The Cockroach Connection?

[wanderingstar1979]

No: HPFGUIDX 107114

> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Janet Anderson" 
> <norek_archives2 at h...> wrote:
> <snip>
> But I wonder if there isn't something about cockroaches too.  How 
> often have we heard about Cockroach Clusters?  It's sold at 
> Honeydukes (Fred and George suggest feeding some to Percy and 
> claiming they're peanuts), and I do believe it's used somewhere as 
> a password.

You're absolutely right.  In OoTP, when Harry and Krum find Crouch by 
the woods, Harry runs up to Dumbledore's office to get him.  He tries 
to use the password "Sherbet lemon" to get by the gargoyle, but it 
doesn't move, and frustrated, Harry decides to try the staff room.  
Snape stops him, on page 557 of the US edition (chapter twenty-
eight "The Madness of Mr. Crouch"):

     "POTTER!"
     "Harry skidded to a halt and looked around.  Snape had just 
emerged from the hidden staircase behind the stone gargoyle.  The 
wall was sliding shut behind him even as he beckoned Harry back 
toward him."

In the next chapter, Harry decides to go to see Dumbledore after his 
scar hurts him in Divination class.  He again tries "Sherbet lemon" 
as a password, which of course doesn't work, and then tries just 
about every other candy he can think of, until, on page 579 of the US 
edition (chapter twenty-nine "The Dream"):

     "Chocolate Frog!  He yelled angrily, standing on one 
leg.  "Sugar quill!  Cockroach cluster!"
     The gargoyle sprang to life and jumped aside.  Harry blinked.
     "Cockroach cluster?"  he said, amazed.  "I was only joking...."

Between chapter twenty-eight and chapter twenty-nine, JKR doesn't 
tell us about anyone entering or leaving Dumbledore's office.  Of 
course, this doesn't mean it doesn't happen, just that we (the dear 
readers) don't get told about it.  Naturally, one would assume that 
Dumbledore enters and leaves his own office quite frequently.  The 
point I'm attempting to make, I suppose, is that the last person we 
see/read about leaving Dumbledore's office (other than the can-be-
assumed Dumbledore) is Snape, and then the next password that is used 
to get into Dumbledore's office is "Cockroach Cluster."  

Probably nothing more than a S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D coincidence, but ... 
that's the way my mind words.  :-)

WanderingStar1979, who can't believe she is dissecting this book like 
Faulkner.