Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

I've been kicking this idea around ever since I finished the book; the concept of how the Room of Requirement worked and of its potential just wouldn't leave me.

However, transferring what was a pure theoretical concept into a coherent fic proved more difficult than I'd thought.

In any case, read on, then leave a review and tell me what you think.

……….

………

The Room of Requirement is many things to many people.

………

It was a wet afternoon and Harry was miserable. School had just started back and already the work was piling up.

The holidays this year had been especially hard; his uncle had been hard-pressed to make his life hell to make up for the year before.

Even though Harry now knew the reasons that he must stay with his relatives, the fact still loomed that Uncle Vernon no longer had the power to kick him out made his temper that much worse, a fact compounded by the fact that Harry couldn't just take off like he'd been so tempted to do before.

And then there was Sirius.

Ron had written to him several times inviting him to stay at the burrow, but even though it had been months, he still couldn't bear to see them all again; the last time they'd been together was before…

Plus he knew that they would try and cheer him up, and the last thing he needed was sympathy.

So, he'd sat at home miserable. A few times he'd seen Dung disappear around the corner, but he never had the chance to talk to him, or anyone from the Order for that matter.

He had no idea what was going on with the Order; with his Godfathers death Grimmauld Place now legally belonged to the Malfoys.

But, it was all over now. He was back at Hogwarts for another long year.

………

Harry found himself wandering down a familiar corridor.

Last year had been his hardest yet right from the beginning. This year promised to be better, at least from the point that the Ministry had bigger problems to deal with now than controlling the school.

No one had confronted him yet about the DA, but he felt that with Tom active again that it would be prudent to keep it going.

Which brought him back to his current location.

A thought had been dwelling in his mind all this time but had been too timid to come forward. Now he became aware of it for the first time.

He had no idea how the Room of Requirement worked, but he supposed that it somehow altered time so that rather than building the room each time, it made it so that it had always 'been' that way.

Which would have meant that rather than remove the DA's membership form from Hermione when Malfoy was looking for evidence, that it had somehow altered time to make her leave it there after they fled, just waiting for Draco to find it.

If that was the case…

Feverishly Harry paced the corridor, when he reached for the doorknob his hand was trembling.

Slowly, as if afraid of what would be on the other side, he turned it and pushed the door open a crack.

"Sirius? Are you in here?"
"Yes Harry. I'm here."

………

………

Well, what'd you think? Leave a review and tell me.

I realise that I could have done this fic better; it seems to be to end too abruptly, but I guess that adds to the effect.

I realise that this leaves a lot more questions than it answers, but I'll leave it up to you to work out how far it can go (obviously Sirius wouldn't be able to leave the room)

And I'd like to thank my friend Jay (ff.net ID-212972) for the bit about the Malfoys inheriting Grimmauld Place. I think we both came to the same conclusion about Sirius being dead at the same time.