The Room of Requirement

Sirius dropped his hand from my wrist. "...What?" he asked, as if unsure he had heard me right.

We had barely spoken two words since the Owlery, but now here I was, trying to convince him that a group of Slytherin students were going to kill a Professor I'd supposedly seen leave Hogwarts less than 48 hours ago.

"Professor Mison didn't get a new job," I tried again through harsh breaths, "Regulus's friends have had him locked away somewhere in the castle for weeks. They're going to kill him. They're doing it now."

Sirius looked around us at the empty hallway, like he expected one of my friends to burst in and deliver the punch line to my gag.

"I'm not joking," I said desperately, "Regulus just told me everything, he didn't want it to go this far... Your family and some others had been trying to get Mison to brainwash us all into believing Pureblood superiority or something...I don't know...but Mison wouldn't do it. That's why your brother's friends got rid of him and Professor Saunderson took over. He's one of them."

His eyebrows furrowed together.

"You saw Mison getting ready to leave the school the other day," he said. "You told us in Care of Magical Creatures."

"It wasn't him. It was someone pretending to be him." I was well aware of how unbelievable what I was saying must sound.

I glanced down the corridor, my mind inventing violently graphic images of what would happen to Mison if I continued to waste time just standing there, and I started to feel the threat of hysteria.

"Please, Sirius," I said fiercely, knowing this had to be my last chance at convincing him before I'd have no choice but to leave and face it on my own, "I don't have time to tell anyone else and I don't know what to do. I need your help," I finished reluctantly.

I saw the expression on his face change as I came dangerously close to outright begging him.

Though it was excruciatingly hard to admit it out loud, I knew it was true; I really did need him. Trying to rescue Mison on my own was a fool's mission, and I would either fail or end up dead because of it. Or both.

What was even harder was knowing even if he said no, I would still have to try. My conscience wouldn't let me just abandon Mison, not now I knew the truth.

"He said they're going to kill him at 8 'o clock," I added, "and I don't know wher-"

"-8 o clock?" he interrupted, "That's 10 minutes time..."

"I know."

"Then why are we still standing here?" he asked, his voice suddenly business-like. "Let's go."

Immediately moving into action, he took a step away from me before stopping and looking back. "...So where is he?"

I looked at him, unable to register what was happening.

"You're going to help?" I wasn't sure if I was going to burst out laughing or cry.

"I'm going to help," he confirmed. "Now where is he?" he repeated, his eyes locked on mine.

Forcing my head into gear, I tried to remember exactly what Regulus had told me.

"He's being held in some kind of prison inside a room that only shows up if you need it," I recalled, "opposite the tapestry of trolls doing ballet. But there isn't a door opposite that tapestry," I shook my head, picturing the nightmare-inducing tapestry Regulus had spoken about and knowing full well there wasn't any door anywhere near it. "I don't know what I'm looking for."

But an unexpected look of understanding had appeared on Sirius's face.

"Lucky I do then," he replied.

.o.

There was a dull ringing in my ears as I followed him along the last two corridors that separated us from the secret room Regulus had described.

Before I knew what was happening, he'd come to a sudden stop and I staggered forward a few steps as I tried to do the same. One glance at the tapestry on the wall to our left told me we were in the right place, but it was just like I'd thought, there was no door opposite it.

As if he hadn't noticed the obvious obstacle of the missing entrance, Sirius moved determinedly, pacing up and down.

Part of me wanted to ask him what he was doing, still acutely aware of the time escaping us, but something made me hold my tongue. The way he moved made me feel like I would have been interrupting some kind of crucial ritual.

After a total of six paces back and forth, he stopped and looked confidently up at the blank wall as if something should have happened.

Hanging listlessly behind him I stared from him to the wall, waiting along with him for something, anything, to happen.

I had just started to lose hope when the aged tan brickwork started to change right in front of us. Slowly, the angles of the large rectangular blocks softened into intricate scrolls, the outline of a large doorway taking shape around them.

