Chapter 13: Grouping with Gryffindors

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you asked the Room of Requirement for a hallway containing two Rooms of Requirement?

Well, I can safely say that whoever designed it -probably Rowena Ravenclaw- knew what she was doing, because the Room handled the recursive requirement perfectly flawlessly.

Of course that's not the only thing I tried. The Room is so awesome and useful I spent half the weekend in here, just trying out different things. As far as I can tell it's using a very simple form of legilimency on the user to determine what it's supposed to turn into, because when I ask it for something that nobody else has probably asked it before, then it only works if I push the entire mental image, and not just the request sentence, it front of my occlumency.

After a few hours I figured out how to request more complicated rooms and spent quite some time preparing this specific configuration.

"Fred, are you sure we should just go somewhere because a note told us to?"

Speaking of which, the guests I prepared it for just arrived. They haven't noticed me yet, although that's to be expected since I'm using the world's only perfect invisibility cloak.

"I'm not sure, a secret meeting in an unused classroom on the top floor seems pretty sketchy, but something tells me this isn't some Slytherin trick."

"It's just, I could've sworn there wasn't a room here last year. But we didn't really come up here that often so I could be wrong."

"Well, something is definitely going on. This isn't a classroom, it's a bloody hallway!"

Technically it is a room, but one I asked to shape itself into a small maze. The twins strolled to the end of the first corridor where I'd tested the Room's capability for shaping itself by asking it to engrave a message.

"George, look, it's a poem.

Enter, Prankster, but take care

Of dangers of your gag warfare

For the line of joke and harm

Is thin and may cause loss of arm

Making mischief is not hard

But doing it right is an art

To make it not end in arrest,

Go ahead and take the test!"

"Since when does Hogwarts have a poem about proper pranking procedure?"

"No idea, brother, but it seems like it's a test for us."

George pulled out a sheet of parchment, whispered something, and scowled. "This room. Whatever it is, it's not on the map."

"Now this is interesting. Come on, let's see what's this all about."

George seemed a bit suspicious, but Fred was eager to explore and pulled him along into the second chamber.

"Woah."

Yeah, woah. I spent at least half an hour figuring out how to make the room expand to three stories tall, then place the entrance at the top and fill the bottom with water. After that, placing a set of ropes to the exit on the other side was pretty easy.

"The sign here says it's the test of courage. Apparently we have to climb to the other side."

Well, while impressive looking and time consuming to set up, it wasn't that difficult of a challenge. The two climbed across and I asked the room to open the side tunnel for me so that I could wait in the third chamber, after the maze part.

"Come on George, this is awesome, let's see what's in the next room!"

"A table with ink and parchment? It looks like a written exam, Fred."

"It says test of intelligence. Let's see. Let i be an imaginary number with the property of i*i = -1. Multiply (1+3*i) and (2-6*i). Do you have any idea what that means?"

Well, after a while they figured out that the answer was 20, and I manually asked the room to open the next chamber, containing another table, two boxes and a small pile of postcards.

Fred examined the boxes.

"It says test of wisdom. One box says bad advice, the other one good."

Meanwhile George had picked up a postcard and read it.

"Colour change charms are useful and easily reversible. I guess that's good advice, remember when we turned all the Slytherin's hair green?"

"Here's another one. When you see a first year student of one house getting bullied by three older students of another house, you should do something to help. That slimy snake will have no chance against five of you! I think it's implying that we're not supposed to do that."

A little later they'd finished sorting the advice and I opened the door to the last room. It had started as an experiment on if the room could read memories good enough to recreate a picture from my mind that I'd seen years ago on the internet. It turned out to result in a quite nice looking mural.

"Do you see any sign of what we're supposed to do here?"

"No, just this painting on the wall. A wolf, a stag, and a dog with a rat in its mouth. No idea what it means."

"Hmm, there's a moon behind the wolf. And a dog footprint symbol above the dog. There's a symbol of a rat tail here, between the footprint and the stag's antlers. It's almost as if the four symbols form a row."

"Some form of coded message? Moon, antlers, rat tail, pad print."

"No. I think it's Moony, Prongs, Wormtail, Padfoot!"

"Correct."

The two spun around and stared at me.

"Did you like my little challenge? I spent half the weekend on it."

Their jaws dropped. Then, George burst out laughing, "Fred, brother, I think we've been had. Barely here a week and he's teaching us lessons in pranking. Including the written exam!"

"How did you do that? Create this entire thing? I didn't even know there was anything here!"

I mentally asked the room to return to being a simple classroom, and while the two watched in amazement as the room's walls folded in on themselves I explained.

"It's this amazing room I found. You have to walk past the tapestry three times and think of something, then it can transfigure itself into it."

Fred appeared to have realised something. "So, last week you mentioned that your godfather and your father were in a group of pranksters. They were Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs, weren't they?"

"Yes. Prongs was James Potter. My father. Moony, Remus Lupin, as Remus was one of Rome's founders, raised by a wolf, and wolves are lupines. Padfoot, the black dog, I'll give you a hint: The star Sirius is also called the Dog Star."

