The Room of Requirement

At breakfast that Sunday, Sev projected to Lily, "Hello, my love, how are you?"

"Wow... you've recovered."

"Yeah. I've slept ten hours and I've already done more than half of my homework. Have you coordinated with the Slys yet?"

"We have," she replied. "They need the clearing in the afternoon, so we'll take advantage of the morning."

Sev thought, They have already made a system of signs among themselves to also communicate through the table, and the Guard will have a long assembly.

They chatted for a while longer and then Sev stopped by his house to give Lauren time to go up to the seventh floor. Then he did, making sure no one was following him. As he reached Barnabas' portrait, Lauren appeared. He moved closer to her and again casted the Disillusioner and the Muffliato around them both.

"Have you rested?" he asked her.

"Yes, and you?"

"I've slept ten hours and I've already done more than half of my homework. I have made a copy for you and I have left it in the book I told you about Herbology, in the Library. Then I'll explain where it is."

"It wasn't necessary, Severus."

"I know you didn't go to bed early last night. You were reading."

"You guessed it because it wasn't 'all in order' the first thing I told you."

"That is, Lauren. We are getting to know each other."

"Well, now yes. All in order."

"I need a hug."

"Sure…"

They embraced.

"Ugh… much better. Well, tell me, how do we enter?" Sev asked.

"I had to make several attempts. When I asked for "warehouse" a place full of objects arranged on shelves appeared, and when I asked for "place to store things" a room with cabinets, furniture with drawers and more shelves appeared. I got pretty desperate, but finally the inspiration came to me. We have to ask for 'place to hide things'."

"That is to say, you also had to rack your brains and risk being seen."

"Not so much. I did it the same Wednesday, between dinner and curfew. I Disillusioned to think."

"You are a wonder, Lauren."

"No more than you. Well, you have to walk up and down three times requesting in your mind 'place to hide things'. I'm going to do it first, I'll go in and wait for you at the door. If you can't get in too, in a couple of minutes I'll go back out and we'll try to do it together."

"Okay."

"I'm going there."

Lauren snapped out of the spell and paced up and down the corridor three times. A large, heavy door appeared in the wall. When she was inside, it disappeared again.

Sev thought, Wow… that's the perfect hiding place, and she sure hasn't noticed.I have a feeling that the Fidelius is going to go and catch a fresh wind.

He did the same, pacing up and down asking in his mind A place to hide things... a place to hide things... After the third time, the door reappeared. We can enter separately... wow... we already know where to do whatever we want.

He entered. Lauren was waiting for him, but she didn't say anything, she waited for him to react.

As soon as the heavy door closed behind him Sev opened his eyes and mouth in wonder. It is an immense vault, of which the back cannot be seen, completely packed with all kinds of objects.Old furniture of all shapes and sizes, with shreds of clothing from past centuries peeking out;books whose parchment, so old, crumbles to dust with a breath;flasks and cauldrons bottomed with the dried paste of failed potions;broken clocks and other magical artifacts, chipped sculptures, torn canvases, brooms… everything that generations of Hogwarts students have needed to hide is now stacked precariously, forming streets throughout the length and breadth of the Room.

"And you say that you have traveled more than half? It's miles of hallways, Lauren," he said turning to her.

Lauren just shrugged, her smile charming. "It doesn't matter. I'm sure we'll make it today between the two of us."

"The door disappears upon entering. We are safe unless someone demands the same."

"Brilliant. And even so, it will be difficult for them to find us in the aisles," she said.

"Give me another hug, champ."

"Okay, but the last one, that addicted me."

They hugged again.

"Well, when we find it, we'll celebrate," Sev said.

"Yes indeed. I'm going to project to you the image of the closet."

He saw in his mind, A small, black cabinet, similar to the ones I have in the Haven, with two doors but no drawer, full of dust and cobwebs and directly on the floor. "Okay, I got it. Where do I start?"

"I started on the far left," she told him while pointing at it, "and I've come to this street," an aisle a bit more to the right of where they were. "I reached the middle but I marked it, so I'm going to continue from there. I'm covering the transversal ones on my right and when I return I go back for the next one and the transversal ones on my left."

"I get an idea."

"Start with this one to the right," pointing out the one that ran along the wall of the door, "and when you get to the end, turn left and cover the cross sections to your left. When you get to the end, go for the adjacent one, and the crossovers to your right as you come back. And so until we meet."

"I hope not. That would mean we haven't found the book," he said.

"Yeah."

"Well, let's get to it. If you see it, yell, and we'll meet here again."

"Of course."