As soon as the last swirl had curled itself into position, the newly formed door darkened to black, turning into thick, solid wood just like every other door in the castle.

Far from looking out of place, I had to convince myself it hadn't always been there.

I looked to Sirius, lost for words. How had he known exactly what to do?

He turned to face me with a satisfied expression.

"The Room of Requirement," he nodded towards it as if introducing it.

Reaching for the round handle, he pulled the heavy door open slowly before positioning his face at the inches-wide gap.

The 5 seconds it took him to assess whatever was inside felt like an eternity, but finally he looked back at me over his shoulder.

"I can't see anything," he said. "It doesn't look like there's anyone in there."

I looked back at him with wide eyes, not sure what to say. Out of all the things I had expected to find in there, it being completely empty wasn't one of them.

"Are you certain this is where Mison is being kept?" he asked me carefully.

"Regulus said..." I replied uncertainly.

Sirius's mouth straightened into a line. "I don't even know who my brother is anymore, Cheryl. In fact, I didn't even know anyone else knew about the room. Are you sure he wasn't lying to you?"

"No," I replied honestly. "But I don't understand why he would lie about something like this. And what if he is telling the truth and we do nothing?"

"Then an innocent man dies," he said grimly.

He took another brief look inside the room and released a breath.

"Suppose I have no choice then," he stated, getting ready to pull back the door. "I'll have to go in and find out for myself."

I clamped my hand on it before he could pull it all the way. "What do you mean, 'I'?"

"Exactly what I said. I'm going in and you're waiting out here. Preferably somewhere you can't be spotted in case someone actually does turn up."

I frowned at him. "If you're going in, I'm coming with you."

"No. You're not."

"Yes, I am," I replied, getting angry now. "You can't stop me, Sirius. I'm not leaving you to face whatever's in there on your own, especially not when it would be my fault if something happened to you."

"So you do care about me then," he countered.

I clenched my jaw. "We don't have time for this. I know what you're trying to do and it's not going to work."

He shook his head. "Fine. Whatever. If you want to put yourself at risk, that's up to you."

"Glad you agree. Now can we please just hurry up and get in there?"

He waited a second as if still waiting for me to change my mind, and when I didn't he finally pulled his focus from me, turning it back to the door.

"Whatever happens, just stay calm and have your wand ready," he muttered seriously. "Just like the Defence tournament."

Reaching for his wand, he held it aloft before taking the first step through.

Once he had disappeared from view, I knew that was it. There was no going back.

Ignoring the thundering of my heart , I held the door to stop it from swinging shut and grabbed my own wand from the back of my trouser pocket.

Taking a second to steel myself, I slipped in through the gap after him.

When the door closed shut behind us everything seemed to be thrown into immediate darkness.

Reaching out reflexively, I gasped when my hand touched something, but with my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light of the room I quickly realised it was the back of Sirius's shirt, stood just in front of me.

I could just about make out his outline as he turned back to look at me briefly, and I pulled away embarrassed.

We had only just got in there and already I was losing it. Taking a deep halting breath I tried to compose myself.

This is just a tournament, I told myself. No consequences, and no need for the abject terror that we would be mercilessly tortured and killed by a bunch of brainwashed students.

As we looked around at the steadily emerging room in front of us, I could see now that the only source of light seemed to come from two rows of smouldering torches that were held on brackets at intervals along the walls around 10ft ahead of us.

Though there had to be at least a dozen running in parallel with one another on either side of the narrow room, the light from their flames no longer fully lit up the walkway in the centre; the few torches that hadn't already been completely extinguished visibly close to dying.

Sirius started to walk towards them and I followed immediately, keeping my footfalls as quiet as possible.

When we reached the first pair of barely lit torches sitting opposite one another, it soon became abundantly clear just what we had got ourselves into.

In the gaps between each set of torch brackets were rows of dingy, foul smelling chambers secured by rusting metal bars.

Gathering whatever bravery I had left, I peered nervously into the one closest to me. As soon as my eyes landed on heavy iron shackles secured to the back wall, I backed away from it quickly.

