12 Chapter-12: Room of Requirement

The whole Great Hall was filled with murmurs of students, having dinner together. Ronan on the other hand was having dinner, while reading the book. He had used a levitation charm, Wingardium Leviosa, on his book which floating in front of him. Flipping his pages with his telekinesis, cutting his shepherd's pie he was engrossed in the book, not noticing anything happening around him. 

It was then a half-eaten chicken drumstick slammed into the book, making it fall onto the plate. The whole Slytherin table burst into laughter, enraged he looked in the direction where the drumstick came from. Malfoy with his two bodyguards were laughing their ass off. He grumpily took his wand and pointed it to the book, "Scorgify" The sauce from the pie vanished, cleaning the book.

"You are a git Malfoy." He simply said.

With a big smirk, Malfoy asked, "What Johanson? Is this all that you got?"

"Oh, I got a lot more. But I am smart enough to not do anything to you, in front of all the Professors."

"Yeah, right… Mudblood like you could only cover in fear in front of pure blood like us," 

This made him laugh, "What is the use of being pure blood when you can even make a potion or transfigure a match stick."

A smile vanished from Draco's mouth, "Quite proud of magic that you can perform? Why not show your skills in a duel?"

"With you?" He asked, "I dont have time to play with kids. Grow up, learn a few spells, and then we will talk."

"Are you afraid Johanson?" 

He laughed, "Not of you Malfoy."

Draco didnt have anything to retort, so he went with the classic, "You just watch your back mud blood, from now on there will be several eyes watching you."

Ronan was about to retort when his smile vanished, he hesitantly got up. Before running out of the hall, he turned towards Malfoy, "Draco, you a git, but a very smart git at that." And then he ran away from the hall, gathering the attention of everyone present…

After Ronan came to the castle, he spent most of his time exploring it. The place was so big, and confusing that even his memory failed to sometimes comprehend where he was. But after a week or two, the layout of the whole castle was safely saved in his memories. One another reason to explore the castle was that he needed to find the room where Harry and his friends used to practice magic. But till now, he couldnt find any clue about that room.

When Malfoy said that there will be several eyes watching you, something clicked in his mind. He remembered that in the movies when Harry and his friends were practicing magic, they were doing it in that room so that prying eyes couldnt see them. If he is not wrong, they were hiding from the pink old lady, he doesn't remember the reason by they were afraid, but he surely remembers this part correctly.

With Malfoy's words, he realized that the room that he was looking for must be in the part of the castle where there were no prying eyes. The whole castle is filled with moving tapestries paintings and portraits. This meant that the room must be in a place where there are no paintings on the walls, and when got that down, he realized that he knew where this place could be.

One of the places with no paintings or tapestries was the dungeons. But he realized that there was no chance that the room was there, after all, in the dungeons is where Slytherin's dorm room is located, along with Professor Snape's office. This meant that there was no chance that the room was there, after all, someone would have spotted that room easily if it was there.

Then there were towers of the castle, there were hardly any paintings in the uppermost parts of those towers. Out of the 8 towers, six of them host classes. Which meant those were out of the question as well. And last but not least, there was the seventh floor of the castle itself, there were two long corridors on the seventh floor which hardly had any painting or such.

He started his exploration with a left side corridor of the Hogwarts, on the seventh floor. There was just a tapestry on the floor which had the picture of someone called Barnabus The Barmy, depicting the guy teaching ballet to a bunch of trolls. It was a very weird tapestry, but as it was very old, the Barnabus didn't talk or move around. Which technically made the corridor very isolated.

As he got to the floor, torches of the corridor were lit up. He looked around the long isolated corridor, only to realize the glaring mistake in his plan.

'Damn it, I dont know how to get to the room. In the movies, Neville found the room first, so maybe it is not a hard thing to find.'

Checking every nook and cranny of the corridor didnt help him at all. He looked around, disheartened, he didnt what to do.

'I just need a room to practice my magic, is that too much to ask for? I just need one room to practice my magic, one fucking room to practice my magic.'

