Abusing the Room of Requirement

[jwcpgh]

No: HPFGUIDX 76319

Laura:
 How about this?  Do we know how the room is closed?  We know, for 
> > instance, that the Marauders' Map required a specific set of 
words 
> to 
> > erase itself.  What if, in his haste to get everyone out that 
> night, 
> > Harry neglected to close the room properly?  In that case, it 
still 
> > would have been open intact for whoever walked in.
> 
> Geoff:
> OOTP p.351 "Dumbledore's Army"
> 
> "That was really, really good, Harry," said Hermione, when finally 
it 
> was just her, Harry and Ron who were left. "Yeah, it was," said Ron 
> enthusiastically, as they slipped out of the door and watched it 
melt 
> back into stone behind them."

Laura again

Okay, Geoff, now you've made me go get my copy of OoP.  *smiles*
Here's the text from when the DA class is escaping from the 
Room: "'And I forbid you to hurt yourself!', he [Harry] added, 
dropping the elf as he made it over the threshold at last and 
slamming the door behind him." (p 608)
So in his haste, Harry didn't stop to make sure that the room 
disappeared.  Previous posts have suggested that the room appears 
when people need a space in which something specific can happen (to 
paraphrase the previous posts badly).  Since neither Umbridge nor 
Parkinson needed the room to do any particular activity, they 
couldn't have made it appear.  (They just needed evidence that the 
room had existed, and they thought they could get that from Naughty 
Marietta or another member of the class who had been caught.)  So I 
can only assume that it was still open from when Harry and company 
made their hasty exit.  After all, it's not the DA people weren't 
really done using it when they were forced to escape.