It looked like we had stepped straight into a medieval prison.

Turning to Sirius I saw his gaze move from the shackles back to me, keeping his expression unreadable.

I wanted to ask him what a room like this was doing in a school, but I didn't dare open my mouth to speak. Not when there was the slightest chance it might alert an unseen someone to our position.

When he pushed on, heading further down the dirty stone pathway between the cells, I walked by his side, bracing myself for what I might find next before looking into each one.

But every chamber seemed to be just as empty as the last, with no sign of movement or any evidence Mison had been there at all, even if he wasn't now.

The only hint of human life were the decrepit beds that lay in the corner of each room, but even they looked like they hadn't been fit for use in years, if ever; the 'mattress' a stained and torn grey cloth stuffed with straw, dumped on top of a rickety looking wooden frame.

Though some of the cells were visibly unlocked, their doors wide open as if inviting us in, I couldn't bring myself to go in any of them to have a closer look.

It was getting harder to convince myself that this was all part of a tournament challenge, and there was something foreboding about the place that made me feel like if I went in too far I would never be allowed to escape.

When we reached the end of the long room, Sirius went over to the last cell on the left while I approached the one on the right.

After putting my face to the bars and scanning the interior, making sure it was as deserted as the rest, I turned around to find he had actually stepped inside the one on his side.

Running his hands along the cracks on the inner walls, it was almost as if he was looking for something, examining every corner and crevice. When his search came back useless, he tossed the excuse for a mattress off the rotting wooden bed frame onto the floor.

"He's not here," he muttered darkly as he came back out to meet me.

With no way of telling the time, for all we knew Regulus's 8pm deadline could've come and gone.

I felt a sense of unease creep over me.

Something didn't feel right. It was too quiet and empty.

Either someone had been warned we were coming or...or Sirius's suspicion had been right all along and his brother had set us up.

"We should leave," I whispered anxiously.

But before he could answer, the sound of voices in the near distance made both our ears prick. It sounded like there was someone talking right outside the room.

In an instant I felt Sirius's firm hand on my back, forcing me forward into the cell I had just inspected.

When we were both inside, he closed the barred door behind us, his eyes roving quickly around as if looking for his next idea, thinking on the spot.

"Under the bed," I pointed at the only thing in our vicinity that could pass for a hiding place, grateful he hadn't already toppled the protective cover of the mattress off this one.

With nowhere else for us to go, he waited while I frantically dropped to the floor and slid my body underneath the low wooden frame, edging myself as far against the wall as I could.

Once I was under, he skidded in after me, managing to pull his last leg in just as we heard the door to the room being opened.

The sound of multiple footsteps thudded down the path we had just taken.

With our faces close to the floor, my breath came out ragged onto the filthy stone beneath us and I started to question just how we had managed to end up in that situation.

Hiding like that from someone in our own school.

How was any of it happening?

I peered out of the small rectangular gap at the bottom of the bed, and three sets of bodiless feet stopped outside the bars of our cell I instinctively froze.

"Did you get rid of the loose end?"

The man's words were deep and harsh, echoing loudly around him.

I felt my ears burn, instantly recognising the fierce, snarling way his voice seemed incapable of showing anything but anger. The same one we had been subjected to in our Defence lessons for weeks now.

It was Professor Saunderson. Military.

When the other two figures didn't answer him straight away, he let out a growl of impatience.

"The meddling red headed girl," he clarified, his temper flaring. "Did you get rid of her?"

"We tried," one of them made sure he answered quicker this time, his younger voice making it clear he was a student. "But someone else was there. They shot the wand out of my hand before we could finish it. Lucky I was using Mison's 'cos it broke it clean in two. It'd been resisting me for ages."

"I doubt she'll tell anyone anything though, sir," the other figure added, "Wouldn't be able to even if she wanted to. Zachariah here made sure that Hufflepuff choked her voice box good and proper."

It was Regulus's two friends I'd seen earlier that evening, I realised. They were talking about Anthony and Mary.

