Weasleys and Code words to Marauders Map

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 12788

re: how did the Weasley's figure out how to work the map

The Weasley twins are tinkerers and experimenters. They're kind of 
like a buddy of mine who, when I have a faucet doing something 
inexplicable, will simply tinker and experiment and figure out how it 
works and why it isn't doing what it should and how to fix it, all 
without ever "learning how." He does that because of experience with 
plenty of mechanical devices over the years and because he just has a 
sense of it. It just makes sense to him. I can do the same thing with 
a computer, having worked on so many of them over the years. When 
things aren't working right, I can just tell what's wrong and pretty 
much know how to fix it almost immediately, although I'd have a hard 
time pointing out all the little clues that led me to that conclusion.

The Weasley twins have that magical sense. When confronted with an 
item like the map, they draw on their collective experience with 
magical items and how they work and how they are created, and they 
can intuit it's function and how to operate it. That also ties into 
my theory of intention as being much more important that exact words. 
We've talked a lot about Latin roots etc. lately, but the point isn't 
the words, it's the intention. The words focus the mind in the right 
direction. The Latin words aren't spoken to be perfect Latin. Very 
likely no one speaks Latin at all in the Wizarding World any more 
than they do in the Muggle World. Latin and Latinate forms are used 
for incantations only, and new variations are invented as necessary 
for new spells. For example, Hermione uses the spell "Mobiliarbus" to 
move a Christmas tree over a foot or so. Now that translates as a 
spell to move a tree. You can't tell me that there is such a spell in 
standard usage--how often would you use it? A witch of Hermione's age 
wouldn't be ABLE to move most trees, they're pretty solidly tied 
down. However, she has learned her magical theory enough to be able 
to choose appropriate Latinate words and thereby focus her mental 
energy correctly to move what needed to be moved. Later, when it was 
Snape's inert body that needed moving, the spell was "Mobilicorpus." 
Same spell, different words for different circumstances. Quite 
likely, if the caster changed the "real" Latin endings into something 
not "correct," it wouldn't make a speck of difference.

The Weasley's understand this kind of thing--the way magical things 
work and magical words are put together and utilized--at a deep 
level, so much so that when they need to activate an object, they can 
construct their own spell words to do so, whether or not they were 
the words the original creator's used. The phrase they use focuses 
the right energy and the map works.

Steve Vander Ark
The Harry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon