Wednesday 26 August 2015

harry potter - Who determined the rightful owner of the Hogwarts Headmaster's office?

There are a couple of options here.



Firstly, it's by no means certain that Umbridge knows the password to gain access to the office. It may have simply been blocked to her because she doesn't have the access code, nor will anyone who knows it (such as Snape or McGonagall) tell her, because, let's be honest here, it's pretty funny not to tell her. She may have simply been yelling at a locked door, demanding that it open for her.



Secondly, and here we're assuming Umbridge knows what the password is, it's very likely that the room was barred to her because Dumbledore had blocked it to her. The Official Harry Potter Glossary (that used to feature on the Bloomsbury.com website) notes that he can deactivate the password at a whim. Presumably this feature also works as the metaphorical sock-on-the-doorhandle when Dumbledore is entertaining guests.




Fizzing Whizzbee: Password to gain entry into Dumbledore's rooms at Hogwarts via a moving stone staircase like a spiral escalator.
Dumbledore can override the password when he doesn't want it to work.




It's not especially clear who wrote this glossary (e.g. whether it was JKR or someone else) but as it adds to the canon, we can reasonably assume that she was aware of it.




Note also that after Dumbledore




dies




his office becomes available to Professor Snape so there must be some kind of transfer mechanism at work.

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