I allowed myself one brief moment of relief that they didn't seem to know I had been the one responsible for their plan backfiring, or at least they didn't say it.

"You'd better be right, Avery," Military threatened him, "because you know what happens to people who disappoint the Dark Lord, and I would hate to be the one to pass the bad news onto your father..."

He let his words hang meaningfully in the air.

"Yes, sir," Avery replied gravely. "It won't happen again."

Military grunted in response. "In that case, you'd better get on with it."

The legs attached to the boy they'd called Zachariah started to move over to the furthest corner of the room opposite us, between the cell Sirius had entered and the back wall. Crouching down to the floor, he used his hand to brush away the dust that had gathered on it, his fingers moving with purpose.

I could see his face properly now, intense and focused on what he was doing, his blonde hair cropped close to his head in a cut that seemed to be designed to make him look even more threatening. He was the one I'd seen casting the Imperio curse on Anthony, using him to attack Mary, but from the size of him I had no doubt he would've been fully capable of doing the job himself.

Eventually his searching fingers seemed to hook on something, but just as he readied himself to lift whatever it was from the floor, Military's voice cut in again.

"Where is the poison?" he asked.

Zachariah stopped what he was doing and looked up at him.

There was a weighted silence and I held my breath, knowing if he moved his eyes even slightly to the left, he would see Sirius and I staring back at him, just as we could see him.

"Poison, sir?" Zachariah asked carefully, thankfully keeping his focus fixed on Military.

He seemed to know it was a mistake even as he said it.

Military's savage breathing was audible even from where we were lying, and the next thing any of us knew he had stormed towards where Zachariah was crouched, lifting him by his collar and slamming him against the bars opposite us.

"You were chosen by the Dark Lord because he believed you to be the most capable of all the students," Military spat into his face, "The most ready to fulfil his plans... What exactly did you think we would be killing the prisoner with?"

Zachariah looked too shocked to answer, his face turning red.

Military yanked his hand away in disgust, leaving him to slump back down while he turned back to Avery.

"With all due respect," Avery said uncertainly, still standing next to our cell, "we thought we might use our wands, Mr Rookwood, sir."

"You thought you might use your wands," Military repeated in a fake saccharine voice. "You idiots! Why do you think we've been using that fool's wand all this time? Have you never heard of Priori Incantatem? The Ministry have the power to use your wands to trace your last used spells. What do you think they might do if they were to find the killing curse amongst them? And I've told you before – while we're on school grounds you will refer to me as Professor Saunderson."

The two boys murmured their understanding.

"Well?" Military stated, "What are you waiting for? Go and get something that will get rid of that spineless, waste of space once and for all."

Avery and Zachariah went to walk away, heading back in the direction of the door, but Military stopped them before they could open it.

"Wait," he shouted suddenly.

His stocky legs walked slowly closer to the bars of the cell we were hiding in, stopping right in front of them.

With only a flimsy mattress protecting us from his bloodshot stare, I squinted my eyes shut, literally paralysed with fear.

I didn't know how or why, but he knew we were there.

Just a few more seconds and the bed would be flipped, and the killing curse shot in our direction, and then we would be trapped in this prison forever. Our bodies discarded and left to rot like leftovers.

From somewhere in my periphery, I felt a cool pressure envelop my right hand and it took me a second to realise it was because Sirius was holding it.

Whether he did it to comfort me or to keep me from crying out and giving our position away, I didn't know, but either way it worked. I forced my eyes open.

Whatever happened, I wasn't alone in this, and I knew there was no way Sirius Black would go down without putting up a fight. And there was no way I was going to either. I braced myself to jump up and grab my wand the second our protective cover was upturned, feeling Sirius's body just as tensed by the side of me.

But we waited, and waited, and nothing happened.

"On second thoughts," Military said finally, "I will go. You two have already proven yourselves incompetent, and I can't risk any further failures."

I watched as he made his way over to Zachariah and Avery, my breath releasing as his feet disappeared from view.

"You will wait outside and watch for my return," he told them, "You will not move from your post or do anything other than I have instructed you to do, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Professor," they said in unison.

