Good point abt the doors , that can be very important in the seventh book...

Hey guys,
When I first read Ching's theory about the seven doors, I thought, "Whoa! That's amazing!" and I still think it's ingenious, but...
I hate to break it to you but there's not seven doors. I was re-reading the scene in the DoM and it first caught my eye when JKR said "there was about a dozen doors" and I thought, well that's ok, 7 is sort of close to 12. But then it later says that "He [Harry] looked around: They had a one-in-twelve chance of getting the exit right the first time--"
So I don't think there are only 7 doors. Also, the room with the clocks seems to contain the door leading to the room of prophecies. I do still like the idea of each room representing something. Maybe the planet room is space? That way there is a room of time and a room of space. Also, I think since there was room for death, there should be one for life as well. Just a few ideas.

...Another thing... not all the prophecies were destroyed right? Not that I think that JKR is going to introduce a new one, but just to clarify. It seems that a large number of them were destroyed though.

Well, now that I've rambled a little bit , I'd love to hear what you guys think!

Okay, this is going out on a limb and completly dissregareds what Dumbledor says about the locked room. But this is my theory about the locked room. In OOTP Luna says that Fudge has an army of heliopaths at the ministy. Heliopaths are creatures that gallop across the ground and burn everything in sight, thus the knife Sirius gave to Harry Melted.
I don't really like the theory that it's love behind the door because how do you contain love. What would be in there?

I believe the veil will come into big prominence in book seven. I think Harry, Hermoine, and Ron will return to the Department of Mysteries to learn more about it. Just because I believe it will figure in book seven doesn't mean that it will regard Sirius' death, which I don't believe will be the reason the trio return. I think it will have something to do with Voldemort's death or the destruction of one of his Horcruxes.

Sirius will not return, neither will Dumbledore for that matter. Not a two way veil, otherwise many other people would have returned from their deaths that way. Just as Harry thought in book five, "Sirius had never kept him waiting".

Mark these words, the veil will return.

i disagree i am almost positive that Dumbledore will appear in the 7th book because even if he is definitely dead his picture will be on the wall of all the headmasters, so he'll be there no matter what... right? Anyway can the pictures on the wall in the headmaster's room talk? and getting back to the topic i do think that the Department of Mysteries will be in the 7th book.

You know that it says neither can live while the other survives, then what is voldermort currently ? Is he not alive? It really contradicts itself..

i think what they meant was like no one could live for a long time while the other is alive, or maybe they meant that they would literally be "living" but maybe they would be living a life of fear or something... but i dunno...

Ok...so we are talking about the department of mysteries.

I agree with the theory that each room has some sort of mystery to it but for some reason do not believe it is going to have anything to do with Voldie boys demise. I believe that they may be the mysteries of muggles and magic folk alike but do not believe they will have anything to do with the death of him.

I have read the entire series several times (working on my 6th time right now) and nothing has given me the hint or even a smidge that the DoM has anything to do with the downfall of Voldie. Not saying that anyones posts in here is wrong b/c that is the beauty of a mystery! Good luck to everyones theories.

Tinking about that, you have a point as Voldemort is living but he's not quite alive. However if the Horcruxes have all been found he is mortal and even though he's not quite living he can still be killed.



I completely agree, Harry says that he is never going to talk or see Dumbledore again however, the portraits can talk as Phineaus Nigellus talked and walked many times. Also I agree that the DoM will be in the seventh book as the veil is there and I think that that may hold some importance or the whole Department will.

i think i'm sick of this ''veil'' jeje some times there are some things that don't have explanation

the department of mysteries is a big mystery i wanted to see the brains chamber but i was desappointed when i didn't see it in the movie.
and also i've never known the goal of creating a department as the department of mysteries can anyone help me

In the movie it was not so well portrayed,I feel.The Prophecy Room is ok,but what about the different rooms signifying different mysteries?Actually what I feel is that the movie lacked EXPLANATION...it is basically an action movie!

Yeah, it kind of was an action movie wasn't it? I was kind of disappointed too when they didn't show more of the department of mysteries, just pressed for time, I guess.

pottermania001, maybe the goal was to try to figure out those mysteries...I don't know. They invented the time-turners, so maybe that was one of their projects-to control time. And knowledge I could understand, but how would you study love or death?

