Title: Gamp's
Law of Elemental Transfiguration
Prompt: Neville has his
choice of girls in the Room of Requirement.
Pairings: gen-
ish
Rating: PG
Words: 1078
Warnings: a
scantily clad female
Author's note: I'm sorry this has so
little to do with the prompt. I hope the prompter will forgive me.
Thank you to lj user ="kerosinkanister" for the
moral support and lj user ="iamshadow" for the
beta.
"It's all down to Neville. He really gets this room… "
Neville contemplated Seamus' words long after Seamus himself had forgotten them. Sure, he knew to close the loopholes, but how much could he truly understand something even Dumbledore knew so little about?
It had become an obsession. He wanted to learn about the place that saved his life in more ways than one. Without the room, there might have not been a chance for him to become a man his parents could be proud of, and there is no way he could have made it through "the year of hell", as Lavender so kindly put it.
Access to the library was a large part of why he came back for another year, and later agreed to take a job as an assistant to Professor Sprout. He searched the regular collection, the restricted section, and even asked for help from Madam Pince. He found occasional accounts of people finding it, usually without realizing what it was, but never anything regarding its creation. He tried to talk to the house elves, but Winky was the only one who would talk to him and she burst into tears because the room reminded her of Dobby.
He had exhausted every resource, and still knew so little. Two years of spending every spare waking moment and quite a few non-waking ones, had amounted to pages of notes and not much else.
"Nev, you have your 'room face' on, have you still not solved the puzzle yet?"
Hannah's voice managed to pull him out of his thoughts as he absently finished his butterbeer. He shook his head. "I'm fresh out of ideas."
"What happened when you asked the room itself?" She put a glass of water down.
"What do you mean 'ask the room'?" he sipped his glass, no seeming to notice he had been cut off. "It's not like the room can talk."
Hannah snorted. "Why not?"
That stumped him. "Hannah, you are a genius!" he jumped up and hugged her tightly.
They were both blushing when he let go. "Err…sorry Hannah. So that was chips and four Butterbeers?"
She laughed nervously. "Three. The last one was water."
He was pacing back and forth on the seventh floor. The trolls were probably laughing at him. Show me what I want to see. It took longer than usual, but finally a door appeared.
Even if he had not recognized the telltale claw feet, the inscription on the mirror would have given it away:
Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi
He saw himself playing exploding snap with his father while his mother knitted a blanket. His parents looked like older versions of the photographs he treasured, not the hollowed shells that resided in Saint Mungo's. The scene pulled at his heart, and it took quite a lot of determination to look away.
He spoke not to the mirror, but to the room. "I thought the mirror was destroyed with fiendfyre. And well this is my heart's desire - I would like to speak to you. Please." he hadn't meant for the 'please' to sound so desperate.
"It has been such a long time since anyone said please."
He knew that voice, though where it came from was hovering on the edge of his mind where he couldn't quite grasp it. He looked around for the source of the voice but it seemed to be coming from all around him. The mirror was gone and he was in a small room with black walls.
"Dumbledore didn't place the mirror in the room of hidden things. The mirror was hidden three years before he ever entered this room while looking for a bathroom. The one I showed you was made from pictures in your mind."
The wall in front of him bent as if someone was walking through warm taffy. The shape broke from the wall and a lovely woman was standing before him. He realized where he knew that voice. It was the one he imagined while reading letters from his Uncle Algie's granddaughter. He had no idea what Marlene McKinnon really sounded like, but the room was using the voice he made up for her and now her appearance.
"Who are you? What are you?"
"I am Hogwarts. I am this place; its magic, and its very stones."
"That is a lot of pretty words that say nothing. Why are you here? And why did you choose her appearance?"
"It is difficult to perfectly imitate someone perfectly, so I chose someone on the edge of your knowledge. Would you rather I was someone you know better?" She changed into Hannah, except Hannah would never wear an oversized Quidditch jersey that barely left anything to the imagination. "Perhaps you would like to know her better still?"
He closed his eyes. "Stop that please. You didn't answer my first question."
"I am here for any who have need of me." The room's voice changed again, so he felt it was safe to open his eyes. The room now looked like Rowena Ravenclaw.
"Did Ravenclaw make you?"
"No." The room now looked like Helga Hufflepuff. "She made me. All the founders put something of themselves into the castle, and she regretted that her mortality prevented her from providing the future inhabitants of this castle what they needed."
"You can't do everything."
"I am bound by the laws of magic. As are you."
"Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."
"Correct."
"Why were you so evasive? Why not just tell me everything from the beginning?"
"I have never had anyone speak to me before. You are very entertaining, Neville Longbottom, can you blame me for wanting to keep you here?"
"Me? I'm nothing special."
She huffed. "You turned away from the mirror of Erised. You rejected my advances while I wore the appearance of someone you desired."
"That wasn't real. My parents weren't and neither was Hannah."
"You gave hope to many who had none and killed a snake with a sword that has only ever come to three people."
"That was luck."
"That was Gryffindor courage. I see that you will not be convinced, so I take my leave."
"Wait! There is still so much I don't know. Will I ever see you again?"
"I am always here for those who need me." She merged back into the wall and a door opened.
"Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Neville Longbottom."