"I will be back in five minutes," he warned them. "I just have to convince the imbecile Potions professor to hand over some of the Belladonna I've seen in his stores."

I heard the door to the corridor outside open, followed by a pause that I could only imagine was Military checking the coast was clear on the other side.

When he spoke again it was in an undertone, barely audible.

"Don't forget," he reminded, "You stay put."

When the door closed shut behind them, the room fell into immediate silence.

Though we had heard them leave, Sirius and I still kept our position, listening carefully for any other sign one of them was still in there with us, our hands still interlocked as if moving to release them would bring them rushing back into the room.

When the seconds passed and everything was still quiet, he finally let go of me and pushed himself up to his feet.

I had just started to edge myself out when his hand reappeared at the gap. Grabbing onto it gratefully, I let him help to pull me out.

"I can't believe this is actually happening," I muttered, voicing my thoughts out loud as I got to my feet. "I don't understand... I... I don't get it."

He looked into my eyes, reading the panic in them.

"Sirius, they're going to murder him."

"We have to move quickly," he said firmly, refusing to join in with my hopelessness.

"Where?" I asked. "They're waiting right outside the room."

"We're not going that way. Not yet anyway."

I gave him a questioning look, but he was already moving,

I watched him in awe as he opened the cell door and crossed the room over to the area we had just seen Zachariah crouched. Bending down, he began to feel around on the floor in the same way as Regulus's friend had done until his searching fingers connected with something and stopped.

Balancing his weight, he pulled on what looked like a handle with both hands.

There was a creaking noise as it lifted into the air, bringing with it a heavy trap door. He took its weight until it was resting safely on the floor.

"Oh my God," I murmured as I walked towards him and stood over what looked suspiciously like a hidden passage; a worn stone staircase leading down into another unseen level of the room.

Brushing himself off, Sirius joined me in peering inside. It was obscenely dark down there, the stairs disappearing off into nothingness.

"Why have a door hidden in a room that's already secret?" I asked aloud.

"Exactly," he replied.

Without giving it another thought, he lit his wand and started to take the first step down.

I grabbed his shoulder before he could go any further.

"You don't know what's down there," I said.

He looked back at me, nodding back towards the door that led out into the corridor.

"You heard them. He's coming back to finish the job properly. If you have any better ideas about where they've got Mison, I'd be glad to hear them."

I felt defeated.

As much as I didn't want to walk into yet another unknown room, let alone one that looked like a haunted cellar, I held up my own wand and lined myself up on the staircase behind him, casting Lumos in advance of the darkness ahead.

"Right then," he said, before restarting his descent.

.o.

The stairs seemed to go on forever, but finally we stepped forward onto a solid dirt-packed floor.

Once we were down there, the dim light of the floor above seemed like a floodlight in comparison to the all-consuming darkness that surrounded us now. No torches. No nothing.

Sirius and I moved our wands around, casting our short-reaching beams around us in an effort to see what was down there.

It felt like I could sense eyes on me, but I knew it was probably my imagination playing tricks on me.

"Incendio."

A bright flare of flames immediately lit up the area.

Sirius had managed to find a torch to light.

Holding it up high, it showed us way more of the room than either of our wands had done.

It was easy to see now that the room we were in had an almost identical layout as the cell block above, if not even more run-down and archaic.

Casting my eyes around in each of the prison cells on either side of us, my gaze caught on something in the corner of the farthest one; a crumpled heap of clothes and blankets on the floor, enclosed behind the iron bars.

Not thinking of anything else, or what else might be lurking, I rushed over, yanking on the cell door. But unlike the others we'd come across, this one was locked tight.

"Professor?" I called quietly through the bars, squinting at the shadowy pile.

"You've found him?"

A flickering orange glow approached me as Sirius came to stand next to me, throwing light on the clothing inside.

"I don't know," I replied, looking at it uncertainly.

"Alohomora." He pointed his wand at the lock.

There was a soft clicking noise and he nudged the door open with his foot, entering the cell slowly.

