This is SLASH, people. If you don't like it, then there's always the handy-dandy "back" button waggling its eyebrows meaningfully at you.

Note: This fic was inspired by, and sort of loosely based on David Mack's graphic novel series Kabuki. The situations were changed in the context of the story, though. So it would appear that I'm being very intelligent. :)

Comments, reviews are welcome. This fic is dedicated to Sy (check her out on Fictionalley.com -- I feel belittled when I read her fics) and Daniel-san, my first flamer. This is for you, babes!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, et al, are property of J.K. Rowling.

***

Adventures in Ice-O

There is this room in the Hogwarts hospital wing that has completely white walls. It looks like St. Mungo's For Magical Maladies and Injuries misplaced a room, and like a stray cat, it decided to make its way to Hogwarts.

Mostly, Slytherins occupy it. They call it, in some kind of American fashion, "Ice-O". According to the only American transfer student in Slytherin, it is ghetto slang for Isolation. The Slytherins have a strange fancy for anything American.

America, they whisper, like starved Mexican immigrants. To them, it seems inconceivable that during the course of the War, the wizarding community in America managed to close its borders and become an isolated country, protected from the War raging in Britain.

What hideous amount of insensitivity and selfishness could this country be capable of?

It's only a bonus that America has thirty-nine flavours of ice-cream. Or more, the Slytherins murmur in awe to themselves. What sort of giant cones do you think they have there?

Anyway. Ice-O is given to students (mostly Slytherins, mind you), who have tendencies that lean towards those that would land one in St. Mungo's. St. Mungo's, as I understand, is sort of the "sister" institution of Hogwarts -- after Salazar Slytherin went insane after his great fallout with the Hogwarts founders, St. Mungo's was the establishment that was built specially to house him. A great wizard, despite the obvious insanity, would be able to break out of any normal asylum and wreak destruction on society.

Anyway. I am here, Draco Malfoy, and I'm muttering rebelliously as I'm shoved in there with a quavering, "Now, no whining. It's Snape's orders." Even the nurse here, whose name I have temporarily forgotten due to having hit my head repeatedly against the wall, is scared of this room.

It's haunted, the Slytherins say in the tones they normally reserve for talking about America. According to local legend, somebody was put into here, with all good intentions, for some days. That somebody managed to keep one of the forks from the meals, and came out of the room with cuts all over his arms, cuts that were made in a fit of misplaced anger and finally came together in some semblance of a head with a snake twisting out of its mouth.

That was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. According to local legend, anyway. Some mad little girl with hooded eyes went into there and came out dancing, claiming to have touched the walls that the Dark Lord had touched. And ooh, she could hear the screams...

Of course, that girl fainted very appropriately in the Slytherin Common Room, from excitement as well as groupie fever, as though He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was a member of the Beatles.

All of Slytherin house knows who the Beatles are. Most of them assert that one-half of the band were wizards, so it's alright to listen to them since they're only half-Muggle and the wizarding part of the band were Purebloods. Apparently, Purebloods cancel out the irksome effects of Muggles. I personally think that they took Professor Snape's lesson on acids and alkalis too seriously.

And listen to the Beatles they do. In the Common Room. Non-stop, in fact. If I ever see another Beatle record ever again, I will smash it over the head of the nearest person.

Heads are the reason why I'm in this room, anyway. I was banging my head on the wall. I didn't think there was anything wrong with it, but Blaise had to open his trap and complain because with all the banging, he "couldn't study for Potions." Somebody should just tell him the Slytherin method of getting a pass for Potions, and that is to give Professor Snape a good blowjob.

I told him that with all the Beatles music playing, it was a wonder that he could crack a book open, which was why I was banging my head against the wall. I was going to get a headache anyway, from all the bloody music playing simultaneously.

(One Slytherin student had proclaimed some American band called N'Sync a purely wizard band. His defence: because a Muggle band cannot possible do the range of higher octaves that N'Sync can. It was Mugglenely impossible. His word, not mine. And another declared Iron Maiden a wizard band in disguise as well. They're all in bloody denial, if you ask me.)

Blaise said, I'm still complaining. I said, Bitch. Blaise said, Professor Snape! And Snape said, Malfoy, stop this ridiculous head-banging of yours. Go to the Hospital Wing, you're going to be put in Isolation for a while.

Ah. So here I am. Pushed in, locked in. Don't tell me it's for my own good, haven't those people heard of drugs? I don't see the point of Isolation; you only get more bored and have more time to concoct plans of what you're going to do when you can walk for three metres without colliding with solid wall, or the toilet in one corner of the room. Toilet paper is given to the inmate three times a day, in square strips that feel more like paper you write on than paper you wipe with. It's like they think that a human being only goes to the toilet three times a day. If they actually do that themselves, it's no wonder they're such tight-arsed morons.

