Number Twelve Grimmauld Place

Just wondering how the anti-Snape enchantment was meant to work.

1. Was the tongue-tying charm personified to only work on Snape?

2. In an interview, JKR said that we would find out what Snape's Boggart would look like. Maybe the dust figure was Snape's Boggart? Moody could have made is the Boggart would be personified to Snape?

1. Maybe the charm was to only work on Snape so that if he came inside his tongue would be tied and then he couldn't say the word "kill" to get rid of what ever it was that came after him.

2. It sounds like there is a good chance that that was Snape's Boggart, but what exactly was it? I didn't pick up on what it actually was.

Yeah that whole scene really really confused me at first

When they heard Moody's voice I thought Ron was right and that Moody was actually alive and hiding out at Grimmauld Place, waiting for Snape...

And then when the figure popped up, which I'm now thinking was a dead Dumblydorr, I was like ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....k....

I still don't really get how the tongue tying thing works, but i think the point of the thing was to freak out Snape if he came back, and if you weren't Snape, you had to say something along the lines of "i didn't kill you" and you would be able to pass...

Yeah, maybe it would recognise Snape only, cuz he would be really shocked to see Dumbledore rushing at him, he cant lie either, he did kill him. Also, try saying the word "kill" would your tongue rolled back, you can barely say it, especially in a situation where you are surprised and shocked, and didnt know you had to say the word "kill".

Moody would have had to know what Snapes boggart was- it couldnt have been just a boggart there all the time as it would change whenever someone else would be there e.g for Harry.

Needless to say, it was pretty creepy.

FYI we know it was Dead dumbledoor when Lupin goes to grimmauld place because he says "i did not kill you, Albus"! Although its never actually explained we are just left to infer :)

I think the tongue-tying charm was only for Snape, so that he could not tell anyone of the whereabouts of Grimmauld Place. He was the only secret-keeper that the order was scared would tell the bad guys, so this prevented Snape from telling anyone else.

How do the charms still exist even after Moody's death?

Mabye whenever you entered the house some kind of truth charm was automatically put on you and if you were Snape, you couldn't utter the words "I didn't kill you" because it would be a lie.

2. In an interview, JKR said that we would find out what Snape's Boggart would look like. Maybe the dust figure was Snape's Boggart? Moody could have made is the Boggart would be personified to Snape?

It can't be Snape's boggart becuase he never really has anything against Dumbledore, so why would he fear Dumbledore? he never really killed him....:p

I agree that he wouldn't fear Dumbledore, but he still killed him, even if he would have died anyway.

I think the tongue-tying curse might have re-activated if someone tried to lie to the Dumbledore thing.

I think that the tongue tying was to prevent snape from speaking to the Dumbledore thing, it would probably have a strong effect on snape alone.

I believe Snape's boggart was kind of revealed. The book showed his love for Lily and I'm sure his boggart would probably have been seeing lily dead. Just like Molly's was seeing one of the weasleys dead.

I thought that the protective spells Moody put on would be gone when Moody died.

I agree with others who have siad his boggart might/probably have been Lily dead just as his patronous was the same as hers a Doe.

Some spells must work after death, arent we told once that sirius' mum put lots of the charms on the house and there still there.

It seemed to me like a one-two punch kind of thing.

Snape is a very talented wizard. Probably the most taleneted we've seen, behind DD and Voldemort. Moody probably knew that any enchantment he could cast, Snape would have a way to eventually overcome it. Moody devised a protection that used the element of surprise and timing. Tie the toung and then a moment later creat an attack that can only be thwarted by speaking.

It's clever, but I guess it didn't work. We know that Snape was in Grimmauld place.

I do agree that the tounge tying curse was meant to prevent him from being able to speak the location of Grimmauld Place. I think the dusty Dumbledore was meant to scare the begesus out of him since everyone in the order thought Snape had killed Dumbledore in cold blood. They didn't know Dumbeldore had asked him to kill him.

If only they'd known the truth?

There may have been some logic to Mad-eye's combination, but it doesn't really fit his personality. This is a guy who enchanted his trash cans to attack trespassers. Mad-eye seems to me one who would have gone for a more direct approach to prevent Snape from entering. not that it would have worked, Snape for all his gitness was a skilled spell slinger.

I'd like to discuss a bit about the noble and most ancient (literal) house of Black.

Firstly, does it not seem rather ironic that a family so concerned with being pureblood lived wedged into a muggle neighborhood? All of the other wizard families we have seen lived in remote locations in the country, but here we have the Black family, who live in a dirty London street.

Furthermore, how long has the house been there? Since it's numbered 12, one would assume that it was built there along with the other houses on the block. If that's true, well I'm not familiar with London, but would it be common to have a residential area with houses over a hundred years old? If not, then why did the Blacks choose to move in here? How did they get possession of it, did they buy it from a muggle realtor? If they were rich couldn't they afford to build their own house where ever they pleased without having to go through the trouble of enchanting it. On that note, why didn't the muggle neighbors notice when a house disappeared?

Although, maybe #12 has been there for centuries, before the muggle neighborhood was built. In that case, then it was already enchanted against muggle eyes and a housing development just happened to build around it. Perhaps the charms on the house caused them to become confused about whether or not they had built a house on the spot where #12 was supposed to be, which explains why it skips from 10 to 14 to unknowing eyes. But, in the movie the house looks just like all the other ones (not conclusive for anything in the books, but it would suggest that it was indeed built along with the others)

Still, I do wonder even if the house was there before the other ones why the Blacks would have a house in London, a city populated always by muggles. Again, you'd think the Blacks would want to be as far away from them all as possible...

Well,I suppose they just built it there like you suggested ,in aisloation,adn then muggles selected the area to build a neighborhood and thus it got stuck there.

OR

it was like godric hollow ,only they were such nasty neibohrs that all wizards went away,and then had to bewitch the hous e to hide it from muggle eye.

OR

not all wizard houses are like the burrow,or shell cottage...some do have to be in the muggle surroundings.

One of the most exclusive and most expensive areas of Boston, where I come from, (an old American city, dating back to 1620), has a section called Beacon Hill, where all the homes are row houses of red brick, or reddish-brown stone, not so different from the ones on Grimmauld Place. They have small rooms with very high ceilings, very tall windows, and long hallways. They are also trimmed in black wrought iron. This is where the 'proper Bostonians' lived 200 or more years ago. So I can see this is a similar situation for the 'Noble House of Black'.

Downtown property was very expensive, near where the capital building was built, and I'm sure that this is an issue in London as well. These houses were built to take up a minimum of land, but have 3, 4, or more levels to accommodate the rich lifestyles. Some of them have a small room off the entry for a concierge, in the European style. They also have a pint-sized back yard for a garden, fenced in. In Boston, even in the 21st century, this is still very costly real estate (you're paying for the location, since these homes have few modern amenities).

I would guess that 12 Grimmauld Place was built with the others in that development, but enchanted to become invisible and nestled within the others, hiding it from view.

FGM

I also wondered why Grimmauld Place was located there. It makes Bella's comment about Spinner's End being a "Muggle dunghill" rather hypocritical. :lol:

Fairygdmother- #12 is located in a neighborhood that is less than affluent. Paint is peeling everywhere, there are broken windows, and the area is described as "grimy". The prices for the neighboring houses, then, would have to have gone down. Is it possible for neighborhoods like these in London to have languished after many years?

A little off-topic, but does anyone remember where Malfoy Manor is?

I also wondered why Grimmauld Place was located there. It makes Bella's comment about Spinner's End being a "Muggle dunghill" rather hypocritical. :lol:

Fairygdmother- #12 is located in a neighborhood that is less than affluent. Paint is peeling everywhere, there are broken windows, and the area is described as "grimy". The prices for the neighboring houses, then, would have to have gone down. Is it possible for neighborhoods like these in London to have languished after many years?

It's not unknown for the well-to-do, especially in olden times, to maintain a 'town' home and a 'country' home.

It's entirely possible for a neighborhood to have fallen off since its glory days. It can even happen from street to street in the same neighborhood. I once had some business to conduct at a government building in Trenton (the capital city of New Jersey, the state where I was raised). I walked down the block from the building, and each house was the equal of anything on Beacon Hill - neat, well-kept, attractive... I crossed the street to get to the parking lot or bus stop, and the facing houses were as bad as any low-rent, decaying mill-town, public housing - Spinner's End would be a step up.

I must admit I laughed when I saw how nice the houses on Grimmauld Place appeared (from the street) in the Phoenix movie.

A little off-topic, but does anyone remember where Malfoy Manor is?

Wiltshire.

