"Bagley, wait up!" Cedric Diggory jogged up to Jack, a bright smile on his face. "What'd your lot think of yesterday?"
"It was brilliant—we all knew Expelliarmus, of course, but none of us had ever practiced it like that."
"And the Room?"
"The Room of Requirement…" Jack mused. "I did a massive project on Hogwarts for History of Magic last year, and it popped up in some of the letters I saw, but never attached to an exact location or with instructions on how to use it. I never would've put the different pieces together if it hadn't been for the meeting last night, which is good—means it's hidden pretty well. Hard to get to from the dungeons, though." Cedric laughed at that.
"From our common room, too. I was wondering if that couldn't be fixed—I asked the Weasley twins to check it out tonight, and Marietta Edgecombe—she's my girlfriend's best friend and brilliant at charms in a pinch, so I figured she'd be good to have around."
It would be interesting, Jack admitted to himself, to see what the Room could do. And the Weasley twins were the people to ask when it came to hidden rooms and passages.
"Why ask me? Not that it doesn't sound like a good idea," he added hastily. "I mean, I'm in—but why me?"
Cedric rolled his eyes, but his good-natured smile remained. "C'mon Bagley, you said yourself that you've done reading on the history of Hogwarts—who knows what else you've got up there that you haven't connected yet. Anyway, everyone knows you get decent marks, and we'll need someone with a broad overview. And if you didn't come," he added as an afterthought, "there'd be no Slytherins. And we can't figure out how to get into your common room and make things work best for you if we don't even know what you need." Students began to leave the Great Hall to get to their first class as Cedric finished talking, and he waved goodbye to Jack. "Midnight tonight," he said under his breath before leaving, his voice almost lost in the chatter around them. "We'll meet you by the old dueling room—Fred and George reckon they've got a passage that'll take us pretty close to the Room from there, and if you're all with me people will reckon you've either got a plausible excuse or have already been caught."
"Right—see you." Cedric and Jack parted, Cedric heading back to breakfast and Jack to Muggle Studies. Sixteen hours felt impossibly long.
/
It was 12:05 by the time Jack reached the old dueling room. Cedric knew because the seven minutes they'd been waiting (they'd come 2 minutes early) had felt like ages. The twins seemed relaxed, but Marietta looked as on-edge as he felt. You could tell who in the group was used to breaking rules.
"Bagley! Excellent. Are we clear?" Fred asked, turning to George, who was shielding a piece of parchment. At his brother's nod, Fred left the doorway they'd gathered under and began walking deeper into the dungeons, away from the Slytherins common room. Cedric followed him, still uncertain how this would get them to the Room, Jack and Marietta behind him. George followed them a muttered phrase and folded parchment later. Before long, they reached a hallway lined with incredibly ugly tapestries.
"Not very nice looking, these," he remarked, and George laughed.
"They were, before—you can see the tampering. Someone changed them—"
"We think that's when they were added to this lovely dungeon collection," Fred added, stopping in front of one of a solitary man. "Here we are." He pulled the tapestry aside and George tapped a few stones with his wand in a recognizable pattern, at which point a staircase was revealed.
"It's the same as the Leaky Cauldron?" Jack asked, obviously also recognizing it.
"Secondary unlocking sequence," Marietta replied before the twins could. "More advanced than what would be used, say, for child protection on cupboards, but simpler than security on safes and houses, not to mention at the ministry."
"Right you are," George said cheerfully.
"You know," Fred said, equally cheerful, "An extensive knowledge of that sort of information typically suggests that someone's studied breaking and entering."
"That's certainly why we learned it," George put in. Marietta shrugged.
"My mum locks her files up, and that was my best source of accurate ministry information this summer." The twins looked interested in this, and as they headed the staircase, George closing the wall behind them, Fred continued the line of questioning. As they walked up the stairs and down a hallway, torches on the walls automatically illuminated and shut off—some sort of motion-detecting spell, Cedric figured. He'd never known this passage existed, which was rather difficult to admit, as he felt that it said something when the Head Boy didn't know the passageways in the school he was supposed to be watching over. Then again, he'd never been one to sneak out late regularly, so he'd been able to rely on others to know passageways. Now he made note of this staircase passageway—who knew what he would need this year, with That Old Toad—as he'd taken to calling her in his head—in charge.
