Autumn 1991
Ronald Weasley
A bright white light shot across the length of the room, striking the last shadow and dissolving it in a mist of silvery dust. Ron lowered his wand, his arm aching only slightly less than the day before. He took the brief moment between rounds to wipe the sweat from his brow and adjust his footing as Salazar suggested. When he had made use of the full ten seconds, he raised his wand again waiting for the shadows to reappear.
"I think that's enough for today," Salazar interrupted him.
Ron took a deep relieved breath and struggled not to fall onto the floor as he tucked his wand back into his pocket.I was better,he smiled to himself. He had cast the disarming charm fifty times or more and only twice had he failed. The first time, when he had accidentally said the wrong word, and the last time where he knew he had lost focus and forced far too much power.
"You are improving, boy." Sal commended. "I would say that you will be an excellent wizard when you grow older. When your mind is more focused."
Ron frowned, he wanted to be an excellent wizard now. "I'll try to focus more," he mumbled.
Sal nodded. "I know you will, you have a lot of determination. Despite your age, our ritual has chosen a wizard who will serve this school well. We had never considered the prospect of training a guardian ourselves, but perhaps we should have. To think that four professors did not consider teaching to be a solution."
Ron just shrugged. He would rather have not been the Guardian that Sal required, and would have preferred if it were someone older. While he enjoyed their training, even if he often struggled to understand the concepts Salazar was trying to convey, he imagined that an older wizard would do better. And he also knew that the Headmaster would do a better job of protecting Hogwarts than he ever could. At least, he hoped.
Dark thoughts had found their way into his head, and he found himself constantly doubting everyone around him. He knew that the professors were all good wizards, or so he hoped. But he couldn't help himself but think that one of them might be the threat to Hogwarts. After all, wouldn't the ritual have chosen one of them if they were to be trusted? Ron habitually bit the inside of his 't it have chosen Dumbledore?
Ron was suddenly aware that Sal was no longer standing in front of him. He blinked twice, clearing away his thoughts, and turned back towards the centre of the room and the pedestal with the book. Ron's mouth parted in sudden amazement.
Half of the darkened stone room had been replaced by shiny marble floors, wooden trim and emerald plastered walls. The door had somehow shifted to the opposite end of the far wall where a large silent fireplace flickered orange-red flames nearby. Slytherin's pedestal now marked the centre of a half-circle with two arm chairs and a long sofa made of deep brown leather. Sal stood aside a table that reached only to the top of his knees, a small wooden box resting on its surface.
"A gift," Sal said, motioning to the small box. "It was collected a long time ago."
Ron swallowed and carefully crossed the room. He noted how the stone and marble seemed to intertwine and blend seamlessly beneath his feet, as if they were actually the same surface.
"It's an emergency fund," Sal continued. "Or at least it was when we created it. It was intended to give a Guardian a boost in their endeavours. To hire mercenaries or to barter peace. However, we may not have considered the economic possibility of time. Where in this chest you would have once found a fortune, you now will be disappointed by the pittance it has become. Which has only become clear to me after we discussed your family's poverty and our subsequent conversations about the cost of things. So, I see no reason to hold this in reserve. It's better you use it how you see fit. I don't believe it would make a difference if saved."
"You wanted the Guardian to hire mercenaries?" Ron asked, knowing that doing so had been made illegal in Britain.
"You must protect the school. At any cost, Ronald. How you do so, does not matter as much as the result. That is to say, that while the ends do not always justify the means, you must always weigh the cost of defeat."
Ron nodded gently and reached forward for the small box. It was heavier than he expected given what Sal had told him. He opened it gently, expecting to see a silver sheen but was surprised instead when the coins inside were golden.
Ron's heart raced.A pittance!? This is the most gold I've ever seen!
"Fifty Galleons, collected in Inverness. It should be enough to last you a year."
"A year!?" Ron's hands trembled slightly. He had never owned a single Galleon before. "Blimey, this will last forever."
Sal scoffed. "I wish that were so, but it is not enough to fight a war. Far from it."
Ron glanced from the box to Sal and then back again. "I can't take this," he said.
Even though it was the most money he had ever received, he knew he didn't deserve it. After all, the gold rightly belonged to Hogwarts. Weasleys didn't take charity, they could earn their own way.
"No," Sal scolded him with a deep frown. "Don't let foolish pride or honour get in the way of this. Yes, Slytherins should be proud, but not so proud as to decline an offered gift. At least, not if the gift can be repaid. And truly, you will repay this gift and a thousand times by saving our life work. It is even hardly a gift, but a payment for a job well done."
"It belongs to the school," Ron defended.
Sal's eyes grew dark and for a moment, the light stopped shining through him. For all purposes he was indistinguishable from a real person. "The school owns nothing," he said rapidly. "All of this, everything in this room, it belongs to us and us alone. They would never know half of the things that exist here, and they never shall."
Ron gasped as the floor gave way around him leaving him standing on a square set higher than the rest of the room except for the pedestal. Large slits opened in the ceiling and a torrent of water fell through, splashing against the floor below him and rapidly creating a pool.
Ron looked back to Sal with the fuck!?
Sal caught his eye and the spectre's gaze softened. His skin turned a slight shade of blue, regaining its translucent nature.
All at once the water stopped, four feet having collected on the floors below completely drenching the furniture and snuffing the fire.
"What the fuck was that?" Ron asked.
Sal swallowed thickly. "A moment of lost composure, I'm afraid. I should not have done that, I mean not to scare you. It was meant to show you that this room is mine above all else."