Thanks for the answer, PrivetHedge. :D

1. the weasleys have muggle neighbors right down the road. this is known because they can only play quidditch in the woods. also, in a city, there might be alot of muggles, but there must also be alot of wizards nearby.

2. the numbering can change. recently, for some reason my town changed a bunch of the street numbers. in addition, many houses in my town are numbered on odd numbers so that new houses can be added. for instance, house numbers will go 1->3->5->7 instead of 1->2->3->4 because if they numberd it the latter and a new house was put in then it would have to be 1.5 such and such street.

3. to be as far away from muggles as possible would mean either hogsmeade or isolation. being in london, they are near diagon alley, and the ministry.

maybe they built the house when grimauld place was a wizarding developement, and since then it has become overun by muggles. the blacks wouldn't want to move because they are very traditionalistic.

There are a lot of reasons how they could be there, but what i'm wondering is why they didn't move. They seemed to have a lot of money, they had so manyhouse elves, they had lots of stuff like silver and that kind of thing. Iguess they didn't want to move, or they were useful to Voldemort by living in a muggle area.

You know, this is a really wonderful question, and I am surprised it hasn't been brought up before.

We know that Sirius' father placed lots of anti-muggle safety precautions on it -- so it must have been around Muggles and done while the Blacks were still alive and Sirius was living at home.

Perhaps the charms on the house caused them to become confused about whether or not they had built a house on the spot where #12 was supposed to be, which explains why it skips from 10 to 14 to unknowing eyes.

Doesn't the numbering go from 11 to 13?

Grimmauld Place has always been one of my favorite places in the books. I always imagined that wizards can't really get away from muggles no matter where they live. From the book description I got the impression that all the houses and surrounding area had been there just as long as the Black manor. Maybe muggles just rebuilt some of it or fixed up the nearby houses.

yes, the numbering goes from 11 to 13, a fact that people find funny, it is mentioned in DH when the death eaters are stationed outside the house near september 1st.
now I wonder, if they were so wealthy, why didn´t they have a Black Manor like the malfoy's?? hahaha

I pictured the Black family as an old fashioned, traditional family. They had passed the house down from generation to generation. I believe they stayed there because the house was a family 'heirloom', so to speak. As the neighborhood became rundown, families probably came and went, so no one really noticed when the house was 'charmed' and just disappeared. Maybe they even modified the memories of the muggles that lived nearby, so they wouldn't remember there was ever a house at #12.

i've always loved grimmauld place...i would love to have went there...it just seems its stinking of ancient magical history...lol
i want to know how big it really is and yes...why did'nt they have a manor like the malfoys....

oh well....

:love::relax::drool:

A lot of the arguments sound really good. But as to the question of it being common to have a residential area over the age of 100 years - well London is the oldest city in England (I think), so yes it's highly likely that there are houses and buildings in London that would go back 100's of years.

It does seem rather ironic that a family so concerned about being pureblood lived wedged in a muggle neighborhood.

The house has probably been there for a very long time considering how far the Black family tree went back on that one wall in the house. I wouldn't say it would be common to have a residential area with houses over a hundred years old, just convenient. I doubt they bought it from a muggle realtor, they probably conjured it or something of the sort. There was probably a charm on the house to prevent muggles from seeing the house at all, when it disappeared or not.

The Black family has a long history of having a Slytherin style mentality (Sirius aside).

That accepted, it's not a big stretch to imagine that several members of the family enjoyed some casual, or hardcore, tormenting of Muggles. If so, why not have your house amongst them, providing plenty of opportunities for some "sport".

Yes, it is a mean-spirited view of the family Black, but you need not go further than the displayed elf heads to see this was not a family that was civically minded.

Well I believe the Muggles came later in the area because I think that Sirius says at some point it was his father that strengthened enchantments on the house.
Slightly off topic isnt it risky for the ministry allowing Blacks to live in an invisble house, I mean wouldnt the neighbours find it suspicious that pple appear out of thin air and walk down the street or pple walking up the street suddenly and then dissapearing, Same applies to the order of the phoenix

I also wondered why Grimmauld Place was located there. It makes Bella's comment about Spinner's End being a "Muggle dunghill" rather hypocritical.
Probably doesnt remember due to the Fidelius charm

Well I believe the Muggles came later in the area because I think that Sirius says at some point it was his father that strengthened enchantments on the house.
Slightly off topic isnt it risky for the ministry allowing Blacks to live in an invisble house, I mean wouldnt the neighbours find it suspicious that pple appear out of thin air and walk down the street or pple walking up the street suddenly and then dissapearing, Same applies to the order of the phoenix


Probably doesnt remember due to the Fidelius charm


Possibly but as someone pointed out earlier on, it could at one point have been a wizarding street or a house where there more more wizarding families who may have begun to die out or horror or horrors (to the Black family anyway) intermarried with Muggles. Thus when more muggles moved into the area, Sirius's father would then have thought it prudent or desirable to repel the Muggles by strengthing the charms that would have been on any wizarding house (or I'd imagine there would be on almost all wizarding house) especially one in a relatively public area.