"Here we are!" Fred pushed the wall in front of him—no pattern required, Cedric noted—and it swung out.
"Lumos," he heard Jack whisper behind him. Glancing at the portraits in the hallway, most of which looked rather disgruntled at having been awoken by the light. The portrait blocking the passage they'd come up was that of Ignatius the Elderly, he saw, which he knew was just down the hall from that of Peitr Alfonso MaConigal III, as the two often got into arguments, having been neighbours—and quite poor ones—all their lives. Cedric had spent many rounds quieting the two or settling their disputes. Jack made eye contact with him and pulled a face that said he'd had similar experiences.
"Just down this way, then," George said, taking the lead this time. At that point, Cedric finally got his bearings back. Ignatius was down the hall from Pietr, who was near the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, which was just across from—
"Convenient, that passage," he remarked. They seemed to have traveled halfway across the castle and up seven flights of stairs, although he was certain they had not, in reality, covered such a distance, which placed them just a few hallways away from the Room itself. Fred grinned at him.
"It is, you know, what we do best."
As soon as they reached the Room, they walked back and forth three times, each thinking some variation of "we need to be where the DA met". The door appeared, and pulling the door open, they saw the Room as it had appeared the previous night.
"What now?" Jack asked, taking a moment to look around more closely than he had the night before.
"All charms have their limits, so we should test this one, see what it can do." Marietta joined Jack at the bookshelf he had wandered over to and pulled a book off the shelf. "Where are these from, d'you think? Are they always in here?"
"No," George responded with certainty, "It was a broom cupboard for us once—don't reckon all this would fit in there."
"Some of these are from the library," Jack said. "Restricted section and all—I had to get a note from Snape last term to get this one."
"So if I need another book—say, Hogwarts, A History—" Cedric began, but before he finished the thought, one of the library copies of the book appeared on the table next to the bookshelf.
"Wicked," the twins said together.
"Not the book I'd have gone for—" Fred added.
"But good enough for a test," George agreed. "Now if we could just get a fireplace in here…" As he spoke, the far wall began to shift, a fireplace forming, a pack of floo powder on the mantle. "Excellent." George walked over to the fire and stuck his torso in after using floo powder, pulling himself back into the room holding a tray of chocolate chip scones. "We can access the kitchens," he announced.
"That's great," Marietta replied, "But the Department of Magical Transportation's been clamping down on floo usage, and they especially mentioned Hogwarts in some of their documents—they were planning to start watching the Floo network as soon as possible, probably around now."
"And how did you get that information?" Fred asked innocently. "Sounds classified."
Marietta shrugged. "If they wanted it to stay classified they should've made it more difficult to access."
"We shouldn't have a fire anyway," Jack cut in, and the fireplace disappeared as suddenly as it had entered the room. "Especially one hooked up to the Floo Network. Because if we can use it to get out of the room, anyone else can use it to get in. Only the DMT can provide passwords or locks on Floo grates, and somehow I don't think us strolling up to ask for one would go well." There was silence for a moment as the others considered this point, looking rather tense at the thought that someone might have noticed the Floo connection…or might have entered. Yes, it was best to not have a fireplace.
"Nevermind the fireplace," Cedric finally said. "Our main problem is accessibility. Even if we can use passages like the one tonight, it's going to be a bit obvious if the same groups of us disappear from our common rooms once a week."
"Most of the times the Room was mentioned in the letters I read it was said to be here," Jack said. "But there was one that said something else…" A rather large roll of parchment appeared on the table beside Hogwarts, a History, and Jack looked at it, bemused. "I guess it was still in Binns' office, then," he said, and picked up the roll, skimming the text. "Yeah, I quoted it here—"The Come-and-Go-Room set us out near the kitchens, and none too soon, for the shrieking of voices coming from within was like to cause quite the stir"… Well, there's more, but the important part's there at the beginning—that's another name for the Room of Requirement, and the kitchens definitely haven't moved."
"Maybe the entrance itself can't change, but you can change it from inside the Room," George suggested. "Then only one person would have to get down here and could just let everybody else in from the dormitories or the library or somewhere."
