Vanishing Cabinets

[sunnyskywalker]

Rowling and her overpowered, plot-breaking one-book wonders...

This is thanks to Jodel and her speculations on the Vanishing Cabinets in her essays “Minding the Gap” and “O, the Times Are Out of Joint!”

In “Minding the Gap,” she wonders whether Phineas Nigellus used the cabinets to pop back and forth between Hogwarts and home when he was headmaster, and whether his daughter Belvina, who married a Herbert Burke, acquired the “home” cabinet, which eventually ended up in Borgin & Burkes. She also notes that you could spin any number of other plausible stories.

Regardless of how it ended up that one of the pair was at Hogwarts and one in the shop… just how long was that back door into Hogwarts available before Peeves broke the Hogwarts cabinet in CoS? How many people knew about it, and who might have used it—and for what?

Jodel has one possibility for that, too. I snipped a bit of the text to focus on the parts most relevant to my own questions:

[T]he fact that the London cabinet was still in the shop in 1996 in no way disqualifies it from having been in the shop in 1938. Or for it to have been acquired at any time during the period that Tom was either employed there full time, or working there during the summer.

[…] Tom, however, is very likely to have come across the Hogwarts cabinet at some point while poking and prying into every nook and cranny, and recognized that it matched the one at Burke’s. […] Even more to the point, he would have had access to it in 1948, before he left Britain […] And if, as I now suspect, Tom was covertly slipping in and out of Hogwarts under Headmaster Dippet’s unsuspecting nose at his own convenience, then I think the rarely asked question of; “Where did Tom store his Horcruxes before he gave them to followers to hide?” has a fairly obvious answer.

[…] Consequently; Tom’s job interview was primarily a pretext for getting into the castle to discover where the transfer cabinet was currently located.

Checking whether the Cup and Locket were still in situ, adding the Diadem to the collection, and jinxing the DADA post (or the classroom), or Confunding the Hat, could all be better accomplished on a later visit, at some time when there would be no reason to believe that he had been anywhere near the place, and could work undisturbed. He had come to Hogsmeade with witnesses who could attest that he had met with Dumbledore, returned to the Hogs Head and departed in their company. As for getting back via the cabinet; he was fully conversant with the security at Burke’s. Getting access to the London cabinet was hardly beyond his capabilities.

(She postulates that after the prophecy, he sneaked in while Dumbledore was off legislating or something to retrieve all the Horcruxes but the diadem from the Room of Hidden Things.)

Ack. Could Tom really have known of a secret way into Hogwarts since the 1940s? If he did, what else might he have used it for? Secret meetings with prospective followers might have been too risky. What about Confunding and Imperiusing students and staff? Using bits of the castle’s magic we don’t know about? Undermining its magical defenses? Imperiusing the house-elves? Did he even need an agent in the castle to deploy the diary or assassinate Dumbledore?

The fact that he did send Snape in suggests that either he didn’t know about the cabinet or it didn’t allow him such free access that he felt he didn’t need anyone on the scene.

If the Marauders tapped into some existing magic of the castle to make that map, for example, there might be a tracking enchantment which detects intruders. (And alerts the headmaster via one of those silver instruments?) Perhaps Voldemort could only hide himself from that magic for short bursts of time. Just long enough to slip into the un-tracked Room of Requirement and back, maybe. In that case, having an agent in the castle for other missions would make things a lot easier. He’d reserve his cabinet use for special occasions or as a last resort, to improve his odds of no one detecting the intrusions and moving or sealing the cabinet.

He may have had plans for it, however. Perhaps after his (supposedly) loyal agent loosed the basilisk and killed Dumbledore, Voldemort was planning to lead his Death Eaters in through the cabinet and take over the castle before anyone outside had time to react. (And if Snape had failed to kill Dumbledore, Voldemort could hope that the old man had been shocked or weakened enough by the attempt to make him easy pickings.) Maybe the only reason that didn’t happen during the first war was because Voldemort was waiting until he’d weakened the Ministry enough that they wouldn’t have a hope of taking the castle back. Having Barty Jr. assassinate his father right as Voldemort was breaking into Hogwarts would give him a nice window, if you want to tie a few conspiracies together. Voldemort loves elaborate plots!

Or maybe he didn’t know about the cabinets. Either way, did anyone else?

