Chapter 25: Night Tour of the Room of Requirement
"Mmm…"
After turning around the staircase, Melvin glanced down the fourth-floor corridor. The room that housed Fluffy was hidden around several corners, so he couldn't see anything from here.
"The Room of Requirement? You mean there's a secret chamber within Hogwarts Castle? The four founders placed an ancient concealment charm on it. It only appears when someone truly needs it…"
"I believe it was Miss Helga Hufflepuff who created it," Dumbledore said as he walked ahead, climbing the stairs with light steps. "She had a fine sense for life's pleasures and often created surprises and left gifts for the students."
"Surprises and gifts." Melvin turned his gaze calmly, following half a step behind. "If it's a gift, why not make it public? Or at least leave clues for students to discover?"
"I don't know," Dumbledore replied mildly. "That was a thousand years ago."
"Will the Room of Requirement contain what I'm looking for?"
"Perhaps. When it appears, it always provides exactly what the seeker needs, resolving whatever difficulty they face."
"How did you find it?"
"Well…"
Dumbledore's tone matched his steps unhurried, steady, his voice echoing through the corridor. "It happened many years ago, when I was still a student at Hogwarts. I remember it was in the second half of my fifth year. My friends and I were busy preparing for exams, our heads swimming with revision. In my rush to find a bathroom, I took a wrong turn, made two corners, and found myself in a room I'd never seen before beautifully decorated, filled with every kind of exquisite and luxurious chamber pot."
"Charming…"
Melvin pursed his lips, unsure whether the story was true, and unwilling to pry further.
To Dumbledore, it sounded like a real memory but also something he might have fabricated to amuse a child.
Unbothered, Dumbledore continued seriously, "After the O.W.L. exams, I had some free time and went back to search for the room again. But I couldn't find a trace it had completely vanished."
"When I returned for sixth year, I spent several months experimenting and discovered a few patterns. Perhaps it could only be entered at five-thirty in the morning… or during the waning moon… or maybe only when one's bladder was particularly full."
"…"
Melvin quickened his pace to walk beside him. "I don't care about your trigger conditions. I care about your conclusion. How many experiments did it take you to reach that?"
"Er… I don't quite remember."
"In any case," Dumbledore said lightly, "my exploration of that mysterious room ended there. I didn't even know back then that it was called the Room of Requirement."
His tone brightened. "When I encountered it again, I was already the Transfiguration professor. The caretaker at the time, Mr. Apollyon Pringle, was far stricter than Filch, and his punishments were… harsher. Students needed a place to hide contraband during his rounds. I noticed that the name 'Room of Requirement' began circulating quietly among a small group of students."
"Later, when I became headmaster, the house-elves discovered I was investigating that mysterious chamber. These devoted staff, who know Hogwarts better than anyone, told me it has existed since the school's founding. For nearly a thousand years, they've used it as a storage room for cleaning supplies and a passageway for transport."
"Oh, and in those days," he added with a small chuckle, "students trusted me enough to let me keep their banned items safe for them."
"…"
Melvin paused. "So Headmaster Armando Dippet truly trusted you enough to hand you the entire castle one day."
"Which is why," Dumbledore said, a little sheepishly, "I stopped helping students hide forbidden objects once I became headmaster."
"…"
The eighth floor of Hogwarts Castle was a busy one. Turning right at the staircase led to the portrait of the Fat Lady, which concealed the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. A little further down the hall was Professor Flitwick's office.
Melvin frowned. Why was the Ravenclaw Head of House's office right beside Gryffindor Tower?
Dumbledore didn't answer. Their destination lay to the left of the stairs.
They walked through several corridors and rounded a few corners before stopping before a blank wall covered by an enormous tapestry.
It was old and frayed, its woolen threads dulled with age, edges worn to shreds, strands falling loose, coated in gray dust and faint mold.
The scene depicted a gloomy forest and a crooked castle tower that resembled Hogwarts. Several grayish-brown mountain trolls lay snoring on haystacks, dressed in pink ballet skirts trimmed with lace, clutching thick wooden clubs.
The central figure, Barnabas, sat upon a tree stump.
"Barnabas was once a Care of Magical Creatures professor, about four centuries ago," Dumbledore explained. "Back then, the Magical Council was trying to define what counts as 'human.' Trolls were the main controversy they looked humanoid, with heads, limbs, and upright posture…
Some wizards argued they were distant relatives of giants and should be classified as human. Others insisted they were beasts, incapable of higher thought less intelligent than some cats and dogs."
"The debate lasted over a decade. The headmaster at the time his name escapes me was researching troll language and got dismissed for it. Barnabas, who taught Care of Magical Creatures, began an unusual experiment: he tried to prove that trolls' brains weren't just ornaments by teaching them ballet. As you can see… he failed."
"To commemorate it, the students created this tapestry. It's hung here for centuries."
Melvin studied the tapestry, noting how it differed from other portraits in the castle.