I'm staring at the wall above the toilet. There's a duct there, a heating vent. I'm supposed to stay in this pit for the weekend. It just goes to show you what a bitch Blaise is, studying on a Friday night. He's just waiting for somebody to go mad because of him and get into Isolation. I could be at party thrown by the senior Slytherins in one of the deserted houses in Hogsmeade, but no...

I fall asleep on the floor. I wake up in the morning, serenaded by silence. It figures that the room is soundproof too, I think bitterly.

I seem to remember some sort of strange dream -- it's one of those kinds where you have dreamt it so vividly during the night, but upon waking and trying to recall it, only fragments come to mind, odds and ends of conversation and events here and there.

I recall a very whiny, familiar voice saying to me, "But Draco! The Snitch isn't supposed to be caught by your groin!" I think I retorted, "If you can catch it in your mouth, then my groin can catch it!" And then I grabbed the source of the whiny voice and kissed him.

Him?

Oh, damn.

Breakfast appears inside the room. I stare at the cup of black liquid and wonder if it is laced with some potion to depress the senses. It looks like something you spread across a pus-oozing wound. Then I realize that utensils aren't provided and decide that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named must have been here too.

I decide that suddenly recollecting forgotten dreams are a bitch as well, and that it can go and languish in bitch-ness in Blaise. Yes, I'm bitter. Yes, I have just dreamt of the horrible Potter-thing. I feel like throwing up in the toilet, but I have to live in the same room with it for the next day, so I restrain myself. There is also this terrible feeling in my heart that tells me that a) This is the start of a very unhealthy obsession with Potter, and b) aren't I already obsessed with Potter?

I tear out a bit of my hair and attach it to a rolled-up toilet paper, using a wizard plaster from a knee to secure it. Then I paint my nails with breakfast.

After my nails are done (I am ridiculously pleased with myself, then I feel guilty for painting my nails, because it seems like such a gay thing to do, and I am most certainly not gay, being gay does not equal being obsessed with Harry Potter and wanting to kiss him that is all perfectly part of being a teenager and a result of those hormones and things and who hasn't been attracted to him? he's like the attraction-seeking slut and he practically deserves attention because he's such a whore and I have every right to like him since everybody does too), I put the brush inside my shirt pocket and stand on the toilet, investigating the heating vent. I pry it open with surprising ease -- it's almost as if people have done this before. I begin to climb into it, when breakfast disappears with a loud "pop", startling me.

I fall down with no semblance of grace and get up, cursing. I decide to go in the vent after dinner, when there is an assured lack of popping meals.

After dinner, which is a disgusting viscous orange liquid -- I am most certainly not painting any part of my body with that, I try climbing into the vent again. I carefully place the cover of the vent on the floor and climb into the vent, only to find that people have been in the vent before -- there are scratches on the floor of the vent from fingernails scratching the surface of it.

I explore. The vent is large enough (or rather, I am small enough, there are signs that people have been stuck in the vent; frantic scratches and so on) for me to crawl through. It smells unpleasantly of metal and choked air, and I am discovering that even though I am not a claustrophobic, this agonizing slow crawl might turn me into one.

I beginning to think this is a bad idea when I reach a fork in the vent paths. There is a left side and a right side. Which one? I'm about to give up and leave when I remind myself that all that awaits me in Isolation is an equally, if not more, agonizing wait for freedom again. There is a rush of warm air from the right path, while there is a blast of cold air from the other, probably from outside the castle walls. I scratch a long line in the vent wall to mark where I am about to go, and make my way down the right path.

After around twenty minutes, it becomes apparently that there's an upward slope to the vent. Finally it planes out, and I can see shafts of dim light, marking another vent opening.

I scramble to it and somehow manage to hit my head against the vent. The sound echoes unpleasantly, like some mocking reminder of my clumsiness. The vent opening's near the floor and I peer out, discovering that I'm in a boys' dorm. The flickering light from dimmed lamps on the wall illuminate bits and pieces of posters for Quidditch teams, as well as Muggle football teams. Obviously not a Slytherin dorm. In the Slytherin dorms there would be the blasting of Beatles' music, but it's all silence and muffled snores here. Maybe I'm in a Hufflepuff dorm -- all of the Hufflepuff boys look like prime suspects for snoring.

Quietly, I pry the vent from the inside and place it on the floor. All of a sudden, my stomach gurgles, reminding me that I haven't eaten for the entire day, except for maybe chewing on a hangnail out of sheer boredom. I concluded that people who chew hangnails are obviously very bored because nails taste disgusting, like crunching bits of seashell, salt-crust and all.

I step on a sweet wrapper, causing a horrible crunching noise. I crouch down instinctively, half-expecting sirens and bullhorns -- HANDS ON YOUR HEAD! COME OUT OF THE CORNER! NO SUDDEN MOVES! There's nothing, just the sound of somebody turning over in his sleep and grunting. Yes, it's Hufflepuff all right.