"Professor Mison?" he said carefully, getting closer to the bodiless pile of blankets.

When he was within touching distance, he craned his neck, trying to get a better look before holding out his wand at arm's length and poking it into the fabric.

There was a loud whooshing noise like an exhale of breath, and then a flurry of movement. All at once, arms and feet seemed to protrude from every part of the pile, throwing themselves out in every direction, a long-fingered hand grabbing for Sirius's ankle before he had the chance to move backwards, wrapping itself around it tightly.

Reaching for my wand, I had just pointed it towards it when I noticed the pair of hollowed blue eyes right in the middle.

"Professor Mison," I murmured, dropping my hand back down to my side.

Sirius stopped kicking his leg in a bid to shake him off, and looked down at what was left of our teacher.

The Professor's normally clean-shaven face and neat, short hair were grimy and unkempt. Though he'd only been missing a matter of weeks, his emaciated body and gaunt cheeks made him look more like he'd been marooned on an island for years.

I couldn't believe this was the same young teacher I'd had a crush on. He was nearly unrecognisable.

Just before he had left to find Mary, Regulus had warned me they'd been starving him to keep him weak, but I never could've imagined just how bad they'd let him get. He didn't need the poison. He already looked like he'd be dead within the hour.

Mison gradually released his grasp on Sirius, looking up at us from his position on the floor. It was as if he was only now starting to realise who we were.

"We're here to help you," I told him, walking slowly over to him.

"They're going to kill me," he said, pointing a trembling finger in the direction of the stairway we'd just come down. "I've heard them talking about it..."

"No," Sirius replied definitely, "They're not."

He met my eye above the Professor's head. "Do you think you can help me lift him?"

I nodded, kneeling down next to Mison while Sirius placed the torch on the bracket outside of the cell before joining me on his other side. Handling his frail arms with care, we placed them around the back of our neck and supported his weight as he lifted him to his feet.

I could already feel he was far lighter than a man of his height should have been, and the effort of getting up seemed to be too much for him, his head lolling down as he lost consciousness.

It was a hard journey back up the staircase to the trap door, despite his diminished frame, and I felt the acute pressure on my shoulders with every step upwards.

It was only when Sirius was forced to let go in order to climb up and out of the single person trap door, reaching back down to pull Mison up with him, that I realised just how much of the Professor's weight he'd been taking.

I had to brace myself against Mison's back with all of the strength I had left to prevent him from toppling back down the stairs.

Eventually the weight lifted as Sirius managed to pull him through the opening, re-positioning Mison's arm around one of his shoulders.

Moving as fast as I could, I stepped up and shut the trap door behind me.

With Mison still falling in and out of consciousness, and Sirius refusing to pocket his wand now we were back in the open of the original room, the three of us staggered towards the exit of the room, now within sight like a mirage.

But just as we had got within a few metres of the door, the murmur of voices outside stopped me in my tracks. I had almost forgotten Zachariah and Avery had been told to stand guard outside the room to stop anyone from entering.

Unfortunately it also worked to stop us from leaving.

"Now what?" I asked breathlessly.

"Now they're going to take a nap," Sirius replied in a slightly strained voice, readjusting Mison's weight on his shoulder.

With sweat beading on my brow, the stomach-churning stench of the prison in my nose, and my body ready to collapse, I didn't even bother to ask what he meant. All I cared about was that he had a plan and we were going to get the hell out of there.

When we edged ourselves as close to the door as possible, he put his finger on his lips.

Keeping his wand in his hand, he silently cracked it open.

I was relieved when the two boys inane chatter continued, obviously not noticing what was going on behind them.

Sliding the point of his wand carefully through the gap, Sirius readied himself to wordlessly hex them.

But when he retracted it and closed the door quickly, I knew something had gone wrong. They were still out there talking as if nothing had happened, and we were still trapped inside.

"He's coming," Sirius said, his eyes suddenly alert.

I knew straight away what he meant and it made my stomach drop. Military was back, and we would be right in his path.