Albus Dumbledore was gazing at the Sherbet Lemon on his hand: he'd just accepted the sweet from Harry Potter, who'd offered the Headmaster one of the treats the old wizard adored. It turned out to be a Portkey that had activated and sent him... somewhere.

The room was white and almost completely empty, with one very small table with a chess set in the far side, with two small chairs next to it. There were no windows, no doors visible. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Just then another person materialized, holding a goblet: the goblet fell from the person's hand, and Albus realised he was staring at the face of his arch nemesis Voldemort, also known as the Dark Lord, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and that fucking maniacal dipshit. Voldemort's expression was equally puzzled, which looked peculiar on his serpent-like face.

The two wizards drew their wands simultaneously and took a duelling stance. Neither of them wanted to cast the first spell, for the first one to cast was at a disadvantage against an enemy of completely equal strength and power, especially inside an empty space.

So the wizards continued to face each other. They circled each other for quite some time, narrowing their eyes, looking for clues on when the other would flinch, move, cast...

Time rolled by. And rolled by some more. At one point time got bored of rolling, bought a sports car and raced some, just to speed thing up a bit. And still Voldemort and Dumbledore faced each other.

"Oh, look, this is just utterly ridiculous," Voldemort finally said. They'd been facing each other for sixteen straight hours at this point, staring at each other menacingly, while time had grown bored of his car and bought a jet plane. "This is getting us nowhere! Are you going to cast or not?"

"No, Tom, feel free to start," Dumbledore smirked.

And the wizards continued facing each other.

Finally Albus sighed. "Look," the old wizard said, "why don't we make a temporary truce? We'll make a wand oath not to cast, until we find out where we are. I, for one, would like to know where, by Merlin's rotting dick, we've been sent."

Voldemort gazed at Dumbledore through his slitted pupils, but finally sighed. "Fine, my feet are fucking tired. Let's agree on the wand oath."

It took three hours of solid negotiations to agree on the oath, and then fifteen seconds to swear it. Neither would attack the other with or without their magic, with or without their wands, inside this room, until they both got out. They examined the only objects inside the room: both took a chair and sat with relieved groans.

"I received a Portkey from young Harry. I believe he was duped by one of your minions, who'd made a Sherbet Lemon into a Portkey. Bloody waste of a perfectly good sweet, too."

"You still eat those? They're really bad for teeth, you know," Voldemort said, showing his rotting fangs proudly. "I had just taken a goblet of elf-made wine from Narcissa Malfoy, and the goblet was, apparently, a Portkey. I was under the impression it was a clever ploy by you, but I'd have expected to find the Chosen One waiting for me."

Finally gaining their faculties from being able to actually sit down and do something other than face each other, the wizards looked at the table. It held a chess set, and a piece of parchment. The parchment held a simple text:

"Welcome to the Room of Requirement. To get out, you need to win three consecutive matches of wizard's chess. There is no other exit from this room. Happy gaming!"

"Shit," Voldemort hissed, and because of unfortunate circumstances it was an impressive hiss indeed. Dumbledore didn't congratulate him on it, however, being too busy to mutter "fuck."

"Well then, it seems like we have no choice. It just so happens I'm better at chess than you are," Dumbledore finally said.

"You wish," Voldemort hissed, gaining more points from serpent-like villains all around the world.

"I'll take the whites," Albus declared.

"Of course you fucking do," Voldemort growled, just for a change, and picked up a black piece. "Your move."

Outside the Room of Requirement, although quite a few hours earlier, Harry Potter shook hands with Draco Malfoy.

"Well done, Malfoy," he said. "Your mother managed to deliver the Portkey right on schedule."

"Yes, she was more than happy to get rid of our unwanted house guest, as it were," Draco said with a nod. "She sent father and his friends out of the manor and threatened to hex their robes to lurid pink if they came back. Father was slightly peeved. I must say Granger's plan worked perfectly."

"Hermione is brilliant," Harry admitted. "Oh, here she comes. It seems to have worked, but are you absolutely sure it'll hold them, Hermione?"

"Of course I am," Hermione said primly. "Severus and I worked on it for a whole afternoon, after we realised that we had two bloody Dark Lords who've refused to face each other, both relying on a prophecy that comes from a loon with bottle-bottom spectacles, about the same amount of brains as an average Flubberworm, and a tendency to dive into a vat of cooking sherry."

"And the Room will keep them long enough for me to get my Auror training?"

"Harry, for fuck's sakes, Sev and I went through this thrice for you. We were extremely specific in our request: the walls are absolutely and completely spell-proof, and you could cast sixty thousand Bombarda Maximas or release a herd of Norwegian Ridgebacks and the walls would still hold. And the chess set, well, it's charmed so that one can never win two games in a row, never mind three. They'll be in there for quite some time. We'll have ample time to graduate and for you to complete your Auror training. With any luck your grandchildren will have graduated Hogwarts before they stop fighting over the moves and begin to get the least bit suspicious."

"It's a pity we lost to Room of Requirement, though," Draco said. "I've enjoyed it with Pansy."

"Same here. Sev and I used it when we wanted to test some our theories of having sex while..."

"HERMIONE!" Harry bellowed, "I DID NOT WANT TO HEAR THAT!"

"So, Draco, how's your aunt Bellatrix?" Hermione asked, glaring pointedly at Harry.

"She was preggers to the Dark Lord, did you know?"

"Oh, ew."

"Was. Last week she told mum "fuck this", went and got a Muggle abortion and took a Port-key to Cuba. Last I heard she'd Imperio'd a twenty-something boy-toy."

"Merlin, that's even more disturbing than thinking Snape shagging Hermione," Harry groaned.

"How long d'you reckon it'll take Weasley to realise that Granger is banging my godfather instead of pining after him and preparing to be Mrs Weasley?" Draco asked with a glint in his eyes.

"There's a betting pool on that," Harry said, and Hermione flushed red.

"Oh really?" Draco asked. "Who's keeping it? I want in."

"McGonagall," Harry replied.

"Professor McGonagall, Harry!" Hermione corrected instantly.

"Two thirds of the school is in on it," Harry added, not minding Hermione's correction. "Some of the board of governors, too. I heard the head of the board actually bet it'd take him three years."

"He's probably right," Hermione muttered. "The idiot has walked in on us snogging three times and has each time been convinced we're doing Muggle CPR, and once Sev was doing me from behind and Ron thought I was choking and that Sev was doing the Heimlich maneuver. He actually told Sev that he should do it harder, and went to fetch some a glass of water."

Draco chortled, while Harry turned green at the thought of the greasy dungeon bat doing his best friend from behind.

"Hasn't Dumbledore said anything, though?" Draco inquired curiously.

"Nah. I'm pretty sure McGonagall has been lacing his Sherbet Lemons with LSD for years," Hermione shrugged.

"Huh. That actually explains a lot. Well, anyway, I best be off," Draco said. "There's a lot of cleaning up to do at the manor. The place is a mess, absolutely filled with butterbeer bottles, empty packets of crisps and used paper napkins. They're a messy bunch, Death Eaters."

"Give our greetings to your mother, Malfoy," Harry said jovially.

"Thanks. And say hello to my godfather, will you, Granger?" Draco said and departed with a jovial wave, his Slytherin Swagger (tm) well-practised and easy.

"I think I'll pop into the dungeons, then," Hermione said primly. "You know, cauldrons to scrub, potions to brew..."

"Eww, Hermione..." Harry Potter whined.

Inside the Room of Requirement the two old wizards faced each other over the chess board, and the Dark lord whined, "will you fucking make your move already? I really have some Evil Overlording to do, you know..."