"Only one way to find out," Marietta pointed out. "Ummm…we'd like a passage that lets out at the entrance to the Ravenclaw Common room." Nothing changed.
"Maybe if we open the door…" Fred suggested, and walked over to do so. They held their breaths as he reached for the handle, letting them out as they saw that the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy across the hall had been replaced by a door, the center of which held a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle. Fred closed the door again, and they looked at each other, excited.
"If we're really going to test its limits, we should go a step further." Jack noted. "We'd like the door to let out into the Seventh Year Slytherin boy's dormitory, please."
Fred opened the door, and they looked into a circular room with two occupied beds. He closed it carefully, so as not to wake Andrew and Adrian, then all five started cheering.
"You are absolutely NOT to use this for pranks," Cedric said, looking at the Weasley twins with a stern expression. "If you'd found it for yourselves, maybe, but we need this for the DA, and we can't risk messing that up." The twins gave their word, looking a bit put out.
"It's not that we need it to get in,"George explained, "It's just always nice to keep people on their toes."
"Somehow," Jack put in drily, "I think you'll manage that anyhow." Fred and George beamed at him.
/
Blaise Zabini hated Herbology, so it was very unfortunate that he was looking at over two and a half more years of it. The only thing he needed to know about plants, as far as he was concerned, was which ones went into which Potions; the requirements to work in Potions Research at St. Mungo's—or anywhere else—unfortunately disagreed.
He particularly had no interest in Screechsnap—growing the seedlings was bad enough (he hadn't heard right since they'd begun—but all of the OWL students had been assigned a project on it.
"Find a partner to work with, now, and begin discussing what you'd like to study." Blaise looked at the other Slytherins, sizing up his options. Draco had already claimed Theodore, and he wasn't about to work with Crabbe or Goyle—living with them was bad enough. He assumed Pansy and Tracey would pair up, as would Millicent and Emma, which left him either Daphne or Sophie.
"Hey Zabini, want to work together?" Blaise turned to face the table, looking at Padma Patil in surprise. She laughed a little at his surprise, leaning over the table. "Amanda kills every plant she touches," she confided in a conspiratorial whisper, "and Lisa's got a huge thing for Terry—if I screw up her chances she'll be impossible all weekend." Blaise took this information in, eyeing Lisa Turpin and Terry Boot thoughtfully.
"I don't see it," he said. Padma just shrugged, not disagreeing. "We can't have your roommate mad at you, though. Any idea what to do this on?"
"Not a clue," she admitted. "I was kind of just planning to ask around for ideas. Nola Johnston's big into Herbology—she's headed off to healer training after graduation." Seeing Blaise's blank expression she added: "she's one of our chasers—short brown hair, always looks a bit like she thinks she's on a higher level than you." A face vaguely came into Blaise's mind.
"Oh, right. I think I know who she is. Glad you've got a plan, because Herbology's my worst subject for sure, and I have absolutely nothing. I am good at research, though," he added, feeling like he had to justify himself.
"Well, at least you're not totally useless," Padma jokingly responded. "How does tomorrow at two sound? We can meet up in the Herbology section."
"It's a plan," Blaise answered. Padma leaned back from over the table, and the plants that she'd been covering screeched in response to the new amount of light. Maybe, Blaise thought, they could do their project on how Screechsnap reacted to silencing charms.
/
It wasn't uncommon for students to be seen playing pickup matches of quidditch. Sometimes they'd play with full teams, if they'd gotten permission to use all of the balls (or had someone who knew how to break into the Quidditch supply closet). More common was five-on-five (played with real Quaffles, which were easy to find, and some other round objects enchanted to act as Bludgers) and down, all the way to two-on-two, in which the "Bludgers" were enchanted to act as Keepers and the other four players played chaser.
What made this particular match uncommon was the players—the two-on-two match consisted of Katie Bell and Gillian Ossett versus Cho Chang and Nerissa Brody—in other words, Katie Bell and the first three people she'd been able to convince to join her. She and Nerissa had taken separate teams, as they were the two most used to playing Chaser—Gillian was a Beater, while Cho was a Seeker. Likewise, they'd split Cho and Katie up, as they were the only two actually on their house teams.