Ron nodded shortly, still surprised. He had thought that Sal was the same as the sorting hat, just wisdom infused inside of something. Only a different form of portrait but, evidently, he was very wrong.
"How did you do that?" He asked quickly.
"Take the chest," Sal answered. "Take the gift and I will show you."
Ron looked back down at the box in his hands. He knew he was being proud for no good reason, it wasn't like the headmaster even knew it existed. Maybe, he thought, Sal was right and everything here belonged only to the founders and by extension the Guardian. It wasn't like anyone else would ever come collect it. There was also a lot of gold which meant that he could do a lot of good. For once, he thought he could donate something to St Mungo's. Ron shut his eyes and took a deep breath.
"Alright," he said, "I'll take it."
Sal smirked at him. "You would have done well with Rowena, she too would have agreed to almost anything for more knowledge of the world."
"So how did you do it?"
"This room is far different than any other in the world, it was created much in the same way that we performed our ritual. We named it The Room of Requirement for reasons that will become imminently obvious. The room is the perfect encapsulation of equivalent exchange, seamless and lossless. When a wizard requires something, they need only to pace in front of the entrance and when they enter they will then find exactly what it is they require. In your case, you required assistance being the Guardian, thus you found me. Someone else might find a particularly comfortable chamber or a latrine. But moreover, what many fail to realise, is that this room is the greatest form of legilimency, it understands not just the deepest thoughts in a person's mind but also their momentary desires. That is to say, you may control this room with just a thought."
Ron looked around nervously, examining the walls and wondering what else was hidden behind them. "This room can be… anything?"
"With the minor exceptions. It can not create nutritional food, so if you were to ask for a feast you would find your stomach empty when you finished. You could eat for days on end and still starve to death."
"But you said this room was yours above all?" Ron asked. "Shouldn't it only listen to you?"
Sal gave him a slightly uncomfortable look. "It is really the founders, I can't stake sole ownership. At least, not without being inconsiderate to the amount of work and power this creation required. But, it will listen to me before others, it was designed as such. I think, given I am not truly the man I was, just the combined memories, there may be those who desire enough to overpower my control. I would likely have no idea if such a thing were to happen unless their version of the room explicitly called for my journal." He turned to the pedestal. "When the book is not here, it is like I am dreaming lucidly. An endless slate of darkness. It is not horrible, but it is terribly boring."
"So someone would have to know you're here to find you?" Ron asked. He hoped that it meant his secret was safe.
"No," Sal said quickly. "They just need my assistance. I told you previously, the last time I was awoken was by a Lestrange. The girl was not a Guardian, but she had a desire that only I could facilitate, or so the room thought. She was clever, yes, but too clever for her own good. Cursed a friend of hers accidently and could not manage to cast the counter. She came to the room seeking answers, I'm not sure how she knew of it. And, I provided them. She told me about the world outside and I taught her how to perform the counter-curse necessary. She was not a Guardian, she was totally unlike you. She practically worshipped my existence, I had thought that I would have seen her more. But, perhaps she was afraid of me, as she never returned."
Ron frowned but gave a small nod. That meant that anyone at Hogwarts could stumble upon Salazar and uncover everything that had been happening. At least, as long as they needed help or maybe if they really wanted to follow him inside. The thought made him uneasy and he couldn't help but glance towards the door.
"Don't worry about that," Sal told him plainly. "This secret won't come undone so easily. They would need more than to desire to follow you, they would also need to come as an ally rather than an enemy. The door would never allow anyone who wishes you harm to enter while I am present."
"The door gets to decide?" Ron asked. He could barely wrap his head around what Salazar was, and now the door itself was alive too?
"The entire room," Sal motioned around him. "It's alive with magic, differently than I am, but alive nonetheless. Really, boy, most magic is alive. The curse that rips a man apart does so because it's a manifestation of your own anger. A little bit of yourself given to the world for a specific purpose. Only some things, like this room, like portraits, are given more."
"So does that mean I can ask for something? You said anyone can control the room right? So I could change things?"
"Yes, just focus as hard as you can. Demand that the room to listens to you."
Ron closed his eyes tightly and focused as hard as he could. He pictured something he really longed to see until he heard the scraping of stones around him and the subtle thump of wood. The air filled with the scents of fresh washed linen and the air noticeably warmed to a pleasant temperature.
Ron squinted open his eyes and nearly gasped. The room was nothing like it had been before, it was small and cramped with Sal's pedestal seeming out of place on the worn floors. Everything around him was eerily the same as his bedroom in the Burrow. Even the orange bed sheets dragged over the sides of the small bed and touched the floor in just the way his always did.
Although Ron wanted to see home again, almost more than anything, he found himself frowning. He found that the duplicate room made him uneasy, like there was something almost sinister about an exact recreation. He reasoned that there probably wasn't, but still it left an uncanny feeling on the back of his neck. He quickly shut his eyes, half expecting something to snatch him when he did so.
When he opened them again, the room looked just as it had the day he had met Sal. Which, to Ron, was how the room was meant to look. It no longer felt quite as should have named it the Room of Duplicates.
"Some people find it unnerving," Sal said.
"I can see why, and I'm not sure I want to experience that again," he said truthfully. "I mean, I don't want it to look like a real place again."
"Of course, but I may tell you that this version of the room is based on a real place as well. One of the castles I had raised on the continent."
Ron looked around the room, he didn't get the same feeling. Likely because he had never seen the original in person. To him, this was the Room of Requirement and anything else was its magic. And he wouldn't change anything about it.