Chapter 107 — A Door Where There Wasn’t One

Harry and Ron had training for Sunday’s match against Hufflepuff, leaving me an afternoon to fit Snape’s new essays around the old ones. Ron had finally earned a place with Wood’s reserves by continuing to attend and work at the exercises. His chances of playing remained small, but that had done little to reduce his enthusiasm.

He thought Wood might want another session on Saturday, depending on the weather. Harry believed a frozen lake would merely inspire a revised training programme. I promised to put the lamp out before they needed sleep, deciding my extra work need not become everybody else’s inconvenience.

At sunset I returned to the workroom with the tenth strip. Hermione checked the time at the window while the cupboard remained undisturbed behind us. I took my place on the clear floor, indicated my chest with the brush and released the paper while speaking the incantation.

It burned as the others had. Warmth spread beneath my ribs, and I was already preparing to record the familiar result when another rhythm answered my heartbeat. I stopped breathing briefly, then forced myself to breathe again without losing track of what I felt.

It came once more, distinct from the anxious speed of my own heart. Hermione said my name, and I held up a hand while listening to something I could not hear through my ears. When I looked at her, I managed to say that I could feel it.

She set the notebook down and asked whether I meant the second beat. I nodded, beginning to grin before her cautious smile appeared. A month with the leaf and a week of carefully prepared paper had finally produced something beyond warmth and another instruction to wait.

Hermione made me describe it. I answered, then took the notebook to add details before excitement could blur them. Afterwards she showed me the weather observations she had compared. Pressure and cloud conditions suggested a weekend storm, with Sunday a possibility which became especially important when she saw my face.

‘Possible,’ she repeated. ‘We need actual lightning. And somewhere suitable.’ I looked at the cupboard, remembering McGonagall’s instruction to bring her the final arrangements. The second rhythm did not change it, but the idea of being ready and watching a storm pass tightened my stomach with impatience.

I said I would look again the next day. Hermione checked that I meant looking for a room, and I agreed, though her expression suggested she knew how far beyond that I was thinking. It was difficult to resent a suspicion that accurate, so I returned to the notes before promising anything else.

I found Luna before supper and told her about the change. She listened with both hands round a cup, setting it down to ask whether I was pleased. I said very, then admitted I was already thinking about what came next when she observed that pleasure was not quite what I looked like.

We had planned to spend part of Saturday together. I explained that I wanted it for the search and might need Sunday if the storm came, then apologised. She had been looking forward to our time, she said, without pretending otherwise to make the apology easier.

We moved the plan to another free afternoon, and I promised to find her when I finished. She asked me to be careful, adding that she understood I wanted this and would like me able to tell her about it afterwards. I took her hand and said I wanted that too, finding no clever addition necessary when she leaned forward to kiss me.

Later, I wrote a paragraph for Snape about the difference between knowing a process and controlling it. I read it twice before continuing. Before bed, I prepared three more strips for the repetitions through Sunday sunrise, giving each the attention I had used before feeling the second heartbeat. Reaching that stage required continuing the work, however much my thoughts ran ahead.

Saturday’s morning repetition consumed the first new strip. Afterwards I opened the map with brush and password and began searching for somewhere suitable. By lunchtime I had rejected five rooms and three passages, accumulating reasons to dislike places I had previously walked past without an opinion.

One classroom shared a wall with regular lessons, another had a door which shut badly, and the passages were narrow, awkward or carried sound too easily. Concealment alone would not provide enough room for an animal whose size I did not know. Myrtle’s bathroom was familiar, but the corridor and possible visitors made it unsuitable before I even considered her interest in the proceedings.

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Hermione suggested asking Hagrid about a secure enclosure near the forest. We would need to ask, rather than declare woodland empty or assume his knowledge made every creature harmless. His suspended lessons and the uncertainty over Buckbeak already gave him enough to think about. I kept looking inside the castle.

On the eighth floor, I folded the map and rested against the stone beneath a window. The potion’s workroom was a short walk away, which would help once the storm ended the mixture’s resting stage and allowed it to move. I wanted space nearby, privacy and a door Hermione could open to fetch help, with walls that would not carry every sound towards a staircase.

Opposite, Barnabas the Barmy was failing to teach trolls ballet. I walked past his tapestry while reviewing the rooms I had rejected, turned and came back. At the window I changed my mind about the next passage, turned again and heard a click from the blank wall.

A line appeared between stones. It widened into a frame and became a door while my hand went into my pouch for a prepared strip. I stopped with it ready, waiting for something more threatening than an unexpected entrance to justify throwing it.

Nothing came out. I checked the map, which showed no new room at that point, then tried the handle. Beyond it lay a broad space with padded sections along the walls and a clear central floor. A thick mat occupied part of it, with a table, chairs and a tall mirror at the side.

I stayed on the threshold and called hello. My voice died away far sooner than I expected, so I tried again more loudly and heard the same absence of an echo. After examining the doorway, I stepped inside and opened it from that side. The corridor remained where I left it, complete with Barnabas and his unpromising pupils.

I returned the strip unused. Then I stood in the doorway for a minute, doing nothing particularly intelligent except grinning. Finding a room after looking for one all morning should have been an ordinary success; discovering it in a wall which had been blank seemed to deserve slightly longer appreciation.

Hermione was in the common room with our plan on her knees. She set her quill down when she saw my face, guessing I had found something before I could announce it. I asked her to come, then fetched the case of ordinary medical supplies while she gathered the papers. On top I put a playing card with a short message written on its back.

She asked what the card was for. I said morale, which made her enquire whether she should worry. I suggested worrying about something else, then led her to the tapestry and found the wall blank again. Her look towards me made explaining exactly what happened seem advisable.

This time I counted the passes with the same need in mind. On the third, the door appeared, drawing a sharp breath from Hermione. She approached the frame and named the Room of Requirement, although she added that this depended on its being what she thought. I had not known it possessed a name at all.

I said she might have mentioned it during my tour of disappointing rooms. She explained she had read an account of a room appearing when needed without any location or instructions. Inside, she showed me the copied passage from one of the specific books McGonagall allowed her to consult. The writer called it the Come and Go Room; a note supplied the other name.

‘The Restricted Section?’ I asked. She confirmed it, stressing the permission applied to particular books. I remarked that she had collected quite a few permissions, and she grew still enough to remind me of the timetable questions she could not answer. I looked back towards the room before pursuing that thought.

I said we could leave the other arrangements alone and asked what the account actually told us about this one. Her shoulders eased as she explained that it seemed to answer a need and furnish itself accordingly. Beyond that, the passage gave little help. The padding and open space suggested it had listened closely to my complaints in the corridor.

She also mentioned a story about chamber pots. I decided my requests should remain specific, making her laugh before we began testing what we could. I stayed inside while she shut the door from the corridor, then called, clapped and dragged a chair across the floor.

She reported hearing none of it. We exchanged places, and I could hear distant footsteps in the passage but none of the noises she later described making. The door opened normally from within. After we both left and let it disappear, three passes with the same request brought it back again.

For another test, I gave Hermione the active map and went inside. When I emerged, she pointed to where my name had vanished from view, then returned as I stepped into the corridor. I looked from the parchment to the open doorway, remembering how much reassurance we might have taken from an empty part of the map in the hall.

We wrote down the results. The room offered what I wanted and a practical demonstration of what the parchment missed, leaving me less eager to call an absent name an answer. I took the map back from Hermione, touched it with the brush and used the closing phrase before putting it away.