Room of Requirement

A few weeks ago we showed the addition of Professor Umbridge’s office to our Harry Potter display. Here follows another recent addition.

The Room of Requirement is a truly magical room on Hogwarts that appears when someone is in very great need of it, and contains what that individual needs at that time.

As such it can take many forms, including as a broom cupboard (which Fred and George at some point told Harry they have used it to hide from Argus Filch, unaware it could take other forms) or the ‘beautifully proportioned room’ full of chamberpots (as Dumbledore mentioned in The Goblet of Fire – he had been in desperate need for a toilet).

The books directly cover the room in three different forms. And given the importance of the room to the story line, it is not surprising that it has featured in previous LEGO Harry Potter sets.

Room of Requirement – training Dumbledore’s Army

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, when Harry is in need for a place to train Dumbledore’s Army hidden from professor Umbridge’s watchful eyes, Dobby 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.”

The 2007 Hogwarts castle (set 5378) shows the room in this form.

After a meeting of Dumbledore’s Army, just before Christmas, Harry and Cho Chang ends up under a mistletoe and the two shared a kiss.

Set 5378 also includes a vanishing cabinet (see following section for the story behind that).

Room of Requirement – the room of hidden things

In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Draco Malfoy spends much time in there, while trying to fix the vanishing cabinet he is hiding (the one that Nearly Headless got Peeves to dump on the floor in The Chamber of Secret, to get harry out of trouble with Filch).

When he finally succeed, this allows Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts unhindered from the Borgin and Burkes shop in Knockturn Alley, supporting Draco in his standoff with Dumbledore.

The 2010 Hogwarts castle (set 4842) included the vanishing cabinet.

A similar looking cabinet was found in Borgin and Burkes in the 2011 set Diagon Alley (set 10217), which also came with a Death Eater, allowing this important scene to be recreated

My Room of Requirement version retains the 2010 vanishing cabinet in a room filled with junk, showing when Draco had finally fixed the cabinet letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts, to challenge Dumbledore.

In the same book, Harry unknowingly uses the same aspect of the room to hide the Half-Blood Prince’s copy of “Advanced Potion-Making”. While doing this, he moves Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem to a place to mark his hiding spot. He later finds out it is one of the horcruxes. So I’ll need to add the diadem next time it’s on display.

Room of Requirement – the hideout

The last form of the “Room of Requirement” was as the hideout used by Neville and other members of Dumbledore’s Army in Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows.

The hideout added an eighth passage into Hogsmeade, connected to the Hog’s Head Pub. This advantage allowed Harry, Ron and Hermione to re-enter Hogwarts.

This version of the room has not been represented in any LEGO sets.