Sev turned to his right, eyeing every item along the corridor as he went. He almost fell to the ground in shock when behind a tall cabinet he saw a giant troll, but he recovered quickly to realize it was stuffed.

His footsteps echoed in the absolute and sepulchral silence of the Room. When he was reaching the end of the corridor, he saw, against the back wall and partially hidden by a high rack from which dozens of robes stained with who knows what indelible substances were hunging, an object that caught his attention.

It was a majestic mirror, at least ten feet high, with a precious golden oval frame, in which there was a carved inscription: Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.

He thought, What a weird language. Doesn't ring a bell, but it's in the Latin alphabet. It is a mirror... maybe reading it backwards... I... show... not... your... face... but... your... heart's... desire... Wow... a magic mirror that reflects what you desire. I know how we're going to celebrate. Now I am going to keep searching.

He turned to his left and continued searching, each time he came to a cross aisle he would walk it to the next longitudinal one, retracing his steps to keep advancing the one that ran along the right wall, painstakingly. When he had been there for more than half an hour and he had little left to reach the back of the Room, he heard Lauren's very distant scream.

"Severus! I have it!"

Good!How glad I am she is who found it, after so much work. "I'm going to the entrance!"

They both did it running, very excited. She arrived before him. She was waiting for him waving the ancient book in her hand, jumping out of joy. "Whoah! We did it!"

When he reached her he embraced her, lifting her up. She continued with the book in her hand.

"It was you, Lauren. I have done almost nothing."

"You've kept my spirits up, Severus. Since Monday night I am another. It was very close to the entrance and without even a Fermio to close the closet. I should have guessed, that loudmouth Slughorn wouldn't bother to hide it well."

"It was expected. Luckily we have found it."

"Now we have to find a safe place to keep it and study it," she suggested.

"Sure. What's it called?"

"Secrets of the Darkest Arts."

"Wow... Then maybe wandless practices will also come and we will know the enemy's tactics," he said.

"Yeah. And maybe if it was in the R.S. and Slughorn hid it as soon as Riddle asked him, maybe he didn't get to consult it, we're one step ahead of him. On Wednesday I will read him more thoroughly and I will try to establish the chronology of the events and if he told him anything else."

"Sure. What language is it in?"

"In Old English with Runic spells, but English is well understood," Lauren answered.

"Perfect."

"How do you think we hide it?"

"In the Room of Requirement itself, but demanding something that no one else would think of asking for, something that has nothing to do with it, but at the same time is comfortable for us to study," Sev replied.

"Yeah, difficult."

They kept thinking. Sev came up with it. "How about Espionage Training Classroom?"

"Perfect."

"Come on, we look out to see if anyone is coming and immediately demand together."

"Yeah."

They went outside and ran down the corridor three times demanding 'Espionage Training Classroom'. A smaller door appeared, they entered and were amazed. It was perfectly lit by windows running the length of the back wall, unlit torches on the walls, and candles on a wide table with six chairs around it, on which there was also a pensieve. On one of the side walls, a shelf full of books on Mental Arts.

"Wow…Lauren! This is the bomb...! We have found the panacea! We can ask for whatever we want!"

"Sure, Severus. It's the Room of Requirement."

"Oh… what a pity it's on the seventh floor and not in the dungeons. I would come to live here."

"There's a reason it's in the seventh, out of reach of the Slys."

"True. We need a closet where we can keep the book safe, I'm going to Summon it," he said.

"Are you able to Summon a closet?"

"Yes, any object I know well. One like the ones I have in the Fidelius will do." He Summoned it. "Let's keep it."

"Don't you want to start now? We have time until lunch," Lauren proposed.

"No, first we are going to go back to the storeroom to celebrate it for real. I have discovered something very interesting while searching."

"What?"

"I'm not telling you. When you see it, you will know," Sev replied.

"You mysterious…"

They smiled at each other, wickedly. Sev put the book away and closed the cabinet with the warding spell of his invention, which until now, only Lauren, Lily, Jack and himself knew about, and Disillusioned it. "That's it. Now it is safe, although I should invent a different spell to close it. This one is also known to Lily and Jack."

"Don't go too far either, Severus. They are not going to think of demanding for an Espionage Training Classroom."

"Do not trust. Jack also spies."

"But in any case, he would ask for Mental Arts, it would be the same but without the closet," she reassured him. "And even if it occurred to him, it would already be a coincidence that he would associate it with you if he entered, and in any case, he can destroy the closet with a curse, we have to take the risk. If he finds out, worse for him."

"Before going back to the storeroom I want to try something else."

