a new? topic

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 152424

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Lisa Croke" <lisa_croke at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cleverestwitchofherage" 
> <cleverestwitchofherage@> wrote:
> <SNIP>
> > Does anybody else wonder when or how the Vanishing Cabinet broke? 
> I 
> > find the fact that the two cabinets form a secret passage from B&B 
> > to Hogwarts highly interesting and perhaps significant. Lord V 
> once 
> > worked at B&B, after all. Was the cabinet broken then? If not, 
> might 
> > he have used it to sneak into Hogwarts? What, if any, connection 
> > might there be between his attempt to gain a teaching position at 
> > Hogwarts and the fact that at one time a passage, apparently 
> unknown 
> > to Dumbledore, existed between the two cabinets? 
> <SNIP>

aussiehpnut:
> I'm not absolutely positive about this, but I THINK that Nearly 
> Headless Nick persuaded Peeves to smash the Vanishing Cabinet over 
> Filch's office to distract him, so that Harry wouldn't get into 
> trouble.  I can't remember which book it was in, but Harry had just 
> come in dripping mud after a Quidditch practice.  I can't remember 
> any more than that.

Geoff:
The relevant canon is:

'"It was only a bit of mud!" said Harry.

"It's only a bit of mud to you, boy, but to me it's an extra hour
 scrubbing!" shouted Filch, a drip shivering unpleasantly at the end 
of his bulbous nose. 
"Crime... befouling the castle... suggested sentence..."

Dabbing at his streaming nose, Filch squinted unpleasantly at Harry, 
who waited with bated breath for his sentence to fall.

But as Filch lowered his quill, there was a great BANG! on the ceiling 
of the office, which made the oil lamp rattle.

"PEEVES!" Filch roared, flinging down his quill in a transport of rage. 
"I'll have you this time, I'll have you!"'

(COS "The Deathday Party" p.97 UK edition)


'Filch was looking triumphant.

"That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!" he was saying 
gleefully to Mrs.Norris. "We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet."

(ibid. p.98)


'"Harry! Harry! Did it work?"

Nearly Headless Nick came gliding out of a classroom. Behind him, 
Harry could see the wreckage of a large black and gold cabinet 
which appeared to have been dropped from a great height.

"I persuaded Peeves to crash it right over Filch's office," said Nick 
eagerly. "Thought it might distract him -"

"Was that you?" said Harry gratefully. "Yeah, it worked. I didn't even 
get detention. Thanks Nick!"'

(ibid. p.99)


The interesting thing is that, although the cabinet is described as 
being wrecked, it still had some capability if you look at the 
remaining references made to it:

'Then, as though he (Draco) could not help himself, he said, "I had 
to mend that broken Vanishing Cabinet that no one's used for years. 
The one Montague got lost in last year."

"Aaaah."

Dumbledore's sigh was half a groan He closed his eyes for a moment.

"That was clever... there is a pair, I take i?"

"The other's in Bprgin and Burkes," said Malfoy, "and they made a 
kind of passage between them."

(HBP "The LIghtning-Struck Tower" p.548 UK edition)


'"Malfoy just docked us all about fifty points," said Harry furiously as 
they watched several more stones fly upwards from the Gryffindor 
hour-glass.

"Yeah, Montague tried to do us during break," said George.

"What do you mean, 'tried'?" said Ron quickly.

"He never managed to get all the words out," said Fred, "due to the 
fact that we forced him head-first into that Vanishing Cabinet on 
the first floor."

Hermione looked very shocked.

"But you'll get into terrible trouble!"

"Not until Montague reappears and that could take weeks, I dunno 
where we sent him," said Fred coolly.'

(OOTP "Snape's worst memory" p.552 UK edition)