[HPforGrownups] Marauders' Map Blocked Passage

[devika261 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 27518

In a message dated Thu, 11 Oct 2001  3:40:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time, cynthiaanncoe at home.com writes:

> Here's another question, and I sincerely hope that it isn't too 
> terribly dumb.  
> 
> In PoA, Fred and George tell Harry that there are 7 secret passages 
> on the Marauder's Map, and Harry observes that "many of them seemed 
> to lead" to Hogsmeade.  One starts at the one-eyed witch and leads to 
> Honeydukes.  One starts at the Whomping Willow.  Filch knows about 4 
> of them.  The last is the "one behind the mirror on the fourth 
> floor."  Fred says that they "used it until last winter, but it's 
> caved in -- completely blocked."  
> 
> In CoS, Ron, Lockhart and Harry are in a tunnel, which leads from 
> Moaning Myrtle's (which floor?) and caves in when Ron's wand 
> backfires.  Is JKR referring to the same tunnel Fred and George say 
> was blocked, or does she perhaps have something else in mind for the 
> blocked tunnel on the Marauder's Map?  
> 
This passage is the one that opens from the sink in Myrtle's bathroom and only opens when Harry speaks in Parseltongue, right?  If it is, then I doubt that this passage is the same as the one Fred and George used for two reasons:

1)  The passage leads to the Chamber of Secrets, not to Hogsmeade, unless there's another branch of it that goes somewhere else.  But then if it was the same passage, wouldn't Fred and George have explored it before--and come across the Chamber?

2)  Since Harry was the only one with the ability to open the passage, I doubt that this particular tunnel was on the Marauder's Map at all.  The Map was made as a result of MWPP's explorations of Hogwarts, and they certainly did discover many secrets about the school.  However, unless one of them could speak Parseltongue, I doubt that they would have found this passage.  And then, if they had, they would probably have discovered the Chamber of Secrets as well.

I hope this helps!

Devika, who is now wondering if the other Hogwarts founders, namely Gryffindor, had their own secret chambers inside the school....