Fred and George know that the cabinet is a Vanishing Cabinet, but they claim not to know where Montague might end up. Because it’s broken, or because they don’t know where the paired cabinet is? Had they not found the cabinet by 1992, when it was broken, and so never popped through to find out? Were they cautious enough not to jump into an unfamiliar Vanishing Cabinet that could send them anywhere?

Or had the twins been able to sneak into Knockturn Alley until Peeves broke the cabinet?

What about in the 1970s? Did the Marauders pop into Knockturn Alley whenever they pleased? And, um, never mentioned this massive security hole, even after they’d left school and didn’t need it available to sneak out anymore. Did they have a reason to sneak in? Did Peter, as a Death Eater rat? Or were they covering up something truly dreadful they’d done when they sneaked out—and if so, what?

Again: ack.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

The tapestry on the wall facing the entrance to the ROR has trolls on it. In Rowling's world, trolls are often trained for security jobs. It was suggested many years ago that the trolls in the tapestry report to Dumbles on comings and goings in that corridor. So perhaps some people found obstacles to their plans of sneaking out of Hogwarts that way, maybe even some got found after sneaking in.

[sunnyskywalker]

It depends on where the cabinet was before it got broken, I suppose. Unfortunatley, we don't know exactly where that was.

Peeves crashed it above Filch's office, which Harry had to go "downstairs" to get to while trying to return to Gryffindor tower, but all that tells us is that Filch's office isn't on the top floor. The cabinet was probably near the spot directly over Filch's office, wherever that is, since Nick probably would have suggested a piece of furniture close at hand for Peeves to drop, not something several floors away.

Fred and George describe the cabinet as being on the "first floor" in OotP. The cabinet may have been moved to the first-floor location after it was broken, but that doesn't tell us where it was originally.

So it might have been on the seventh floor (near the RoR entrance) originally, or it might have been on the first floor where it was by OotP, or anywhere else in the castle that is at least one floor up. If it was on the seventh floor, it probably wasn't inside the RoR, since Filch knows about the cabinet but apparently only knows the RoR as a supply closet.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Back in the day Jodell proposed that the Blacks had owned both cabinets, and that when Phineas was headmaster he used the set as a shortcut between his office and his London home. And then after his death his daughter, Belvina Burke, took over the home cabinet, and from her family it ended up at the Burkes' business place. The one on the school end did not need to be moved far to get from the headmaster's rooms to the corridor outside the ROR. And I think that location would make total sense to Filch if he did not know it had a pair in London: One side of the corridor is a secret supply cabinet, and facing it a magical dumpster.

[sunnyskywalker]

I wonder why Dippet (or whoever, if there was a headmaster between him and Phineas Nigellus) would have had it moved out in the first place? Maybe he didn't like the aesthetic, but recognized it was a good piece of furniture and they ought to hang onto it?

Or maybe he was okay with having a Vanishing Cabinet around, just not in his rooms, and figured he could put a good enough magical lock on it that it would be fine in the corridor?

Of course it all depends on exactly what he thought the cabinet was...

I'm still loving the idea of Filch thinking it's a magical dumpster and Borgin sifting through whatever comes through to see if there's anything he can use or sell.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Your introductory sentence - Rowling and her overpowered, plot-breaking one-book wonders... - drew me in. She's surely guilty of that type of amateurish writing I believe.

But in this case ...

... before Peeves broke the Hogwarts cabinet in CoS?

That's something I don't think I ever knew. Clearly I missed it in CoS or forgot it by the time the cabinet featured so heavily in HBP.

Can you refer me to the chapter/line where Peeves breaks the cabinet?

In any case, we've got to give Rowling kudos for actually employing an artifact of one novel four books later. I don't think she did that often!

[sunnyskywalker]

Properly speaking, it's a two-book wonder (since Montague gets stuffed into it in OotP) which makes a cameo appearance in a third. (Each of the pair gets a cameo appearance in CoS, actually, since Harry hides in the other in Borgin & Burkes. If only he'd shut the door and popped through to the school!) But its plot functions could have been covered by some other, lesser devices in all its appearances before HBP, so it's really only a "wonder" for that book. Which, considering how potentially plot-breaking it is, should not be the case.

But you're right that it is better than her usual track record!

The mention is in CoS Chapter 8, "The Deathday Party."

