DH reread CH 26 - 29

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 187280

Alla quoted:
> 
> "It's all down to Neville, he really gets this Room. You've got to ask it for exactly what you need - like "I don't want any Carrow supporters to be able to get in" - and it'll do it for you! You've just got to make sure you close the loopholes! Neville's the man!" - p.464
> 
Alla wrote:
> 
> Now, does it mean that Neville has special relationship with the room? Or does it mean that he just figured out and taught everybody how to phrase their demands? Why is it such a big deal how to phrase it? Wouldn't the room read what you wish in your heart? I mean, I understand that wording is important for the spells, charms, incantations magic, but why is it important here?

Carol responds:

I don't thinks that Neville has a special relationship to the room since it responded to the newcomers by providing beds and other necessities in the proper colors and to the girls' need for a bathroom, presumably in the British sense of a place to bathe. (I hope it also provided boys' and girls' "toilets" in the sense of "restroom" and not a charming collection of chamberpots!) It was probably Neville who requested (whether silently or aloud) that the room keep out any Carrow supporters. (I would hope that the Carrows themselves were included in that wish! Did Harry et al. wish for Umbridge to be kept out? I can't remember.)

But this isn't the first time that a character had to ask the room for exactly the right thing. Harry couldn't get in when he wished for a place to find out what Draco Malfoy was up to, probably because Draco had specifically requested the room to reject that request regardless of how it was phrased. But he (and Trelawney) got into the same room when they wished for a place to hide something. Trelawney even got in when Draco was there, apparently because he hadn't specifically requested that no one be able to get in at all when he was there. Other than that, I think it reads minds (as do many other objects in the Potterverse) and senses exactly what each person wants (just as it sensed Hermione's need for spellbooks for the DA lessons even though it was Harry who wished for a place to teach DADA lessons.

BTW, maybe better wording would have provided Dumbledore with modern plumbing rather than chamberpots, which would have been old-fashioned even when he was a student at Hogwarts.

Carol, not really interested in plumbing despite appearances in her recent posts!