[HPforGrownups] Clue to the CoS?

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 43642

Smellee:

I have been following the discussions about how Voldemort found out > 
> he was the Heir of Slytherin. I read a post mentioning Voldemort 
> probably found the bathroom tap with the snake etched into the metal, 
> and I had a thought. If Voldemort found the tap, that meant Salazar 
> Slytherin must have made the mark when the school was founded about 
> thousand years ago. I hadn't noticed that detail before, but now it 
> is bothering me.  They couldn't have had running water, pipes, and 
> toilets back then, could they? I think Voldemort had made the snake 
> as a clue to those who would come after him. Voldemort says he knew 
> he couldn't reopen the chamber without suspicion, so I assumed he  
> was leaving clues. Any thoughts? 

I did refer to this in passing in my reply to Brian's post, which I think is 
the one to which you are referring.

It all depends on how relevant you think it is to apply what we know of the 
history of  Muggle technology to the WW.
No, we didn't have that kind of plumbing a millennium ago. As I also pointed 
out once, we didn't have castles a millennium ago, either and when we 
did....well, lets just say they didn't have plumbing.

We can think of the whole thing as an anachronism, or assume that wizard 
technology is or was in some respects far in advance of our own, or that the 
plumbing was installed more recently, which would mean that Slytherin 
couldn't have physically scratched the snake on himself (although I suppose 
he could have left some kind of enchantment that meant whatever modifications 
were made to the castle, there would still be an identifiable means of access 
to the Chamber). 

You and I have both now suggested in slightly different ways, that 
Riddle/Voldemort could have been responsible for the snake on the tap. I 
suggested that it might indeed have been Riddle who thought of utilising the 
plumbing system as an extension alowing the Basilisk, which as far as I know 
had been confined to the Chamber proper ever since Slytherin's day, access to 
the castle.

Eloise





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