Alohamora

daelyn_duprer tatiana6336 at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 14 22:56:33 UTC 2003


No: HPFGUIDX 77227

Perhaps someone who has paid more attention to this spell can help 
me out a bit.  Alohamora has been an integral part of the series for 
so long that I imagine JKR has thought it out with great precision, 
but I'm confused about its uses in the Dept. of Mysteries.  As far 
as I can tell, there are several ways to lock doors in the WW:

1.  the normal way with a key - open with Alohamora or Sirius' knife
2.  with a spell none but a wizard could break - Alohamora? the 
knife?  Umbridge may have used such a spell on her office, as snape 
did, but both these doors have been broken into
3.  with the collecorpus (sp? sorry, i don't have the book) spell 
(maybe this is the spell Snape and/or Dolores uses.

My question is this - when does Alohamora work, and when doesn't 
it?  In the dept of mysteries, I seem to remember (correct me if i'm 
wrong, since I don't have OoP and it's been a while since I've read) 
One of the girls uses the Collecorpus spell to seal a door, but the 
DE's break through with Alohamora.  The heroes then retreat into the 
room with many doors, which they begin sealing with the same spell, 
one door at a time.  The DE's, rather than using Alohamora to open 
the doors, race all they way around until they beat the spellcasters 
to an unlocked entrance.  Why didn't they take the easy way in?  Or 
is Alohamora such an obsolete spell that only Hermione and an 
apparantly well-read DE remember it?  Any explanations would help, 
this is a nitpicky thing that is driving me nuts.

~Daelyn~








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