Chamber of Secrets

[coldsliversofglass]

No: HPFGUIDX 150778

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "richter_kuymal" <richter at ...> 
wrote:
>  Donna Asks:<snip> entrance to the chamber is a large pipe located 
> under a sink complete with water taps.  Now, my question is:  did 
> people living over  a thousand years ago have sinks and water taps 
> for plumbing?  <snip> If these "modern" conveniences were added 
> much, much later  after the chamber was built, when installing the 
> new conveniences, why didn't someone investigate the huge pipe and 
> check it for leaks, etc?
 
>>PAR replied: The problem is that even so, the best of water systems 
>>needs periodic upkeep and creating a bathroom complete with faucets 
>>(as opposed to fountains) and toilets that flushed would have 
>>required occasional upgrades and modifications. So either some 
>>wizard did the work who knew about the chamber and put the snake on 
>>the tap, the upkeep is done by House Elves (who keep the secrets of 
>>the founders), the castle itself modifies according to need (part 
>>of the original enchantment) or, possibly the upkeep has been done 
>>by wizards but the snake on the faucet was done by LV.

coldsliversofglass:
I recieved the impression from the books that the bathroom wasn't 
used that much anyway, and that it wasn't all that up-to-date 
either.  I mean, running water yes, but there was an "out of order" 
stall and Myrtle even mentioned that the Chamber of Secrets sink 
didn't work. This makes me think that maybe the upkeep wasn't given 
any real priority.  

Also, from the description, I imagined it as the sort of bathroom 
students only use if they're absolutely desperate: the sort of 
bathroom where one takes the time to go to the next floor to use 
alternative facilities if at all possible. After all, this is the 
bathroom students hide out in (Myrtle from Olive/Hermione hides in 
there after Ron insults her in the hallway/Draco hides there too in 
HBP) when they want to avoid their classmates.  Assuming that no one 
else used the room, maybe there were spells put onto it to prevent 
people from being interested in repairing it.

Other points of interest: according to the HPLexicon, the room is on 
the same floor as the HeadMaster's office.  This isn't the sort of 
floor people are going to want to hang around, so chances are that 
students haven't used it much over the years anyway.  The placement 
encourages students to avoid the room, which encourages the school to 
put off bothering to repair or modernize it.  The perfect way to keep 
the chamber a secret.  

The HPLexicon also mentions that this floor holds the DADA classroom: 
I'm curious just how new the class itself actually is.  From the 
school's inability to find any good teachers, I didn't really sense 
that DADA was a well estabilished tradition.  I thought the class was 
introduced more as a result of Dumbledore's battle with Grindelwald 
or because of the threat of Voldemort.

Also, the scene in which Harry notices the snake implies that the 
snake was well hidden.  Harry was looking for a clue to the Chamber's 
location: most of the others in the room wouldn't be.  Even if they 
saw the snake, they might not recognize it as a snake.  Someone else 
might have assumed it was just a scratch in the copper.

If they did recognize it, one would expect them to assume that the 
snake was etched into the tap by some slytherin student who just 
wanted to leave a mark on the school.  I mean, how many times has a 
student walked into a bathroom and found at least some sign of 
graffitti in the bathroom stalls or on the walls?

 coldsliversofglass