I'm pretty much confused about the Department of Mysteries. No one knows about it. That's why it's a mystery! Goodness, people.

The mystery room that couldn't open definitely wasn't love because if it was, harry could've opened it all this time, wouldn't he? i mean he LOVED sirius, he LOVED his father & mother, he loved everyone. but if he was too busy loving them, why wouldn't the door open? i think the mystery room is just something that can't be opened unless you've got a key or something, like in the sorcerer's stone. but definitely not those flying keys off course :] i mean a key shaped like.. like..? i dont know but whatever it was, it was definitely not love "/

YEP i agree completely like weasley_wannabe thats why its called the department of MYSTERIES because everythings a mystery [whys ____ in there, whats ____ doing there] in there. we shouldn't try to guess, it'll just make things different :] and confusing!

well, why do we have nasa? it's a governmentally funded research institution. they're trying to learn more about the nature of life, make new discoveries, and riddle out old ones.

we need a department of mysteries.

Well, the Department of Mysteries is weird. Why is there steps around the veil, why did the brains attack Ron, and they had TENTACLES PEOPLES!!!!!! AND WHAT THE HELL DID THE VEIL DO?????

I've seriously read that book like 11 times and still reading and I allways want harry to carry on trying that door!Because what if harry's mums loves in that room and how did this ancient charm come about would it work for muggles too they have love?.... But if he got into the room what would he see? I had a image of pink every where but after re-reading the book that it would probably be in bell jars or tanks... but what would it look like? And more to the M.O.M doors in the revoling room what was behind that veil was it death itself because if so the deathly hallows peveril brothers story may be sligthly connected to the veil...?Any answers?...................

definately..it must be the mystery of love..i didnt know that thats what the seperate doors were..i guess i never thought about it..but yeah if what u said was true then it fits perfectly very wise of u to pick up on that

Um, it wouldn't surprise me if it was the mystery of love (although I don't consider it a mystery anymore! LOL), but maybe, in regards to coming up with theories as to the other doors and what might lie behind them...what about the mystery of hope? I mean, that was the last thing to come out of Pandora's Box and it's definitely something unique about humans in that we have hope. It's also something that's rather inexplicable. So maybe the Department of Mysteries could be studying hope, too...just a thought...

Regardless, I wish I knew what these rooms behind the doors LOOKED like! All of them! I can't help it, I'm curious.

I love the idea of the Department of Mysteries, and I agree with Fleur, it would definitely be awesome to have one of those for the Muggle World !

A few people were pondering over the Prophecy and it being contradictory... There are many ways in which one can be "alive". I don't think it means physically, as we all know that both Harry and Voldemort are alive in this sense. I think it means metaphorically. If both continue to live, Voldemort's true goal will never be reached and Harry will never have peace. It's more like "alive" as in living ones life to its fullest (whether it be in a good or bad way). Neither can move on while the other is around, constantly worrying about hte next plan of attack, who will be the victor, etc,etc.

This is a bit offtopic, but I was also disappointed in the lack of detail and focus on the Department of Mysteries and not keeping to the storyline of the book in the movie. I, for one, wanted to see Hermione attacked and Ron ambushed by brains (lol...).

The Department of Mysteries goal IS to study the unexplainable, uncontrollable mysteries of life that affect everyone: Knowledge, Death, Time, The Universe, Prophecy (er, maybe that everyone runs on a thread of Fate, for we mere muggles !), and the Locked room could be a plethora of things, though Love seems the most probable.

How does one study Love ? That is a really good question, I don't think anyone knows that answer, hence why it is refered to as the Locked Room. No one can access it, because love isn't really a tangible substance that can be explained in any logical sense. It wouldn't be too far a stretch to reason that Love is so powerful because it is not easily understandable, and by no means controllable. Like they say, you can't help who you love.

As for the Death Chamber with the Veil and the colosseum type seating within the room, well it is set up that way, I believe, so that Unspeakables could gather round to sit and study it. Or just to be mesmerized by its obscurity.

I do love Eisa's theory of it being Hope though. I actually like that idea more than Love ! People said before that Harry did not lack love, but he could not access the room. If it was Hope, however, that was hidden behind the door, it could definitely explain why he was barred from entering ! What if he had no Hope ? It seemed to me that he was just going through a routine and felt obligated to save the world, but he had little Hope for the outcome being good.

