Echo | Harry Potter - George Weasley

Chapter 64: Lesson Number One

"You've done it!" Hermione exclaimed as she stared into the large, perfectly-suitable room that Shaye and George had accidentally stumbled upon. "You've found the Room of Requirement."

"The what?" Ron asked.

"It's also known as the Come and Go Room," Hermione said. "The Room of Requirement only appears when a person has real need of it and is always equipped for the seeker's needs."

Ron thought for a moment. "So . . . say you really need the toilet."

"Charming, Ronald." Hermione rolled her eyes. "But, yes, that is the general idea."

"It's brilliant." Harry beamed. "It's like Hogwarts wants us to fight back."

As Shaye ventured further into the room, she could hardly believe just how large it was. The majority of the space was completely empty, save a few practice dummies that were piled into one of the dark corners. Because it was getting dark outside, the room wasn't very well lit at the moment. The only real source of light was the roaring fire from the huge fireplace across the way.

There were mirrors on the walls for observation of technique and plenty of room for twenty students to practice defensive spells. It was exactly what Hermione had said; it was perfectly equipped for the seeker's needs. And in this case, Shaye had been seeking a place to practice.

"This is the same room that my sister's map led to," Shaye said. "But, surely she hadn't been looking for something like this. So the Room of Requirement must have looked different to her."

"Did you ever figure out why your sister had left the map with Hattie?" Hermione questioned.

Shaye shook her head. "No. Only that she wanted her to keep it safe. I wish I could put the puzzle pieces together but I don't even know what I'm looking for . . . and following the rules of this room, if I don't know what I want, the room can't give it to me."

"We'll figure it out." Harry encouraged her. "But in the meantime, we've found the perfect place to practice where Umbridge can't find us. So, we begin tomorrow."

And just like that, after classes the following day, the entirety of the students who had signed up at the Hog's Head had arrived at the Room of Requirement for the first meeting. Harry had decided to start out with something easy, so the first thing he thought everyone ought to know was how to disarm an opponent.

Disarming spells had been in Defense Against the Dark Arts in previous years, of course—it was one of the first things taught, actually—but this didn't mean that everyone was as proficient as they should be.

As the dummy with the painted circle on its chest (which acted as a target) rose its fake wand, the line of students behind Neville waited to see if he would be able to pull off the spell that Harry had just spent the past half-hour reviewing with the everyone.

"Expelliarmus!" Neville shouted. Unfortunately, his own wand flew out of his hand, flying backwards and nearly hitting everyone in the head before it crashed into the wall. Neville's face fell. "I'm hopeless."

"You're just flourishing your wand too much. Try it like this." Harry explained before demonstrating. "Expelliarmus!"

With a quick flick of the wrist, Harry had managed to send the dummy's wand flying out of its wooden hand. The wand landed a few meters away.

It was a short and simple first lesson, but by the end of it, quite a few members had gotten better at disarming their opponent. Fred and George kept trying to disarm each other from across the room while Shaye and Harry walked around, correcting techniques and giving encouragement.