't it working? he thought to himself angrily.

Draco Malfoy repeated the process that he had done before, trying not to let his mind be muddled by his anger and concentrating hard on what he wanted to appear. It was after curfew, and as such, he really didn't want to get caught by Filch, the squib who thought he owned the castle, or his good-for-nothing cat, Mrs. Norris.

As Draco once again approached the wall where the Room of Requirement should appear, a door opened right in front of him and none other than Harry Potter stepped out. They stared at each other in shock: one boy with messy brown hair, green emerald eyes hidden behind large round glasses, and a lightning shaped scar on his forehead that would never disappear, the other a boy with blonde hair that never had a strand out of place and piercing grey eyes, who currently had his customary Slytherin smirk wiped off his face and was staring at the other boy in surprise.

"Harry?" Draco finally managed to spit out, breaking the silence between them.

"What did you just call me, Malfoy?" Harry seethed, the last word coming out of his mouth like venom. His show of disgust and anger however, was destroyed by the tentative step back that he took. Draco smiled, knowing exactly what had caused it.

"Still thinking about that kiss, Potter?" he smirked.

The Gryffindor's face contorted in anger and denial. "Is that what you came all the way up here to talk to me about? That stupid kiss?" the boy glared. Earlier that week, Draco had cornered him and kissed him, not to confess his feelings, but rather to catch him off guard. And it had worked. It had also given Draco a strange power over Harry that he had never had before. And he rather enjoyed it.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Don't think so highly of yourself, Potter," he drawled. "I didn't even know that you were here. I was simply trying to use the room, just as I suspect you were."

Harry was silent for a moment, staring at Draco, before he quickly tried to slip past him into the hallway. But he didn't do it swiftly enough.

"Not so fast," the Slytherin said smoothly, grabbing the other boy by the neck and forcing him against the wall.

"Let go of me, Malfoy," Harry breathed, more visibly scared now. Draco could feel him trembling beneath his hand, his green eyes looking hesitantly at the other student, unsure of what he might do.

Draco decided to take advantage of the opportunity, leaning in closer to his archenemy and pressing his lips onto Harry's in a hard kiss. The boy didn't try and stop him; contrarily, he fell limp, allowing Draco to kiss him without any more resistance. Sensing that Harry wasn't going to fight back this time, Draco kissed him deeper and then he started on his neck.

The Slytherin knew that he really shouldn't have even started this out here, exposed in the hallway. The Room of Requirement was right beside them, a safe haven that they could have retreated to. But he didn't stop. Kissing Harry like this, out in the open, when there was a safer place right beside them somehow made it all the more enticing, forbidden, and taboo.

Draco's lips traced a path down his neck and made their way back up to Harry's ear.

"Stop," he heard Harry whisper, with no conviction in his voice and a lot of something that Draco suspected was desire.

He grinned against the boy's ear, half nibbling, half whispering back, "Not until you confess that you're enjoying this." He felt Harry stubbornly shake his head beneath him and took it as an invitation to do more.

He kissed Harry again, this time his tongue finding its way into the pinned boy's mouth. Draco felt him relax further beneath him and his hands moved to clutch Draco's shirt. Aware that they could be caught at any time, the rest happened much faster than Draco would have liked. The hot and heavy kisses down his enemy's neck, the soft moans that escaped from Harry's lips, and the feel of his bare skin as Draco's hands moved underneath his shirt.

His hands found their way to the Harry's zipper. "Are you sure that you don't want me to stop?" he teased, stroking the crease in the other boy's jeans and feeling his excitement.

"No," the Gryffindor said weakly, staring at him in both hesitation and desire. Soon, Draco's lips were back on his.

* * * * * * * *

Harry sank down to the ground, trying to recollect himself and probably organize the thoughts that were running through his head. Draco smoothed his hair back, trying to get it to its previously perfect state and smirked down at him.

"I own you, Potter," he informed him smugly.

"Harry," Harry corrected him. "Call me Harry."

Draco looked at him, stunned out of his grooming ritual. Sure, he had thought of calling Harry by his first name before; plenty of times in fact. Ever since his strange yearning for the boy had started, he had become more familiar with him, if only in his own head. That was the reason that "Harry" had slipped from his mouth earlier when he saw him, instead of the customary "Potter".

"Now what do we do?" Harry asked him, pulling himself up off the ground.

Indeed what do we do? Draco wondered to himself. Though he had often fantasized up to this point many times, he had never thought about what happened after. So he said the only thing that was logical and the only thing that made sense.

"What do you mean what do we do, Harry? You're Harry Potter and I am Draco Malfoy," he informed him coldly. "This is the end. There is no future for us."

Harry opened his mouth angrily, probably about to refute him or start an argument, and then he closed it again. He looked at Draco with something like a mixture of disappointment, confusion, and disgust on his face, then he turned and walked away in the direction of what Draco assumed led to the Gryffindor common room.

The Slytherin boy was left standing in front of the wall that opened up to the hidden Room of Requirement, exactly as he had been when Harry had appeared in front of him earlier. He had lied to him. The truth was that he wanted a future with Harry very much, but their destinies were different. That much was a fact.

Draco turned and headed back to the Slytherin common room himself, forgetting the entire reason why he wanted to use the Room of Requirement in the first place. His mind was telling him that what he did was the best, smartest and most sane thing that he could ever do. To leave his silly infatuation with The-Boy-Who-Lived alone.

But every other part of him was telling him something else entirely.

Paz'e