The Three Brothers: The Cure

Secrets of Hogwarts

19th October 1992

The stone floor swept beneath his feet as Mark swiftly made his way towards the seventh floor. It was after curfew, and the prefects would soon begin to prowl around making their rounds. But that wouldn't be for another half-an-hour—enough time for Mark to check up on something that had struck him late last night.

By now he had made countless trips to the Come-and-Go Room, or as he liked to call it, the Room of Requirement. Given that Corky had told him that the Room became whatever he wished it to be, Mark had tried asking virtually everything of it—a swimming pool, a billiards table, a full-fledged gym (no treadmills, obviously), a complete wood-working shop, a replica of his own bedroom in London, and the restricted section of the library. It could make secret pathways to any other part of the castle—something Mark used to surreptitiously return to Gryffindor Tower with ease—and conjure anything that didn't break any of the exceptions to Gamp's Law of elemental transfiguration.

But what was it like if you didn't ask it anything? What was it when no one was around? An empty room? Another hidden library? A secret treasury? A special room that said—Congratulations on finding the secret achievement?

Or perhaps even the room itself was a conjuration—coming only into existence when asked for. In any case, Mark wanted to find out today. As he turned around the corner and headed for the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, he mentally prepared himself to word his request to the room.

'I need to know what the Room normally looks like; I need to know what the Room normally looks like; I need to know what the Room normally looks like —' Mark began to mentally chant as he paced in front of the wall where the door usually appeared. He was half-expecting nothing to happen, and that all of this was just his overthinking. But he was wrong, for a door did appear. A simple wooden door with a blackened brass handle—smaller and plainer than what appeared when he had asked for anything else. Mark stood in shock, unable to decide whether he actually wanted to see what was behind the door now that it was in front of him. Hesitantly he checked the corridor for any prefects. Empty. Taking a deep breath, he turned the handle and stepped inside, his eyes eager to take in what he was about to see.

Darkness. Pitch black darkness. Taking his wand out of the waistband of his pyjamas, he held it high.

'Lumos,' he thought—he could do this spell non-verbally now. Incanting spells aloud was something that his naturally lazy mind considered stupid and useless. It worked, and the tip of the wand lit up in a bright white glow, illuminating his surroundings faintly.

Mark furrowed his eyebrows as he looked around. There were old chairs, desks and multitude of boxes stacked everywhere around him. He approached one of them to look inside—old textbooks, broken quills, a shiny chocolate frog card. A bizarre collection of items that could be home inside any Hogwarts student's bag. He waved his wand around and saw even more piles—there was a small stack of robes on one side, a couple of broomsticks on the other. As he raised his wand higher, he saw that these piles were stacked high—much higher than he would have imagined. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he wondered just how this stack of things—easily fifteen feet high—was standing straight and stable. To his left, he could see a narrow pathway between these stacks, and as he peered along its length, he could see even more stacks flanking it on both sides. Just how much stuff was here?

"I need more light—to see the room clearly," muttered Mark. Bright, white lights lit up in an instant, flooding the room and making Mark squint his eyes close. After a few moments, once his eyes had adjusted, he looked. The first thing that struck him was the fact that the lights were high up on the ceiling—a particularly high ceiling, easily twice as tall as the Great Hall. It was like he was standing in an aeroplane hangar—made for one big bloody plane.