The Room of Requirement was hidden on the eighth floor of Hogwarts Castle, across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls. Tyler and Jamie walked through the quiet corridor with their wands raised, pale light blooming from the tips as Lumos guided their way through the darkness.
A night-time trip through Hogwarts without a light spell would have been foolish. Wandering around with an actual lamp would have been even worse, because nothing said "rule-breaker" quite like carrying a glowing beacon through the castle after curfew.
"It should be here," Tyler said, stopping in front of the tapestry. The trolls in the woven scene looked every bit as ridiculous as ever, swinging their clubs while Barnabas tried to teach them ballet with doomed enthusiasm.
"The Room of Requirement is on the wall opposite the tapestry," Jamie said. He turned, but the stone wall behind them was completely bare, with no handle, frame, or visible crack to suggest that a door had ever existed there.
That was exactly how the room worked. Its entrance did not appear unless the seeker focused on what they needed and walked past the hidden spot three times, so Tyler turned his attention inward and began pacing.
I need a place to practise spells, he thought. I need a place to practise spells. I need a place to practise spells.
On the third pass, the blank stretch of wall shifted. A smooth door appeared where there had been only stone, forming so naturally that it looked as though it had always been part of the corridor.
"Open it," Tyler said quietly. Jamie stepped forward, pushed the door inward, and the two of them entered together.
Beyond the doorway was a large, open training room. Practice dummies stood in neat rows, targets lined the far wall, and the floor was clear enough for duelling footwork, spell drills, and defensive exercises without knocking over half the furniture.
"The Room of Requirement really is magical," Jamie said, looking around with open interest. "They say Rowena Ravenclaw built it, or at least had something to do with it. It might even have started as her private workshop."
"I'd like to know how it works," Tyler said. He stepped closer to one of the dummies and studied it, wondering how much of the room's contents were conjured, stored, or pulled from somewhere else in the castle. "If we could understand the principles behind it, we might be able to build something similar one day."
"That would be useful," Jamie said. His eyes moved across the walls, taking in every detail as if the room might give up its secrets if he stared hard enough.
"There is still too much in the wizarding world that we don't understand," Tyler said. "Our magic is strong, but strength is not the same thing as knowledge. Hogwarts has hidden layers everywhere, and this room is only one of them."
Jamie nodded. Neither of them was foolish enough to become arrogant just because they had power beyond most first-years, especially not in a world where ancient magic, curses, ghosts, founders' secrets, and Dark Lords all existed at once.
"Let's go out and try another version," Jamie said. "The Room of Requirement is one of Hogwarts' great hidden places, and I want to see how far it can actually go."
"Fine," Tyler said. "We need to test it properly."
They left the training room and returned to the corridor. Once the door shut behind them, it vanished from the wall as if it had never been there.
Jamie stood before the blank stones and began walking past them. I need a bathroom, he thought with deliberate clarity. I need a bathroom. I need a bathroom.
After the third pass, the door appeared again, though its shape had changed. This one looked plainer and older, with a faintly dusty quality that made Tyler raise an eyebrow before Jamie pushed it open.
Inside was a room filled with chamber pots. They sat on shelves, on the floor, in corners, and in stacked rows, enough of them to make the entire sight absurd.
Tyler stared at the collection in silence for a moment. "I don't know who decided to hide these here, but I have questions."
"Former students, probably," Jamie said, though even he sounded uncertain. "Children are strange. Maybe stealing chamber pots was some ancient Hogwarts tradition."
"Or a professor," Tyler said. "That might be worse, actually. Imagine teaching Transfiguration all day and then sneaking off at night to expand your chamber pot collection."
Jamie picked one up with the cautious interest of a collector examining a disappointing antique. "Sadly, these don't look old enough to be valuable. If they were medieval, someone might pay for them."
"You clearly don't know enough about medieval Europe," Tyler said, stepping back with visible disgust. "Also, put that down. For all we know, someone left something inside one of them, and if it has been sealed in here for decades, I refuse to be nearby when it wakes up."
Jamie grimaced and immediately set the chamber pot back. "That is a horrifying thought."
"Yes, and now we are leaving before the room gives us any more historical plumbing," Tyler said. He turned for the door without waiting, and Jamie followed with no argument.
They returned to the corridor once again, and the bathroom door disappeared behind them. This time Jamie took a moment to compose the next request before walking.
I need a place to brew potions, he thought. I need a place to brew potions. I need a place to brew potions.
The wall changed for the third time. A new door appeared, darker and more solid than the last, and when the two pushed it open, the sharp, familiar smell of old herbs and cleaned cauldrons drifted out.
The room beyond looked like a proper Potions practice classroom. Worktables stood in rows, cauldrons sat ready for use, and shelves held glassware, knives, scales, stirring rods, and empty bottles in various shapes and sizes.
"This is excellent," Tyler said, walking deeper into the room. "We can practise brewing here without borrowing a classroom or attracting Snape's attention. The tools are already prepared."
He began opening cabinets, checking drawers and shelves for ingredients. There were no proper potion materials inside, only a few dried scraps and useless remnants that had clearly been abandoned long ago, which made him sigh in disappointment.
"No ingredients," he said. "That's a shame. A room like this would be perfect if it also stocked supplies."
"There are still a few bottles here," Jamie said. He lifted several from a side shelf and held them up to the wandlight. Most were empty, but a few contained old liquid that clung to the glass in unpleasant streaks.
"I wouldn't drink those," Tyler said immediately. "Or smell them. Or open them anywhere near my face."
"I wasn't planning to," Jamie said. He turned one bottle carefully, watching the liquid shift inside. "But it might be worth identifying them later. Old potions can tell us a lot about what people used this room for."
Potions was a precise discipline, and that made it troublesome. A single mistake in timing, temperature, stirring direction, or ingredients could destroy an entire cauldron, and some failures did not merely waste materials—they produced poison, smoke, explosions, or worse.
Many potions also demanded patience. Felix Felicis, the famous lucky potion, was one of the best examples, because it could bring the drinker hours of extraordinary good fortune but required a frightening level of skill to brew correctly.
The process took months. One wrong step, one poorly handled ingredient, or one careless moment during that long brewing period could turn a priceless potion into toxic sludge, which was why Felix Felicis was so rare that money alone could not reliably buy it.
"We still have plenty to learn in Potions," Tyler said. "And Snape is a genuine genius in that field, whether people like him or not."
Jamie set the bottle down and looked back at him. "He is more than just a Potions master. His spellwork is excellent too."
"When he was a student, he improved a lot of potion methods," Tyler said. "He also invented spells of his own, like Levicorpus, Muffliato, and Sectumsempra. That kind of talent is not common."
"His old Potions notes are still somewhere at Hogwarts," Jamie said. "There is a chance to get them."
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