"Tell me."

"I'm going to go out alone and try to get into the storeroom while you're here. Maybe it's multiple," he proposed.

"Sure, good idea."

"I'm going there."

He leaned out watching for no one to pass and went out, the door disappeared behind him. He walked down the corridor demanding the storeroom, nothing turned up. He tried again, neither. Well, not everything was going to be perfect.If we are inside and someone demands something else, it does not appear.Someone is known to be there.

He demanded the Espionage Training Classroom. The door appeared.

"Has resulted?" she asked him.

"No. It cannot be used for two functions at the same time."

"What a pity."

"And if we are inside and someone demands something else, it does not open," Sev added.

"Then we have to continue using it with restrictions."

"Well yes. Come on, let's go to the storeroom."

They went out, demanded the 'place to hide things', the big door appeared and they entered. He took her hand, leading her down the corridor to the right.

"Wow... what a beautiful mirror," she said.

"Read the inscription backwards."

"I… show… not… your… face… but… your…heart's… desire! Wow…"

"What do you think?" Sev was already moving the robe rack away, staying to one side of the mirror. "Come closer and look what you see."

"Haven't you looked at yourself?"

"No, I wanted to wait for you. Come on, do it."

Lauren reverently approached the mirror. She took the last step, finally reflecting on the opaque surface, and when it began to animate it appeared just what she expected. Sev watched intently her excited, but not surprised face.

"Do you want to know what I'm seeing?" she asked him.

"Sure, Lauren. If you want to tell me."

"Won't you mind?"

"Of course not."

"The four of us are here. You and me in the center, Jack next to me and Lily next to you, hugging each other's shoulders and waists," Lauren explained.

"It would be fantastic."

"Look at yourself now."

I may not see Jack, Sev thought."No, enjoy a while."

"Now we are kissing each other's cheeks and resting our heads on each other's shoulders, and kissing them too."

"How nice."

"And now a hug of four," she concluded.

The four of us have to go and perform the ritual of the fir tree as soon as we can.

"Oh… how wonderful, Sev, thank you."

With Lily she calls me Sev, he thought.

She hugged him.

Sev looked at himself and with great surprise on his part, and surely influenced by Lauren's excitement, he saw the same thing as her.

"What do you see?" she asked.

"The same as you."

"Good! You are wonderful."

"Let's look together," he proposed.

"Ugh… it scares me. Maybe it will change."

"Well, it's just a wish, it's not going to happen yet. Let's dream for a while."

They both stood in front of the mirror. He linked her by her shoulders, she linked him by his waist, both serious and expectant. They saw themselves alone, in the same position. They didn't move at all, but in their reflection, she leaned her head slowly on his shoulder, lingering, as if afraid to disturb him.

He kissed her hair, as black as his, with his eyes closed, breathing in her scent. She turned her face slowly towards him and they looked into each other's eyes for a long minute. They both appreciated how their gazes were changing to intense desire. At last they leaned towards each other and kissed, hugging each other with their eyes closed.

First just kisses on the lips, then with their mouths ajar, and finally melting into one, eagerly. They ran their hands over their backs, and soon she took him hard by his head to kiss him more deeply. It also didn't take long for her to release him and start unbuttoning his robes.

The real Lauren released Sev from his waist, took his hand, and made him turn and walk away. "It's enough."

He thought, Ugh... she wouldn't know how to restraint herself, that's why she doesn't want to yet.

On the way to the door she was saying to him, "Well, now you can communicate to the Guard that you have discovered the Room of Requirement, tell them that you have read any teacher, it is credible that everyone knows it. And organize the search, now you know how it is, but let them do it, the three oldest who are in on the secret of Druid Magic. Come only the first day to explain how to do it. I suspect that the books must be in a cabinet in good condition, perhaps locked with a more powerful spell than a simple Fermio, find out this afternoon in the Library. It will be necessary to create another classroom to store and study them, more spacious, to be able to practice the spells that come in it."

"Forgotten Magic Training Classroom?"

"Forgotten is fine, because Ancestral is very obvious, but better if it is more complicated."

"Forgotten Sorcery Study and Training Space," Sev suggested.

"Perfect. I bet what you want that the source of the Magic of the Moon is also here, and who knows how many more. Wow, Severus, what a gold mine. Shall we go back to Mental Arts? We have a long hour left until lunch. Perhaps today we will discover the secret of Voldemort's immortality."

They went out, there was no one in the corridor. It seems almost never anyone goes through here, that's good. They demanded the Espionage Training Classroom, entered and took the book out of the closet. They sat together at the wide table, facing the mullioned windows, and studied the index. All kinds of spells came to cause natural disasters, Summon monsters, murder in nefarious ways.

