TNFG-501 Lessons

Where Did They Come From?

Welcome
There was a note on the door to the Transfiguration classroom. It read:

When the class gathered at the designated spot, it was to find Professor Mitchell pacing the corridor, eyes closed, whispering to herself.  After a few passes, a door appeared behind the professor where before there had been only plain stone wall. The students followed their professor through the door and into a room that looked nearly identical to their regular classroom, save the antique cabinet in the front corner.

Introduction
Welcome back to Transfiguration, Fifth Years! I hope all your midterms went well last week. You know, studies have shown that changing up your environment can have a positive impact on your learning. That is the reason for our little field trip today. Well, that and the fact that this room is one of our topics for discussion. I’m sure there are some of you who have already been in here and that those of you with magical parents may have heard tales of this room before. This, my friends, is the Room of Requirement. What does that mean? Let’s find out!

Room of Requirement
There are many things in the magical world that appear to come and go, or vanish and reappear. These are the things we will be discussing today, including this room. You see, the Room of Requirement is not always here; or at least not as it is now. This room transforms into whatever space the user needs in that particular moment. If you need a classroom, as we do today, that is what it will become. If you rush down this hallway desperately searching for a lavatory, you may well be in luck and find yourself a well-stocked washroom. In order to get in, one need only walk by the door three times while keeping their desired destination at the forefront of their mind. With these explicit directions, the room should comply, providing precisely what the user needs. Sounds rather spectacular, doesn’t it? It is certainly a masterful work of magical architecture, designed and enchanted in part by Miss Rowena Ravenclaw herself. Exactly how it was done is a secret that has unfortunately been lost to the ages. There are a few similar rooms in magical buildings scattered about the world, but all were made via various methods of construction and enchantment and therefore work in slightly different manners. The Store of Desires in the United States, for example, was intended to be a space that would conjure up a storefront for any type of trinket you desired, however, due to a number of reasons, the enchantment went awry and does not exactly work as intended. The one room building produces a store full of incredible items, but no amount of force or magic can remove these objects from the shelves.

While we don’t know how most of these locations were enchanted, we have a relatively good idea of how they function.  There are, of course, restrictions on their power; the Room of Requirement abides by Gamp’s Law and its exceptions, and there appears to be a maximum volume, as it begins to get more finicky the larger it gets, but this maximum has not yet been found. Additionally, while the room has many faces, so to speak, it may only wear one at any particular point in time. If someone were to walk down the corridor at this moment in search of the Room of Hidden Things, one of the more popular faces, they would be unable to access it while we are in here. If they were searching for our classroom, however, the door would open easily. As such, you may wonder what happens to the inactive faces, those that we know exist but which are not being used at this time. This is one of the many mysteries that I don’t believe we will ever find an answer to. You see, an object that is left in the Room of Requirement will disappear when the room changes faces, but will reappear when that same face returns again.  This is how the Room of Hidden Things, a place where Hogwarts students and professors alike have come to stash those objects they do not wish to be found, became the vast treasure trove it once was. Unfortunately the original face was burned in the Battle of Hogwarts, but that is a story for another day. The point I would like to make is that although the package of cockroach clusters I hid in here last week cannot be seen, cannot be accessed, and for all intents and purposes does not exist at this moment, it has not been vanished. As you all know by now, something that is vanished may not be retrieved in the same state it once was, however, this room will return objects in their original form. 

On the other side of the coin, as you can probably figure out if you look around the room, it also appears to create objects, as any new face comes fully stocked with the appropriate furniture and materials for the user’s purpose.  These objects remain for the extent that the user is in the room, as evidenced by the few occasions in which people have taken up long-term residence. You may also remove objects, such as the books along the walls, without them vanishing on you, at least until you forget you took it out in the first place. At that point you may find, when you remember it again, that it is no longer where you left it.  This is a curious phenomenon, as it then appears that these objects are not conjured in the typical sense, either. There are theories abound for why and how this works, but we have lots more to get through today.

Vanishing Steps and Disappearing Doorways
As you have all spent the last four and a half years of your life in this castle, I’m sure you have encountered these next coming and going things that have been implemented as part of the school’s architecture. I am speaking, of course, of those befuddling moving doorways and pesky vanishing steps, from which I have pulled many a First Year. While they seem to be no more than a cruel trick on young and unsuspecting students, these features are actually meant to act as part of the castle’s defense system! They are meant to, both figuratively and literally, trip up an intruder or attacker inside the castle.

The vanishing steps you encounter on your way to class every day do not, despite their name, vanish. In fact, they aren’t really there to begin with. Instead, the magic in the staircase merely fills in the space so that it looks like a step, sort of like a mirage or a hologram, for those of you versed in Muggle science fiction, but holds no structural value.

Doorways that seem to disappear and reappear or move about the castle do exist! However they also do not vanish in the typical sense either, nor do they disappear or are they made invisible. The best way to describe how these doorways work is to think about how a wound opens and heals. While the wall is not damaged when one of these doors pops up, it does open up in a way, kind of like a cut on your arm. Then, when the door leaves once more, the wall closes in and mends itself back together like your cells heal and pull your skin back together. The spells behind these doors are similar to those used to create the gateway from the Leaky Cauldron in London to Diagon Alley! Though of course there are a fair few variations between the two, namely their activation forms and what fills the space that opens.

Vanishing Cabinets
Our next item is something that doesn’t necessarily come and go itself, but rather makes something vanish from one location and reappear in another. Another misnomer, vanishing cabinets are something you should have heard of last year if you took Year Four Magical Transportation. They are a pair of cabinets that act as portals or teleporters, transporting whatever is placed inside from one cabinet to the other. They work with any object, animate or inanimate, including people. Merely place the object in the cabinet and close the door. Assuming both cabinets are in working condition, opening the door of the corresponding cabinet will show that the object has been successfully transported!

