Hogwarts Wasteland: The Witch from the Borderlands

Chapter 99 The Room of Requirement

But Hermione quickly retracted her previous assessment of Ron.

The wand selection had just ended, and despite his exhaustion from a day of walking through the ruins, he urged everyone to explore the House of Requirement that very night.

Even though he had class the next morning, he was still very enthusiastic.

Harry and Neville were persuaded and didn't want to stay another night, so after lights out, Hermione accompanied them out of the common room. She also wanted to see the magical room that was known as "the room that grants all requests."

Having acquired wands that suited them, Ron and Neville both demonstrated an improvement in their control over magic to varying degrees. Now, Hermione didn't need to cast the spell herself; Ron had already enthusiastically cast the Levitation Charm for everyone, allowing them to float lightly forward.

Neville was responsible for making the invisibility cloak float up to cover the four of them, while Harry walked at the front with the Marauder's Map, constantly watching the names moving back and forth on the map.

It must be said that with this map, the safety of their nighttime stroll was greatly improved. Without Hermione's advance warning, they could spot the professor in the corridor and on the stairs and hide in advance. In addition, with the Potter family's heirloom invisibility cloak, Hogwarts at night seemed to be completely unguarded against the four.

Soon, they arrived on the eighth floor without any trouble, in front of the tapestry depicting the giant beating Barnabas with his club.

"This is it! Just focus on the room you need, walk back and forth across this wall three times, and the door to the Room of Requirement will appear!" Harry said eagerly.

"We need to find the room where the four raiders used to live," Harry said, boldly lifting his cloak and pacing back and forth in front of the stone wall.

Sure enough, after three attempts, a large door silently appeared on the wall.

"It's a success!"

Ron eagerly pushed open the door, revealing a huge, dusty room.

The room was large, but apart from a large bed in the corner, there was only a round table and four chairs. In addition, there were rows of cabinets and piles of miscellaneous items like small mountains. Some not-so-complicated devices and instruments were placed on the cabinets. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, which was made white by the light from the tower top shining in from the window.

"Cough cough, all cleaned up!" Ron coughed, choked by the dust, and snapped his fingers to clear away the dust that had accumulated for over a decade. With his new wand, he was eager to show off his magical powers.

The group entered the room and closed the door. Hermione cast a spell to light the candles on the table and in the chandelier, and the group dispersed to look around.

"This is where Dad and his comrades used to be!"

"This bed is probably for Lupin. He'll be very weak after he turns into a wolf and will need to rest."

"Ha! A broken cheating quill! They even researched this back in the day."

"By Merlin, this is the complete production process for dung balls. What were Dad and the others doing at school back then?" Harry pointed at the device in front of him, saying incredulously, "Who kind soul set up a mass production line for dung balls at school?!"

"Huh, what's this badge?" Neville held up a badge that was broken in two, decorated with a mountain-shaped symbol.

The shield had two five-pointed stars and a short sword, with two leaping greyhounds on either side. However, it had been split in the middle with a smooth cut, as if it had been made with powerful magic.

"That's the Black family crest!" Ron immediately recognized the origin of the design.

"I heard from my dad and the others that after the Godfather left home, he was expelled from the Black family," Harry said. "That should have been the beginning of Sirius's severing of ties with the Black family."

"But his Animagus is black. Does his family have a long history with dogs?"

"Think about the faces of those nobles in Malfoyburg, it's a good thing Sirius was able to cut ties with them," Ron quipped.

“But the Black family is different from the other nobles.” Neville had a different opinion. He said seriously, “I heard my father and the others say that although the Black family was also one of the Twenty-Eight Holy Families, they later sided with the Mughal Party and didn’t even move into Malfoy Castle.”

He continued, "Although the Black family also reveres bloodlines, they believe that their bloodline contains power, which is the reason for their inherent nobility. Therefore, they sided with the Dark Lord and became members of the Saints."

"But at last year's Quidditch Cup, Regulus Black was sitting in the Slytherin stands, and we all saw it."

"Ron retorted."

"Malfolk does not represent Slytherin," Neville tried to explain the connection, but he was somewhat tongue-tied.

"Regulus was the last Black to attend Hogwarts; the children who came after him all went to Durmstrang."

"But we saw Regulus and the people from Malfoyburg having a very pleasant conversation," Ron continued to retort.

"Is it because Malfoy Castle needs to curry favor with the Malays?" Hermione analyzed rationally.

"As the most powerful wizarding force in the world, even if their positions differ, nobles are always willing to give themselves an extra way out. It is not surprising that the Black family's former noble status made them a link between Malfoy Castle and the Wizarding Party."

"But is it because this family has a bigger appetite that they would rather give up their easy rule over Muggles and join Grindelwald's side? They don't want to be part of the upper class in a city, but rather part of the future world's ruling class."

"But in my opinion, it doesn't matter whether it's Malfoyburg or the Mughals, they're both ruling Muggles," Ron complained, unable to understand the subtle distinctions.

"Because Grindelwald thinks these parasitic wizards should also be ruled by them? That might be the point of contention between the two." Harry scratched his head.

"Adults always speak in a roundabout way. Maybe in a few years, we'll be able to understand."

Hermione said softly, "In a few years, who knows, we might encounter the Malays again on the battlefield?"

The atmosphere in the room immediately quieted down. Admittedly, there are no longer large-scale wars in the world, but that does not mean that the conflict between wizards, Muggles, and goblins has stopped.

In every region capable of sustaining life, small-scale battles erupt daily.

Muggles both fear and hate wizards, and resent the goblins for their seduction that led to the nuclear bombs turning the world into what it is today; the goblins, on the other hand, believe that humans are all evil and plot to exterminate all of humanity, secretly plotting evil; as for the wizards, Dumbledore and Grindelwald are divided into two opposing factions, with the Wizarding Party's black fiends burning everything wherever they go, while the members of the Order of the Phoenix, although they rarely confront them directly, usually play the role of correcting their atrocities, using the Curse of the End to destroy the fiends.

Of the four children present, even excluding Hermione, the other three are almost certain to join the Order of the Phoenix, making it reasonable for them to clash with the new generation of the Uburi Party.

"I'll show those Durmstrang kids that Hogwarts is the best magic school!" Harry said, patting his chainmail at his waist.

"You should learn your father's Animagus first," Hermione said, pulling out a thick stack of notebooks from the cabinet and looking at them one by one.

"No wonder Uncle James didn't offer to teach you Animagus. Their notes from when they were learning it are all here, and they're very detailed, from basic to advanced!" Hermione was pleasantly surprised. Animagus is a very advanced form of transfiguration, and there are no detailed textbooks available outside. Professor McGonagall, out of a sense of responsibility, wouldn't teach it to a second-year student without permission.

The materials used by the previous raiders for self-study included not only geniuses like James and Sirius, but also those of less intelligent individuals like Peter. Therefore, their notes would deliberately mark some obscure parts to make it easier for Peter to learn.

Now, this notebook has become the quickest way for the new raiders to learn about Animagus. Even though Ron and Neville aren't particularly gifted, they should be able to master Animagus just like Little Star did before.

"Putting everything else aside, as long as you learn Animagus, you can pass the Transfiguration exam in 7th grade with a perfect score," Ron said excitedly.