Can the Marauder's Map be deceived?

[siriuskase]

No: HPFGUIDX 54348

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Edward Post" <mr_ed20854 at h...>
wrote:
> Rowen Avalon wrote:
> 
> >My personal conviction is that the Map has a sort of built in 
> >"confidentiality clause." If you don't know who someone really is,
then 
> >they would appear on the map as whoever you thought them to be. Thus 
> >Scabbers would appear as Scabbers...
> 
> >However, this doesn't apply to strangers. Since you haven't
mistaken their 
> >identity, they will show up as their true selves.
> 
> 
> But, but, but,  that's not consistent with the evening where Harry got 
> caught in the trick step (the night Harry got naked with Moaning
Myrtle)!  
> He looked at the map and it showed Bartemius Croach lurking around
Snape's 
> office.  If the described "confidentiality" feature had been
installed, the 
> map would have indicated the lurker was Moody.
> 

Polyjuice, animagus, nicknames, even a special confidentiality feature
to protect the manufactures.  They are all ways to confuse the map
display.  And I almost forgot, multiple instances of the exact same
person due to timeturner tricks. Exactly how intelligent were these 4
kids.  Obviously they were quite bright but is it possible that they
made no mistakes at all?  That they programmed in ways for the map to
handle all these variances from normal behavior?

So we know that the map "sees through" polyjuice becomes it identified
Crouch.  That doesn't imply that the map handles animagi the same way.
 And don't forget nicknames, if animagi has one name in animal form,
another in human form, and a nickname, which name shows?  My guess
would be the legal name, in this case Peter, not Scabbers and not
Wormtail.  And since Harry doesn't know Peter, he wouldn't think about
him, or if he did, he might just assume he is some old ghost lurking
under Ron's bed.  Peeves shows up on the map, therefore a normal ghost
probably does too.  

And the reason that Harry doesn't see more than he needs to see is
simple, the map is cluttered, Harry looks for what he is interested in
and only notices other names if they are in mostly empty places where
Harry wouldn't expect to see a crowd.  The students are generally
hanging out in crowded areas, they don't get much privacy.  And
Scabbers hangs out with Ron a good bit of the time, but he tends to
get left behind in Gryffindor Tower when the kids sneak out at night.
 And while I'm at it, I'll jump ahead and answer the next post, why
didn't Moony see the kids in the closet?  Because he saw the kids in
the hall and devoted all his attention to them.  Why would he keep
looking for more instances of the same people?