Can you imagine though anyone from the ministry actually telling the Black family that their house was a threat to the statue of Secrecy?! :rotfl: realistically though seeing as the Black family thought so little of Muggles in general terms, I couldn't see that they would use the front door too much. It's not like they needed to with the possibility and ability to connect to the Floo network.

...or simply Apparate onto the porch, for that matter. The Trio did it, and they were fairly new at Apparition.

yes, the numbering goes from 11 to 13, a fact that people find funny, it is mentioned in DH when the death eaters are stationed outside the house near september 1st.
now I wonder, if they were so wealthy, why didn´t they have a Black Manor like the malfoy's?? hahaha

Actual wealthy aristocratic Muggle families in England used to own country seats like Malfoy Manor, and large "town houses" in London where they could stay while conducting business, or at the height of the social season when they would get together with their peers from around the country. Possibly the Blacks once did too - and maybe it passed to a different branch of the family.

Actual wealthy aristocratic Muggle families in England used to own country seats like Malfoy Manor, and large "town houses" in London where they could stay while conducting business, or at the height of the social season when they would get together with their peers from around the country. Possibly the Blacks once did too - and maybe it passed to a different branch of the family.
Excellent point. It was the same in most European countries, including France and Russia (I don't know Russia but I've read all those books and plays). People would spend the "social season" in town, and retire to their country estates in the "off season" or when it got to be too warm in town. Most aristocratic families had both an "hôtel particulier" (big town house) in Paris, London or Moscow, and their country manor or château on their ancestral lands.

I'll bet the Malfoys had at least a pied-à-terre in London too, and the Blacks probably had a country estate (other than Malfoy Manor).

For all we know, the Potters had something in London also, to stay in when they came to do business at Gringotts or take the kids to King's Station. It may have gone to some distant cousin of James's.

Possibly Harry and his family would stay at Grimmauld Place most of the year, and adjourn to Godric's Hollow for the summer. Or, as has been suggested before, given it to Andromeda and Teddy and later his wife and kids. (This has been discussed in another thread, maybe "Harry and Kreacher").

How does this sound? Muggles were probably there first, but they didn't want to construct a house somewhere else so they decided to just get a Muggle house. Maybe at the time they first got the house, there was some sort of Dark Lord that wanted people to kill Muggles or something. Then, years later, they didn't want to leave their family house, but also didn't like Muggles so they had lots of safety precautions

Or maybe they just weren't for pure blood supremacy years ago so living near Muggles didn't bother them. And then they changed.

Or, and this seems the most likely for me, it used to be like godric's hollow or hogsmeade until other wizards left the area and they just didn't want to.

That is an interesting point maybe they changed later and as the house held so many memories and heirlooms they just decided to stay. But the change must have come way back because of the number of house elves heads

But the change must have come way back because of the number of house elves heads

well said!:tu:

im a huge fan of number 12 too.

what a fantastic place!!!my fav part is when they get to spend christmas there with sirius, which gets incredibly happy and even walk around the house singing xmas songs....awwwwww:sad:
i love that!!!!

Did we ever find out snape's boggart?

Did we ever find out snape's boggart?Hair shampoo.

Ok ok, that joke was made often enough. More serious there is good speculation around that he kind of lived his boggart already (Lily = dead, his life hidden life since then, etc.), but as far as I recall JK never confirmed anything into that direction. Could be wrong though.

It's perhaps a good idea to reactivate What would the characters' boggarts be (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=110263&highlight=boggart%2A) with this questions since its off-topic here. For reading older speculation can be found in What do you reckon Snape's Boggart and Patronus would be? (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=61586&highlight=boggart%2A) and What do you reckon Snape's Boggart and Patronus would be? v2 (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=89585&highlight=boggart%2A). :)