Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Room of Requirement
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| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Place | |
| Room of Requirement | |
|---|---|
| Location | Hogwarts, seventh floor |
| Permanent Residents | none |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire |
Contents |
[edit] General Overview
The Room of Requirement is a room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle that appears when someone is in very great need of it, and contains what that individual needs at that time.
[edit] Extended Description
The Room of Requirement is located on Hogwarts' seventh floor, across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.
To "open it" you must walk past the area of the door three times, thinking of what you need in your mind. For example: Say you need a place to study. You would walk past the area of the door three times thinking in your mind, "I need a place to study." After the third pass by it the door will appear and you may enter to find everything you need inside.
The Room first appears in a passing comment by Professor Dumbledore at the Yule Ball in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He mentions that he had found a room full of chamber pots, but has been unable to find it again after that.
When Harry needs a secret place for Dumbledore's Army to meet, Dobby the house elf tells him about this room, describing it as, "A room that a person can only enter when they have real need of it. Sometimes it is there and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker's needs." Dobby also called it the, "Come and Go Room." Dobby said he had used it as a place to let Winky sleep off the effects of Butterbeer. Harry used it as a meeting place for Dumbledore's Army in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. When Fred and George see it, they comment that they had used it as a hiding place from Filch, but it had then been no larger than a broom closet, that being what they had needed at the time.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Draco Malfoy uses this room to repair the Vanishing Cabinet. Harry unknowingly uses the same aspect of the room to hide his potions book. Draco's secret activities are discovered when Professor Trelawney, who has been using it to hide her sherry, finds it already occupied by someone who roughly throws her back out into the hallway.
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the revived Dumbledore's Army are using the Room of Requirement as a hiding place. It ends up being quite comfortable, and even, when required, creates a tunnel that ends in an upstairs room at the Hog's Head Inn.
[edit] Analysis
Initially it appears that this room could be all things to all people, always having exactly what is needed for the efforts of the day. It appears, though, that it has a number of standard configurations, as Professor Trelawney (who wants to hide her sherry), Harry (who needs a place to hide his textbook), and Draco (who needs a place to hide while he works on the vanishing cabinet), all end up in the same room, a vast warehouse of broken and hidden stuff. This is actually to be expected; for it to be useful as a meeting place, everyone who wants to meet there must be able to enter the same room, which they do by wanting the same sort of thing. The reason that Harry is unable to enter the room when Draco is in there working is that Draco, being in the room, has locked it into its "junk warehouse" state, and as Harry does not think he is looking for a junk warehouse, he is never able to enter it while Draco is there.