Dejected, he started going back, he figured that some ice cream could cheer him up. While going back, he stopped in front of the tapestry, because on the opposite side, a door had appeared. It was not any ordinary door, it was intricately designed and looked very beautiful. To see whether this door led somewhere, he twisted the knob and pushed it open. The door led to a rather large room with moving brown automaton statues with fake wands in their hands. He smiled, he recognized those things, they were in the films. He had finally found The Room. 

***

The magical room had everything that Ronan could ever need. It couldnt produce food or anything organic which made sense as that was one of the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. But it had everything that he could ever need. When he wished for a toilet, it appeared, when he wished for a wooden stick for transfiguration practice, it also appeared. Hell, when he imagined dumbells for weight training, they also appeared.

This place practically was the best place that he could have wished for. He could do anything in this place, and he was excited about it. The only problem was that he still didnt know how the door appeared there, he didnt say anything, nor did he perform any magic. So how the door appeared there was beyond him, but he figured that if he came back the next day, it wouldn't take him long to realize how he could summon the door.

When he came out, he realized that it was already too late, it was almost midnight, which meant that he was supposed to be in his room right about now. Not wanting to lose points or get into detention, he hurriedly started making his way to the dungeons, as he got to the third floor, he started walking through the trophy room, as it was a sort of shortcut that could get him to the other side of the castle. Otherwise, he would have to circle around.

The crystal trophy cases were glimmering under moonlight. There were various cup, shields, plates, and plaques around the room, showcasing the hundreds of years of history of Hogwarts. He was quickly making his way out when he heard,

"So you are finally here," someone whispered, he turned around to come face to face with Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Neville. As they came before him, they shared the bewildered expression on their faces, just like him.

"Ronan?" Harry and Hermione whispered in unison

"Hey you guys…" he greeted them, "What are you doing here?"

It is then Ron asked, "Us? What are you doing here?" He showed them, Hogwarts: A History and replied, "I lost track of time while reading this thing. But I was on my way to my dorm. What are you guys doing here?"

It is then Hermione spoke with contempt, "Well Harry and Ron over there are here for a duel with Malfoy."

He chuckled, "You guys should really think a lot of Malfoy and his two goons. All three of them are cowards, they will not show up here… And even if he had come, I think certainly you could have handled the situation with just three of you, there was no need to bring Neville here," It is then he smiled at Neville who was standing at the back, "By the way how is your arm, Neville?"

Neville was about to reply when Hermione burst, "I didnt come here to join them in the duel. I came here to stop these two from creating more problems for our house. I will participate in things that could get me expelled."

"I came here because I forgot the password to the dorm room." Neville replied, "And as the fat lady had gone off a stroll, I could not enter…" it is then Harry nabbed Neville's foot making him stop. He realized that the poor boy almost gave the location of Gryffindor dorm.

Then a noise in the next room almost made them all jump. Then they all heard a voice, "Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

It was Filch speaking to Mrs Norris. Horror-struck, he waved madly at the other four to follow him as quickly as possible. They scurried silently towards the door away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped around the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

"They're in here somewhere," They heard him mutter, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Ronan mouthed to the others and, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run – he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

"RUN!" Ronan yelled and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following, they swung around the doors and galloped down one corridor then another, with Ronan in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going. They ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it, and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

"I think we've lost him," Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.

"I told you!' Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest. "I told you."

"We've got to get back to Gryffindor Tower," said Ron, "quickly as possible." He nodded as well, "I need to get to the dungeons as well"

"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione said to Harry. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you… Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."

Hearing this he nodded, "That makes sense, that git also challenged me to a duel. But I was sensible enough to turn it down." Ron and Harry gave him a look, to which he smiled.

They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them. It was Peeves. The most annoying ghost in the whole Hogwarts of Peeves, as this guy was a poltergeist, it could move things around unlike the other ghosts. And he used this ability to make the lives of every living person miserable with his pranks.

As Peeves caught sight of them, he squealed with delight. Seeing this, Ronan couldnt help but groan. He realized that this night was going to be very long.