58 Ch58. Room of Requirements

It was mid-November, a little over two weeks since Hadrian faced the troll.

Narcissa procured three very young house-elves from Malfoy and made a deal with Dumbledore.

Hadrian rolled in laughter at how she decided to profit from his order of 'make sure Dumbledore stays as Headmaster'.

She actually promised him to persuade Lord Black to give Dumbledore the support of House Black in matters of that position. Narcissa of course didn't forget to add a lot of innuendos to cement Dumbledore's belief that she is in a sexual give-and-take relationship with Lord Black.

With the current influence of House Black added to Dumbledore's own reputation, he would be literally unable to lose the position so he didn't even do his grandfatherly spiel and pretend to care that Narcissa was 'selling' her body.

Narcissa's demands were simple. Dumbledore had to employ two of her new house-elves at Hogwarts and pay Narcissa monthly wages as high as Professors earned for each elf. Then she even asked for a monthly wage for herself in a show of 'greed'.

It took quite a bit of bickering, mostly due to Dumbledore not wanting to reveal he was instantly all for it. Yes, the wages were a lot. After all, Hogwarts was the 'best' school in the world and it showed on the tuition! But then again, he needed the support of House Black, and even if Narcissa didn't deliver it was just some money that didn't even belong to him. The vision of getting an additional strong backer without even giving anything his in return was too enticing. If she fulfilled her promise then, awesome. If not, he would not really care. Hogwarts would have two additional elves if only a bit costly ones.

Dumbledore actually misunderstood because she didn't ask anything for House Black from him. He still thought she was but a sort of concubine for Lord Black who humored her by letting her promise this in order to earn a little money on the side. Three wages for such support was quite a cheap price, to be honest. These things were quite common in the Wizarding World, after all, and Narcissa was a sly woman, looking incredibly well for her age. Dumbledore could imagine her using her womanly charms to get a few benefits.

The deal could be cut at any time as it was not magically binding but then again the payment for that promise was not something vital to Dumbledore and also could be terminated anytime. Not once did Dumbledore realize, Narcissa's real intentions were the elves themselves.

And so, Hadrian found his accounts receiving three Professor wages from Hogwarts each month. Additionally, now two house-elves were approved by Dumbledore himself and registered into wards so they would not notify Dumbledore when the elves pop in and out.

The best part? Nobody cares about house-elves if they are where they are expected to be! Hadrian just acquired two perfect spies for Hogwarts under his orders!

And all it took was a verbal promise...

He sometimes found his wife quite scary.

Nevertheless, Hadrian quickly ordered his elves to empty the Come and Go room and bring the things into the basement of Grimmauld Place 12. Who knows, some of those things might be useful and still working, no?

Today was the first time he actually ventured into the Room of Requirements by himself and it made him excited. He put his invisibility coating onto his clothes, pulled up the hood, and happily marched towards the seventh floor.

He saw the portrait but was not overly worried as he was invisible. The portraits do not report to Dumbledore everything. They are only obliged to answer if he asks. Hadrian doubted Dumbledore would ask about doors appearing out of nowhere on the seventh floor anytime soon.

Hadrian entered the Room of Requirements and wished for the door to promptly disappear. As they were blending into the wall, he released a relieved sigh and pulled down his hood.

"Well, well, well. Let's try it, then!"

He wished for the books on dark arts from the Hogwarts library to appear on shelves, organized in alphabetical order. Just for fun and giggles.

It was a second later when his jaw hit the floor as he saw four long shelves thrice as tall as he was completely filled with dark arts books to the brim.

"Uh? How come?" He rubbed the back of his head in confusion only for books to appear in front of him.

Looking at it, he blinked in realization.

'Dark Arts for First Years by Arnold Dumbledore'

The date of publishing was 1634.

The other books were also Dark Arts course books for Hogwarts and Hadrian understood that the curriculum was a lot more limited nowadays.

Wishing the books and shelves to vanish he stopped playing around as he promised to himself to return and have all these books copied.

For now, his goal was to further study the room with his perception. He could do other things later.

"I wonder, how do you work..." He closed his eyes and started feeling the magic around him.

The first plainly obvious fact was that the Room itself was some kind of sub-dimension inwoven into the wards, connected by the walls. That was the reason it did not show on the Marauder Map which took information from the wards themselves. It was not registered as a part of the school, the same as the Chamber of Secrets.

The connection with the walls allowed Umbridge and her inquisition to barge in through other means than doors which Hadrian found stupid. If there was nothing like that, the Room of Requirements would be unable to be invaded altogether. But Rowena most likely never expected the room to be used for training a secret 'army'.

The more disheartening fact was that the Room could only materialize things that were registered by the Hogwarts wards into the database of the Room. A similar concept to the Marauder Map, only… insanely a lot more complicated. Sadly, this meant that If Harry wanted Lucius Malfoy to appear in front of him for a good beating... nope.

Jokes aside, this meant he could at most use it as an expandable training space or massive library since even the books that were already disposed of, could still be replicated due to the wards still remembering them. All in all, it was a nifty piece of enchantment and rune usage but it was obvious it was geared towards stashing and easily sorting all the knowledge gathered in Hogwarts rather than being a secret hideout. Judging by the wards, Rowena certainly intended the room to be used a lot.

Oh, Hadrian was so glad for Potter Family magic and the wards recognition it gave him!

As he was coursing through the protections and peeking at the runes that made it possible to create a sub-dimension of all things, Hadrian felt a slight disturbance in the magic behind the wall on the left side. He approached it and put his hand on the brick that was a little too magically charged for it to be a coincidence. He pushed a sliver of his magic into it only to have the wall part exactly like the one in the Leaky Cauldron.

Hadrian cautiously walked in and saw a passage to... the Chambers of Rowena Ravenclaw.

Blinking owlishly, his lips curled into a grin.

There was a similar bed to Helga's room but other than that, the room was expanded multiple times to hold the numerous massive shelves filled to the brim with Ravenclaws personal library. Hadrian hit the jackpot!

After spending four hours looking around, he walked to the hearth as he saw something incredibly intriguing there.

Something he saw in Hufflepuff chambers and knew it to be some kind of trigger but even with his perception, he was unable to activate it due to a block from the other side.

Three bronze statues rested near the hearth. A coiled snake, a curled badger, and a sleeping lion. On top of the hearth, there was a perched eagle.

In Hufflepuff's Chambers, the perched eagle was in the place of the badger in front of the hearth but nevertheless the usage was obvious. Hadrian walked closer to the eagle on the top, and with his magic opened the connection towards the 'Badger' as he previously did in the Hufflepuff Chamber.

The hearth suddenly burst into earthly-yellow flames and Hadrian smirked. He just found a predecessor of the floo travel...