"Booaaah! How could they have this in the R.S. in the '40s, precisely the time of Grindelwald?" Lauren exclaimed. "I hope Riddle didn't get to consult it."

"My mother told me that they didn't usually let the Slys access the R.S."

"It was probably because of him. But maybe he was still able to figure out the counterspell to get the books like you did."

"Well, if he asked Slughorn it was because he didn't have access himself, and he would already be using them. Your parents would know or we would have heard about it from the Daily Prophet," Sev reassured her.

"Yes, you're right, he didn't find it. I think that Dumbledore, who was already a professor at that time, must have seen through him."

"Sure. Dumbledore must know that Riddle is Voldemort."

"That's why they also withdrew the books of Ancestral Magics and the appendices of the Defense Compendium around that time," she deduced. "Voldemort must be your mother's age, I'm sure they met at school, and they were both Sly. Could you safely write to her to ask?"

"Yes, relative safety, I already persuaded her not to see Dumbledore. I had to tell her that I want to participate in the war and I need to gather information to stay in the rear."

"Oh… she must have worried a lot."

"Do not believe it," he denied. "She understood and helped me a lot that whole week. She spent all of her spare time making copies of the Ancient Magics for everyone. She was just like you, pureblood contrary to the blood purity ideology in a dark age."

"Yes, she is also part of the team. Brilliant. Then do it as soon as possible, so we'll have some more information. He must be popular, if he was in the Slughorn Club."

They continued to look at the index. They reached 'Horcrux, Create a' and under it 'Horcrux, Destroy a'."

"Will it be another monster? It doesn't sound like anything to me. In the others it did not say 'destroy'. Do we look at it?"

"Okay."

They searched for the page. "Here is it." They read it.

"Wow! This is it," Lauren said. "You have to kill to split a piece of your soul that is kept in an object or in another living being... It says that only one wizard in history is known who did it, Herpo the Foul, and that he only did it once. But in Slughorn's memory, Riddle was asking how many times it could be done. Perhaps he has many, he has had a long time…"

"Calm down, let's keep reading."

"It says that every time the soul is split, half of what is left is lost."

"A geometric progression. In the first half, in the second the fourth part, and so on," Sev explained. "He cannot have done it unlimitedly, and what remains inside him it will be a small part if he has done several. He is much weaker than he seems."

"Sure. Do we have time?"

"It's five past twelve. Here the clock isn't heard."

"It is true, it is a space totally isolated from the outside. Let's see how to destroy them," Lauren proposed.

They went to the next chapter. "Fiendfire, basilisk poison…" she read. "And in a person... the creator of the Horcrux himself has to kill them with an Avada. Booaaah… I hope he didn't do it in people…"

"Lauren, calm down. It wouldn't make sense, people are mortal."

"Of course, very well thought out. Oof… Wow, Severus. We hold in our hands the key to Voldemort's destruction, and Dumbledore may not know it. We have some time left. Review. Bring the Guard to the Room of Requirement."

"Tomorrow I'll appoint in Arithmancy with Anthony, and have them come after dinner," he said.

"All right, two hours ahead. Look for opening spells."

"This afternoon in the Library."

"Owl to your mother," Lauren said.

"Tomorrow morning. If I send it to her at night, maybe it won't get to her on time before she goes to work, and in any case she wouldn't be able to answer it. I'll tell her it's urgent and I'll have the answer Tuesday morning."

"Well, that's not in such a rush either. Bring Lily to the mirror."

"I already thought about it," Sev agreed.

"¿Will she know how to locate the place?"

"Lupin will."

"Perfect. Do you want this afternoon?" she asked.

"Yes Lauren, thank you. I'll project to you in the Great Hall what time we'll meet."

"I'll watch. Don't tell her you've been with me."

"Of course not," he agreed.

"Well, I think that's all, I'm leaving. We will meet again another time to continue studying the book."

"Sure. I'll stay to keep it and wait a reasonable time to leave. Don't spend the afternoon reading. At lunch I'll show you where I have left your homework, I have done those of the subjects in which you are weaker."

"Thanks... my friend," Lauren said goodbye.

Sev thought, Oh… She wanted to say something more affectionate and she doesn't dare anymore, after what we've seen.It was a mistake. "See you later."

Lauren left, and Sev stayed for another ten minutes continuing with the chapter on how to destroy Horcruxes, not yet suspecting that it was going to be one of the essential tasks of his life.