There's a very tantalizing trail of empty sweet wrappers, which steadily become less empty as I follow the trail to a canopy bed with the curtains half-closed. My mind runs with thoughts of Every Flavour Beans and Chocolate Frogs, dancing in my head, chanting, "Eat me! Eat me!" I suddenly think of Harry Potter joining in the dance and shouting, "Eat me! Eat me!" and chase it out of my head, yanking the curtains upon.

Um. Well.

Not Hufflepuff. Definitely not Hufflepuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's Gryffindor. Um.

Potter, asleep like some little child, making adora-- disgusting snuffling noises, with one hand flung over his face. It looks like he binged himself to a fitful sleep. Chocolate frogs with heads bitten off, legs wiggling in mid-leap -- it looks like Potter does have some sense of the macabre. I pinch myself, feeling oddly surreal -- Potter asleep and me right beside him, sneakily eating his food by gleaming lamplight.

I stuff my mouth with the chocolate frogs, feeling nastily like I've chewed down on live frogs, and suddenly detect a scent of some unidentifiable sweet from Potter. I lean in closer. It smells like... grass. There's a bag of Bertie Bott's in his sleep-limp hand, so I suppose that explains things.

The good news is, I'm not hungry anymore. The bad news is, I'm suddenly taken by the urge to lick Potter's lips. I've never actually tasted the grass-flavoured jelly bean before -- all the unpleasantly-flavoured beans in the bags that I buy are hastily taken by Crabbe and Goyle. It's almost as if they're so thick-headed, the quality extends to their tongues, so they can only taste the most vomit-inducing flavour.

A voice is telling me, You know, you're only saying that because you want to lick his lips. And then it adds, But you're not going to, because you're a coward. Call yourself a Malfoy, it says contemptously, but not without some measure of hope. A real Malfoy would get in there and lick his lips in half in second.

I lean closer, intoxicated by the dreamlike quality of all of this and the smell of grass; and Potter takes the opportunity to suddenly thrust his fist into my face. Thankfully, he's limp from sleep, or else I would have ended up with a broken nose. Just what I need. I curse quietly. It's time to leave. It's obvious that even in sleep, Potter is highly volatile, like some unstable potion that promises desired secrets.

I should also really go to sleep because I am using far too much adjectives when describing Potter. Soon I will start comparing him to a summer's day and I'll know that I'm screwed.

When I turn my back, suddenly Potter lets loose something halfway between a snuffle and a whimper, starting to tremble and shake beneath the sheets. I exhale and decide that Life is actually begging me to stay a bit longer, and who am I to say no to Life?

I tentatively sit down on the edge of his bed and smooth down his rumpled hair, which immediately pops back up. How very annoying and fascinating. I do this several times and begin to giggle. Malfoys don't giggle. It must be all those chocolate frogs. I knew they contain some traces of alcohol.

I watch in some measure of amusement and fascination as my hand slips from his hair to his face, which is pale (not as white as mine -- there's a reason why Milicent calls me White King and accuses me of being a stupid, useless chess piece because I never move my "lily-white arse") and smooth. I cup his cheek in my hand, feeling like I'm holding a pool of white silk in my hands.

All of a sudden Potter jerks upwards, eyes still closed but struggling to open. I leap up, decide that Life is a bitch, and scramble back into the vent and make it back to Isolation in half the time on pure adrenalin, fear, excitement, and chocolate frogs.

It's only when I get back that I realize that the brush that I used to paint my nails has fallen out of my shirt pocket.

***

Monday, Breakfast at the Great Hall

Draco Malfoy turned to Crabbe and drawled, "Well, it was horribly dull and boring. I suppose you'd know, you've been in there more than once for killing some of the younger students' pets."

Crabbe grunted and nodded, shovelling more bacon into his mouth with a hand like a bulldozer.

Pansy, opposite from him, leaned over the table. Draco leaned back. "Draco," she hissed. "I've heard there's some secret passageway out of Isolation. Did you see any way out?"

Draco gave her a withering look. "Pansy, if there was a passageway out of Isolation, would I tell you?"

Pansy fell back into her seat, sulky.

Draco sighed to himself and delicately pushed some of his scrambled eggs around, his black-nailed hand handling the fork with a delicate disdain, as if he didn't know whose mouth the fork had been in before (this was true and this was also the main reason why he did this), "Honestly, if she were any slower--"

"She'd be going backwards?" inquired a polite voice from behind him.

Draco whirled around and came face to face with Harry Potter. Harry glanced down at Draco's fingernails, still painted black, but chipping slightly from Draco's nocturnal adventure, and reached into his pocket.

"This is yours, right?" he asked, still ever so polite. He carefully places a handmade brush, made of blonde hair and rolled up toilet paper, secured by a plaster, into Draco's hands. Harry ambles his way back to the Gryffindor table, quickly engulfed by the mass of his friends.

Draco stared at the brush.

Pansy snorted. "Huh," she said. "That arrogant little worm. Huh, he's the one who's so slow he'd be going--"

"Pansy?" Draco said slowly, gently twirling the brush between his fingers.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."