While we don’t know explicitly how vanishing cabinets were first created, we have been able to study them and duplicate their effects. That said, the underlying theory as to how they actually function is still very much a mystery, as those who can successfully craft them hold their trade secrets close to the vest. Many of the leading theories are identical to those we studied last week, but made even more questionable due to the nature of the vanishing cabinets’ effects.  The cabinets appear to act like a centralized Teleportation Spell, simply taking an item from one spot and moving it to another, suggesting that the enchantment works in the same way as the charm. However, there are a few important differences to note. First off, no person or thing has ever gotten lost when travelling between working vanishing cabinets. If we look at the theory that the object in question is split apart, flies through the air in miniscule pieces, and reassembles at its destination, vanishing cabinets’ success rate is a statistical improbability, even with magic. These cabinets are known to work even when separated half a world apart. They have a longer range than any other known form of teleportation, which casts serious doubt on this theory when you consider the other forms of transportation that utilize it. Successfully teleporting via methods like the Faraway Summoning Charm grows increasingly tricky for objects further than a few miles apart.  Additionally, we have accounts of a Hogwarts student getting stuck in a damaged vanishing cabinet and being able to Apparate out. This suggests that he had enough of a physical form even when somewhere between the two cabinets in question to perform the quick spin necessary for Apparition.

If we instead consider our wormhole theory, or the shortcut through space, from last week, we allow for the cabinets’ perfect record, but run into the issue of power.  The amount of magical energy that it would take to bend space from one side of the world to the other is immense. Much more than any individual witch or wizard could enchant. The cabinets are also powerful enough to surpass Hogwarts’s defenses, as we know from the happenings during the Second Wizarding War, suggesting a form of magic at the very least different from, if not more powerful than, Apparition. 

Due to all the holes vanishing cabinets poke in our current theories of teleportation magic, you can be sure that there are many people working on studying these curious artifacts in an attempt to further expand our understanding of magic. 

Vanishing Sickness
Some of you from wizarding households may have heard of vanishing sickness before. This contagious magical bug causes the infected person’s body parts to disappear and reappear at random. It typically starts with the tips of hair and nails, but will progress to fingers and toes, then whole limbs. While very much treatable, it is imperative that anyone who notices signs of vanishing sickness gets to St. Mungo’s as soon as possible.  If left unaddressed, the disease can cause the vanishment of the entire body, and with it, death. If you cannot get to a healer in a timely fashion, a short-term treatment for vanishing sickness is to cast the Vanishment Prevention Spell on oneself. This should prevent the vanishment of any body parts for at least a short period of time, but is in no way a permanent solution and will wear off in a couple of hours.

Now, randomly vanishing body parts does sound rather worrisome. But rest assured, this condition is actually relatively painless. The vanished body parts will reappear anywhere from a couple minutes to a couple hours after vanishing, just as they were before. It would appear that when the piece of body disappears, its particles dematerialize in a manner similar to typical vanishment, but don’t scatter very far, kind of like with the Anti-Vanishment Charm. They hang around the area from which they separated, still connected in part to the person’s magic, until they reassemble. When this happens, they are able to link back up with the main body like a puzzle. The only difficulty is when parts like elbows and knees disappear, leaving dismembered hands and feet, and when important body parts, such as the head or anything in the torso, vanish, possibly causing other major side-effects. And of course, the reason the worst possible outcome, the vanishment of the whole body, is irreversible and fatal is because the dispersed particles have nothing to link back up to in order to reassemble.

I noted earlier that this disease is contagious, however it doesn’t spread like the common cold. Instead, vanishing sickness is transferred through the casting of spells. If someone is infected and hits another with a spell, whether the Jelly-Legs Jinx, the Bat-Bogey Hex, or even the simple Cut-Mending Charm, they run the risk of passing off their sickness. It is for this reason that as soon as you notice any symptoms of vanishing sickness, you should avoid casting any spells in the vicinity of others you don’t wish to infect.

Historical Context
There is, thankfully, a cure for vanishing sickness. It was invented by Cecilia Rastrick in 1852 after her brother, acclaimed performing artist Xavier Rastrick, suddenly vanished in the middle of a show in 1836 due to what was believed to be a case of undiagnosed vanishing sickness.  Prior to Rastrick’s treatment, patients with vanishing sickness typically took up permanent residence at St. Mungo’s for round-the-clock monitoring and Vanishment Prevention Spell application. Her discovery was truly lifesaving for many.

The cure that Miss Rastrick came up with included a rather involved modification of the Vanishment Prevention Spell combined with one month of treatment with a potion she titled Gone-Be-Gone.  The latter utilizes the feather of a Diricawl, Lethe river water, and powdered cleaver fruit to condition the patient’s body to fight the disappearing magic of the disease. It takes about two months to brew, but can easily be made in large batches to meet the needs of St. Mungo’s and other wizarding hospitals. Because of this treatment, there hasn’t been a death due to vanishing sickness in the UK in the last century.

Conclusion
I hope you all enjoyed our little field trip today! Do note that the Room of Requirement is checked, on occasion, by the headmistress.  I wouldn’t suggest using it as your next rule breaking hideout for that reason. Until next week! Ta ta!

*Room of Hidden Things image credit: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1b1bZ*
*Vanishing Cabinet image credit: https://www.thecitysidewalks.com/blog/ultimate-harry-potter-world-travel-guide-2*
*Cecilia Rastrick image credit: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/10368*