It wasn't anything uncommon, really, especially from the distance most students saw it. Just a group of friends laughing and having fun together. Still, Nerissa reflected as she cheered for Gillian's goal, something about it felt special.
/
"Professor Umbridge is teaching us the Ministry standard!"
"Professor Umbridge won't even let us use magic!"
"Wands can be dangerous—why would we need to use them in class? She just wants us to put them away until we understand the theory!"
"Yeah, well, Dolores can feel free to put her wand right up my—"
"Thank you, Sean." Cedric could tell by the acid in her voice that Corrie was one more argument away from shouting at the prefects—all of them, regardless of sides. Pansy Parkinson and Sean Ogbourne, who he doubted had ever spoken before becoming prefects, had been at each others throats all night, all surrounding the topic of Dolores Umbridge. Corrie continued talking about the subject at hand—the decree about clubs, which hadn't yet been discussed at a meeting—while Cedric scanned the room. Hermione Granger was hissing something in Ron Weasley's ear—he was fairly certain she was the only reason Weasley hadn't joined Sean yet. Like he and Corrie had predicted at the beginning of the year, Weasley, Malfoy, and Parkinson was not a good combination. Malfoy had thankfully not contributed to the discussion, whether because he didn't care or thought Parkinson had it under control, Cedric was unsure. Holden Ledbury had complained about doing rounds with people from other houses at the beginning of the meeting, saying that it wasn't any fun. Corrie, having just broken up the first fight, had snapped back that rounds weren't supposed to be fun, and so the tone of the meeting had been set.
Beyond all hope, they reached the point of wrapping up. Cedric gave an overview of the assignments and things to look out for and dismissed the prefects as quickly as possible.
"If they fight in the hallway they can deal with it themselves," Corrie groaned, leaning back in her chair and covering her face with her hands. "Some unified front we are."
Cedric wanted to encourage her, but after this meeting he wasn't really sure what to say. It had been, to state it simply, a disaster. "At least Malfoy and Weasley didn't get into a fight," he offered. Corrie laughed.
"How low our expectations are, that that's something to be grateful for."
Still, Cedric noticed, she didn't argue with him.
/
"I was wondering," Andrew started, pausing for Adrian and Jack to look up from what they were doing, "it's about what you did with the Room of Requirement, Jack, with the fireplace. I wondered if we could figure out how to get one in here—like our own little common room. If we moved the beds all over to one side of the room we could put some chairs and couches in here—duplicate some from the common room and shrink them to bring them in." Jack looked skeptical, but Adrian looked thoughtful.
"I don't know how we'd manage the fireplace, exactly, but I'm sure we could get a house-elf to help us figure it out. But the chairs we could definitely do. Makes sense, anyhow. Zoe and Rissa spend half their time in here as it is, and Miles and Blaise have been showing up more and more. Might be nice to have somewhere they could sit."
A few hours—and three creative house elves—later, the boys stood back and examined their work. They'd brought in duplicates of what they knew everyone's favorite couches and chairs were—the ones by the fireplace and window—and now had a cozy little setup. One of the house elves had somehow expanded the room, giving each bed a little nook in the formerly circular room, like dormers for the floor rather than the roof. As a nice touch, he'd added a window to each as well, so the boys could see the lake from their beds.
"Woah." Miles stepped into the room. "I see you've renovated."
"Welcome to the Anti-Umbridge common room," Andrew said as he shut the door. "Get the others, would you? We're still reorganizing."
Zoe, Nerissa, and Blaise agreed that the room was very nice, and before long they'd all settled in with their work, Blaise and Adrian in the chairs by the fire, Zoe and Andrew on one couch, their feet on the table in front of them, Nerissa on the other, and Miles pacing around them all, muttering the names of ancient wizards and dates of wars with the occasional correction drifting over to him from Jack.
The room didn't feel so empty this way, Andrew thought. And here, surrounded by his friends, he felt that this was what Slytherin was all about: helping each other meet ambitious goals, being resourceful enough to follow ideas, taking pride in their abilities and working hard together to become the best they could be.
And he was struck, as he considered it, with how much he wanted the Wizarding World to know it.
As always, I would love to hear any input! Thanks for reading, and a special shoutout to quietwraith for being incredibly encouraging with every chapter, along with everyone else who reads and reviews! Love you all :)