Montague and the Large White Porcelain Bowl

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 145536

Steve wrote:
> This is kind of a borderline point, I suspect it should really be in
> the OT group, but since it does deal with direct interpretation of
> passages in the book, I'll give it a shot here.

Miles:
I don't think that it is borderline or OT, because it gives some fine points
to start discussion and text work.

Steve wrote:
> In OotP, Montague was thrown into the vanishing cabinet by the Twins
> for trying to take point from Gryffindor. Later he managed to Apparate
> out of the vanishing cabinet's nether world and reappeared in a
> toilet.

Miles:
Just found the quote:
>>'They've found Montague, sir, he's turned up jammed inside a toilet on the
fourth floor.'
'How did he get in there?' demanded Snape.
'I don't know, sir, he's a bit confused.'<< (OotP, ch 28)

Steve wrote:
> In a toilet?
> So, he appeared in a room use for various bodily functions?
> Or, he literally appeared trapped in a large white porcelain bowl
> specifically used for said bodily functions?

Miles:
Hm, difficult for me to interpret English that exactly, maybe native
speakers should do it. But I understand "jammed INSIDE a toilet" as "inside
the bowl". A toilet understood as just a room, how could you get "jammed"
inside it? Even a cubicle is big enough for more than one person to stand in
without being jammed.
Apart from this, just look at the question Snape asks - "How did he get in
there?". He would not ask this if they spoke of a room. The answer would
simply be "through the door", and not "I don't know". So, I think we can be
quite sure that Montague is stuck in porcelain, otherwise the dialogue
quoted would not make any sense.

Steve wrote:
> If he simply appeared in the room, why do they even need Snape there,
> why not just get Madame Pomfrey to take him to the hospital wing? On
> the other hand if he is literally trapped in the porcelain bowl, that
> is a lot more complex, and might take some real magic to get him out.
> It could also account for his long stay in the hospital wing.

Miles:
I think there are two points connected to this.

1) We know that apparating is quite tricky, even a lot of fully qualified
wizards and witches avoid it and choose more secure ways of travelling. We
read in HBP the way young wizards learn apparating. In the first hours no
single student manages to move just a centimeter, and the first students who
manage to do something splinter themselves, leaving parts of their bodies at
the starting spot. We can imagine that Montague's problem is similar - he
did not splinter, but didn't manage to concentrate on the location he wanted
to apparate to. So he just ended up "somewhere outside the cabinet", and
this could have been inside a wall as well, so maybe he was lucky to
apparate just inside a toilet. Reminds me of the film Philadelphia
Experiment...

2) The other problem is: You cannot apparate in Hogwarts. Hermine said so,
so it must be right ;). But obviously you *can* apparate in Hogwarts,
Montague did.
Maybe the protection of Hogwarts is not described precisely in "A History of
Hogwarts". Would not be too surprising, if it is vague concerning security.
Just to start speculation: Maybe apparating in Hogwarts is extremely
dangerous, because it is impossible to determine exactly where you appear.
Obviously wizards concentrate on the target location, which is normally
outside solid walls, not ten feet above ground, and not inside toilet bowls.
Maybe it is impossible to "aim" in Hogwarts, so you are in high danger to
end up somewhere inside the castle, but not at your destination.

Assuming this theory, the problem of Montague was not that he apparated
without being qualified to do so, but that he apparated in Hogwarts where
noone is supposed to apparate.

Miles