Filch has burst through a tapestry to find Harry (on his way back to Gryffindor tower) tracking mud around. and drags Harry "back downstairs" to his office (floor unspecified). There's a "great BANG!" on the ceiling, and Filch goes running out after Peeves. Once Harry leaves, Nearly Headless Nick glides out of a classroom to explain that he put Peeves up to crashing the cabinet right over Filch's office to distract Filch and hopefully get Harry out of trouble.

Except in between Filch running out to catch Peeves and Harry getting the explanation from Nick, we get this, which I'd forgotten, and which makes the situation even worse:

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

So Filch also knows that it's a vanishing cabinet. Does he know where it goes? And if so... WTF?

In CoS, we didn't yet know that the cabinet was part of a pair, and it might have been possible that vanishing cabinets did exactly what they sounded like and merely vanished things, like they have a built-in "Evanesco" function. In that case, it wouldn't have been the kind of whacking great security hole that Filch would be determined to plug. He certainly doesn't want students sneaking in or out to cause trouble!

In OotP, Fred and George imply that Montague ought to reappear somewhere, eventually, but it isn't clear how the cabinet should function when it isn't broken, and I think we still don't know that it's the mate of the one in Borgin & Burkes. So it could have been a one-way trip even when functioning properly.

But in HBP, Arthur tells us that vanishing cabinets were popular escape routes during the first war (um, how affordable are they, exactly?), and Draco proves just how easy it is to bring people through once it's working. So pre-1992, we have a real problem: several people at least--including students--knew where it was and how it worked, and yet it was just sitting around in a public area for who knows how long.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Looks like the Vanishing Cabinet was extremely valuable to Filch for smuggling stuff (confiscated items?) to Borgin and Burkes for some side-deals? Unless he did not know about the other end, and just used it to get rid of undesirable stuff, which then Borgin and Burkes ended up sifting through just in case there was anything of value there?

[sunnyskywalker]

Both of those would be pretty hilarious. And if Filch thought it just made things disappear into nothingness, I can see him being a little less worried about students jumping into it. Good riddance!

Meanwhile, at the shop, Borgin's going, "I really must track down the owner of the other of the pair and put a stop to this! I won't accept any more of their rubb--oh, hey, this looks quite valuable..."

Or if Filch was making sales, after the Battle of Hogwarts, McGonagall starts telling him how he can help with the cleanup, and he informs her that no, actually he's finally saved up enough to retire and he's off to the Carribbean. So long, suckers!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm seriously impressed ... the cabinets appeared in *three* books!!! And both of them, you say, in CoS? Wow.

'Course, I'm only super impressed because Rowling otherwise typically did such a bad job in throwing in her one-book wonders. I wonder if she'd really thought ahead about the cabinets, knew she was going to use them in book 6 back when she was writing CoS? Wasn't there some fan theory/myth/interview that she'd written CoS as the first half of one of the others?

Anyway, those cabinets seem to be a neat bit of integration in the series.

Or maybe not, if it was only in HBP - the book that actually depended on the cabinets - that their purpose was revealed by Arthur. Would have been a lot better if their function was a known part of her universe books before they became a critical part of the surprise plot. Okay, that's more the Rowling I know.

Also, if she *had* unveiled them earlier ...

So pre-1992, we have a real problem: several people at least--including students--knew where it was and how it worked, and yet it was just sitting around in a public area for who knows how long.

... she would have had to have her characters address the issue. So - as she did so often - she just had them play dumb for the convenience of their author.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think she said HBP and DH were like two halves of a whole. If so, it, um, maybe didn't work out as she'd originally imagined... And I think Jodel said PS/SS and CoS worked smoothly together (really the whole first three flowed pretty well).

I am curious whether she had the cabinets planned out, or whether the B&B cabinet in CoS was just a random cabinet and the school cabinet just made things disappear. Then in OotP, she thought of the idea of Fred and George stuffing someone into it because they don't have lockers, and hey, wouldn't it be neat if he went somewhere? And then in HBP, she needed a way for Draco to sneak Death Eaters into the school...

It's kind of too bad he didn't just explore a bunch and find the secret passage from Honeydukes, which Harry and the Twins knew about and thought it would be safe to leave open and unknown to anyone else. That would have tied things together nicely too.

I'm struggling to find a way to plug this hole. Was there some kind of magical lock that busted when Peeves dropped the cabinet? Still not very secure! Could a student have broken in and zipped off to London just by whacking the cabinet hard enough? In that case, Fred and George totally would have figured it out. They're already expert at Muggle lock-picking by CoS, so it's within their skill set.