Most magical portraits like those of former headmasters or famous alumni could move between frames, interact, even travel between locations, such as the portrait of the healer Delise Devante shared between Hogwarts and St. Mungo's.
This tapestry was different. Barnabas and the trolls showed no intelligence; they couldn't communicate with the outside world. They simply repeated their actions each day:
Morning Barnabas teaching trolls ballet.
Afternoon the trolls beating Barnabas.
Night everyone resting.
Day after day, year after year.
If this performance could be expanded if it had dialogue, a backstory, a voice Melvin thought, it might become a fascinating piece of theater.
Dumbledore suddenly asked softly, "Did you notice something strange about the tapestry?"
"Huh?" Melvin turned to him. "What do you mean?"
"It began as a harmless student joke," Dumbledore said. "A playful piece about a professor's failed experiment. But over time, it changed. Barnabas became known as 'Barnabas the Barmy,' and the tapestry turned into a political warning about failed education. Some malicious wizards use it to insult Muggle-borns, calling them 'another kind of troll,' claiming they'll one day rise up and strike their pure-blood teachers."
"…"
Melvin fell silent.
He hadn't expected a mere tapestry to carry such political weight.
It felt… very Muggle.
"Let's return to the matter of the Room of Requirement," Dumbledore said, stepping away from the tapestry. "See the wall across from it? Focus on the place you need in your mind. Walk past it three times, and the door will appear."
Melvin hesitated, then decided to play along. "So what kind of room could help me?"
"There are two types," said Dumbledore. "One is entirely false everything within it is conjured by magic, imaginary, intangible. It follows Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration; nothing within it can be taken out.
The second type is half-real, half-illusory. The scene is false, but the objects are real stored there by former professors or students, or by the house-elves who clean and organize the castle."
"I see," Melvin said. "Then I'm looking for the old forbidden items."
Dumbledore smiled and nodded.
Melvin narrowed his eyes. "After all these decades, those confiscated things must still be here. The students who trusted you… were wrong."
"…."
Dumbledore's smile faded, a flicker of guilt crossing his face.
Melvin decided not to press him further. Turning to the wall, he visualized the scene he needed a secret chamber filled with hidden, forbidden objects.
He walked past the wall three times. On the final pass, the rough stone rippled like water, and dust rolled off in waves as a dark wooden door appeared.
"Let's enter this secret room and search for those dangerous, terrifying treasures."
Ignoring Dumbledore's nervous whisper, Melvin grasped the handle, turned it, and pushed the door open.
The room was vast more like an endless warehouse than a storage closet.
The glass dome overhead was caked with grime and soot, blocking all moonlight. Dim gemstones embedded in pillars emitted a faint glow, reflecting off piles of clutter and twisting the shadows.
Fortunately, the air held no mold only the faint scent of old parchment.
"Lumos Glimmer," Melvin murmured.
A soft silver light spread across the chamber, illuminating mountains of objects battered furniture, tangled metal, shattered armor, heaps of ancient scrolls.
Titles like The Great Wizards of the Seventeenth Century, a Golden Snitch, a Quaffle, a round table from Carpenter's Furnishings (1774), a rotted oak cauldron, a dusty knight's statue…
Some items exuded traces of curses, but their magic was weak like lamps flickering without oil.
Melvin surveyed the chaos with disappointment. "I don't think there's anything here that can help me."
"Treasure hunting requires patience," Dumbledore said cheerfully, stepping through the maze of junk toward a dark corner. He pointed. "Look at this."
A massive square object loomed ahead easily several meters tall, like a wardrobe touching the ceiling. It was a mirror, its brass edges dulled with dust, the surface smeared except for one cleaned patch.
"Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi…" Melvin muttered, reading the reversed inscription. "It shows not your face but your heart's deepest desire."
He gazed into it.
Instead of his reflection, he saw a darkened room. He was reclining on a sofa, holding a remote control not facing a flat LCD screen, but an old bulky tube television.
Curled beside him was a silver serpent with horns sprouting from its head.
Melvin's expression didn't change. These buried memories deep within his soul were his alone, unseen by the Sorting Hat or even this mirror.
On-screen, The Simpsons played in grainy color. He squinted at it for a moment before glancing away as Dumbledore approached.
"What did you see?"
"That's private, I'm afraid," Melvin said. "I won't tell you."
Dumbledore blinked, then chuckled softly. "Fair enough."
"And what did the headmaster see?"
"I'll keep that secret as well," Dumbledore replied with a wistful smile. "I found this mirror while cleaning the castle before term began. It's too heavy to move by Transfiguration. I plan to remove it during the Christmas holidays and use it as a teaching aid."
"…"
"Potter's tutor, huh," Melvin murmured, looking back at the inscription, then up at the towering dusty knight statues surrounding them metal armor, lances, helms, and crowns catching faint glimmers of silver light.
(End of Chapter)