"Sirius Black? Wasn't he in Azkaban for a while, until they found that criminal Pettigrew hiding as Percy's rat.. Oohh, so he was Wormtail?"

I nodded. "The four were pretty close friends, until Pettigrew betrayed my parents, got my father killed and Sirius imprisoned. After they caught the rat, Sirius adopted me and Remus has been pretty much an honorary uncle for me for the last few years."

"So that explains where you got the skill from to pull one over on us!"

George smiled and took out a piece of parchment. "Well, if you're Prongs' son, I think this belongs to you."

I took it and tapped it with my wand. "Let me guess, I solemnly swear I am up to no good. Nice, it works! Sirius told me all about the map they made when they were at school."

I took a look at the map. Absolutely amazing piece of spellwork. Remus did tell me a bit about how they had made it work, they had placed many tracking charms throughout Hogwarts, each connected to a Protean Charm feeding the information to the map, where a charm they invented does some data processing and displaying.

"You know, I think you two are actually going to use it more for its intended purpose, but I could really use it for other things as well. I'll give it to you if you let me borrow it when I need it. Oh, and by the way", I pulled out a mirror from my pocket, "Sirius Black! Hi Sirius, guess what, you've got fans!"

-HP-HP-HP-

So, I introduced the twins to Sirius and Remus and borrowed the map for a little excursion. I found Neville in the library, reading a charms book.

"Hi Neville! How's it going?"

"Harry, hello! It's okay, I'm just having a little trouble with Lumus right now. Lumos!"

A small, faint light appeared at his wand, and went out after a second.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong. According to the book, the loop is exactly the right wand movement, but I couldn't do it in class and I can't get it right now."

"Let me try. Lumos."

I got the typical result, bright light. It's a really simple charm, mostly used to introduce first years to the basics of casting charms, because it's so simple that most manage in the first class. But those who don't are usually making an obvious mistake and get no result at all until they get it right. A partial result like this is odd.

"Nox. I think you did it right, otherwise there wouldn't have been any light at all."

Neville got a depressed look. "Do you think… that maybe I'm not that good at magic?"

"Don't say that. Whatever people tell you about some wizards being stronger than others, it's all a myth. Everyone with magic got pretty much the same thing, as do you. The only difference is that some know more spells than others. How good a spell gets cast depends only on how accurate the incantation and wand movement is, and with that you were spot on. Lumos isn't a spell that needs a specific intent or emotion. There's just one reason I can think of. Give me your wand. Lumos."

I could feel the magic resisting a bit, and got a small light that quickly went out.

"My Gran is going to kill me, that's my father's wand and I was supposed to be careful and not break it."

"Well, maybe it's not broken. It's just not yours. If it's unicorn hair, those are really loyal and don't work properly for anyone but the original owner."

Neville took it again. "What should I do? I'm supposed to learn magic here and I don't have a proper wand."

"Oh, don't worry. Just come with me."

-HP-HP-HP-

"Harry, what are we doing on the third floor?"

"You'll see. Dissendium."

The password opened the passage behind the one-eyed witch statue and soon we were in the tunnel to Hogsmeade.

"What is this place?"

"It's what it looks like, a secret tunnel. It's leading to Hogsmeade. No idea who built it, but nowadays it's mostly used by Fred and George Weasley to smuggle in butterbeer. Oh, and: Kreacher!"

"What can Kreacher do for Young Master Just Harry?"

"Hi Kreacher, that's Neville. Neville, that's Kreacher, my godfather's elf. Kreacher, this tunnel goes from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade. Could you tell us when we're far enough away that we can apparate?"

-HP-HP-HP-

Crack!

"Harry, I don't think we're supposed to be here."

"Don't worry. You need a wand, so we're here at Ollivanders. We'll be back before dinner, nobody will notice anything, except maybe that you're going to be doing way better in charms."

"Good afternoon. Neville Longbottom. I had assumed you'd come and buy your wand during the holidays, I was quite worried when you did not. I assume you've been using your father's wand? Oak wood, hair from a particularly excitable unicorn, twelve inches, I remember the day I sold it like it was yesterday. Yes, I can see why you're here now. Let's find you a properly matched wand, shall we?"

-HP-HP-HP-

On the way back through the tunnel, I distinctly remembered something else.

"Neville, do you know why you were using your father's wand? Was it your grandmother's idea?"

"Well, no, actually it was my great-uncle Algie who suggested it. Gran didn't like it at first but he told her it'd make me a better wizard like my father if I used his wand."

"The same uncle Algie who dropped you out of a window?"

"Yeah, that's him. I bounced around a lot, everyone was really happy that I had magic after all."

"Your family is quite wealthy, right?"

"We're not the Malfoys, but we got a lot of land and greenhouses, quite a large family business, why do you ask?"

"I'm just thinking, what would have happened if you hadn't bounced?"

"Uh, I guess… I'd have died."

"And if that had happened, with your parents and you gone, who'd have inherited the family business?"

"Uncle Algie… you think… that bastard! You know what, I'm going to kill him!", Neville yelled in anger.

"Well", I grimly said while pointing at his brightly glowing wand, "at least now you have a wand that could do it."