Or there could be a pass-phrase to activate it--but then, why did Montague end up stuck between the cabinets? Did Fred and George figure out the pass-phrase somehow, or was that part of the cabinet's brokenness? (And why did no one wonder how Montague apparated out when all the characters have had it hammered into them that you can't apparate at Hogwarts?) And how did Draco figure it out? Did it belong to Phineas Nigellus, and Narcissa knew the passphrase because of family tradition? Was it the magical equivalent of Password1234?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

I’m guessing there was some kind of pass code. Maybe it was a series of taps, like how one enters Diagon Alley, and one of the places tapped was damaged when Peeves dropped the cabinet. Tom might have learned the code years ago and taught it to Draco. Or there may be other female Black descendants who married into Death Eater families.

[sunnyskywalker]

Taps might work! I don't think we get much description of the cabinets other than that they're lacquer, so they could have fancy designs which would provide some kind of guide for where to tap. And those could have chipped or something when the cabinet broke.

Hm, would Tom have learned it from Borgin? Or did Borgin not know it, and Tom figured it out somehow?

Or maybe it was passed down by a family, whether the Blacks or another family. (Maybe Goyle had something to contribute after all?)

Protection from whom?

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

This all got me thinking, when Hogwarts was built it was built to protect the magical population against the muggles.

The statue of secrecy and the separation was due to fear of muggles.

Sure in Harry's time all the official information downplays the witch hunts as silly harmless things. But were they really?

What if Hogwarts were built when they were worried about muggle attacks and didn't think that the wizarding world would ever be fighting among themselves?

So the original protection were anti-muggle with the other anti-magic protections tacked on later.

Re: Protection from whom?

[sunnyskywalker]

Probably that was the Founders' first thought. I'd buy that. But the students started fighting each other during the Founders' time, which ought to have given them the idea that wait, if wizards are fighting each other now, maybe it could happen again? They might have forgotten that point if there was a long period of wizards not fighting each other, though. So you could be right that the castle's protections are mostly against muggles, with protections against magical attacks only tacked on later.

And I think you're right that the witch hunts were not remotely harmless. Kids usually wouldn't be able to defend themselves, for one thing. A few might be lucky enough to have magical outbursts that save them, or might have enough training and talent to escape, but what about the rest of them? What about the witches and wizards who never got the hang of Apparating? What about the magically incapable ones like all those Ministry employees Fred and George claim can't even cast a decent Shield Charm--what could they have done to protect themselves? What about the ones whose neighbors ambushed them while they were sleeping and took their wands? I bet it was actually quite brutal.

Still. In 1992, they'd been through a recent wizarding civil war. That ought to be enough to make them look at a back door into the castle and think, "Hm... shouldn't we at least find the other end and make sure it's secure?"

Re: Protection from whom?

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Hubris. There hasn't been an attack on the castle before, so why would it happen now?

Re: Protection from whom?

[sunnyskywalker]

Sadly, that's probably the most likely explanation. Hogwarts is the safest place there is, so why worry? (That must have been some propaganda job, getting everyone to believe Hogwarts is safe, let alone "the safest place.")

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I'm late responding (I have trouble getting into livejournal these days), but I just want to say this is brilliant! Of COURSE the most brilliant troublemaking students would know about the cabinets before they were broken. I would love to know if the Marauders ever used them, and, if so, what for. It's only James Potter's extreme aversion to what other people say is Dark Magic that makes me think they wouldn't be wandering around Knockturn Alley at will. (Note--I don't think the boy was averse to darkness at all. He was simply prejudiced against Slytherins.) OTOH, it would be an easy way into London, for sure. I don't like to think of what those boys might have done there.

What an interesting plothole or two you've discovered!

[sunnyskywalker]

I'm sure he could virtuously sneak out of Knockturn Alley to do whatever noble and gallant activities he had planned. Maybe that prequel snippet didn't happen during the summer after all?

Or he could linger and find the cool stuff which isn't dark-dark, just, uh... traditional, yeah, that's it. I mean, if Hagrid can buy slug repellent there, James can probably find something that doesn't harm his image.

Just trying to work out how many people could have used the cabinets over how many years to do what is a really fascinating headache.