~ihkny

Yup, that could definitely explain it. If you have no Hope, then how can you open the door and even try to understand the mystery of it? And that's true, he didn't seem like he had very much. It was more like he was going through the motions of "let's go save the world because it's what I'm supposed to do" instead of "this is what I want to do and I hope that I can complete my task, etc. etc....and I think that it's all going to come out right." Like you need to hope for the best and plan for the worst...and he didn't really do the hoping part.

It is interesting what they chose as mysteries. The Brain, Time, Love, Death, Prophecy and so on. They are all things to which we can never give a sure answer and even though science thinks it has an answer it is mistaken because there is always something about each which we cannot explain for example how can we know why a person thinks a certain way or fully understand the mysteries of time or know what happens after death. With the prophecy it is interesting because Dumbledore himself pionts outthat the prophecy only became a prophecy after Voldemort acted on it. And as for love, there is no greater, stronger force but why is that so?

x3christenx said:


That makes no sense and it was obviously love. Dumbledore said that Harry has lots of what's in that room and voldemort has absolutely none and that thing is love, or head hair. anyway, if you could only open it by having lots of it then Harry would be able to open it no matter what it was because Dumbledore told him that Harry had lots of what was in that room.
But how to study love? It has been confirmed that there is a fountain or massive cauldron of amortentia but nothing else has been confirmed. I would think that they would be trying to replicate the protection that saved Harry from avada kedavra possibly as some sort of protego powered by love. And obviously they would need to have lovers in the room so they could study more than fake potion induced love.

Well i'm going to go into some detail now about what I think of the different rooms in the department.

1. The rotating room. While this is probably among the least mysterious of rooms in DOM, as it is obviously a security method and nothing else. However it still poses some conundrums (Lol, gotta love that word .). Firstly there are about a dozen doors leading off from it, and yet I don't think it was ever described as enormously huge. Its width would need to span further than the hall of prophecy which it doesn't. Fortunately I have the answer. Undetectable extension charms. It is mentioned by name only a couple of times but we come across it several times before it is named. It allows objects to be bigger on the inside than they are on the outside (Think the Tardis.). If all of the rooms had undetectable extension charms on the I'm sure they would all fit nicely. Come to think of it, the whole ministry could be under the effect of this charm to avoid interfering with muggle pipe-lines and the London underground.
Secondly, and most puzzling is the rotation of the rooms around it. It's hard to imagine the whole DOM, as-well as the rest of level 9 rotating without affecting the whole ministry. The lifts would be badly affected if they were to stay still while level 9 spins about. Just imagine it, Bode and Croaker walk into the DOM and consequently your lift lands in courtroom 10 because the whole of that floor has rotated. On the other hand it could be easy for a group of wizards to have the lifts change course every time the place swivels.

2. The Brain room: Undoubtedly the "Brain room" is not the real name of this strange room. Most likely it is called something along the lines of the "Hall of knowledge". Without a doubt, this room is devoted to studying the Human mind. I was reading a thread earlier today about this room and its inhabitants and it's certainly a very interesting place. It's not sure what the brains are for or what they do. They could be the brains of great wizards to preserve their knowledge, or as was suggested in the thread I read, they could be the minds of criminals, in an attempt to study the way they work. If so could Voldemorts brain possibly be in there, or Dumbledore's perhaps? There was one post in the thread I mentioned that really got me thinking. The person commented on how the potion in the brain tank was similar to the potion Dumbledore drank in HBP. I don't think it was the same potion, but something similar. It must have some importance to the study of the brains or else they would have been put in a tank of ordinary water (I mean the prices of mysterious, unknown potions are sky high these days lol.). I would guess that the liquid feeds the brains. Maybe it is liquid information to sustain them just as normal human brains need sustenance.
Back to the green potion DD drank, it seems like an evil pensieve type thing. Many people mistook it for the pensieve on the cover of the US edition (I have the UK edition being English.), and it would seem it also is connected with thought. While the pensieve lets you study and examine thoughts at your leisure, helping you solve problems. The "Anti-pensieve" forces you to see horrible memories at anything but your leisure and leaves you in a much worse state than before and not in any position to solve problems.

Well I've had enough typing for now, will update later.

Smelliarmus

Interesting posts. Actually Department of mysteries contains so much material, that Jo Rowlings can produce one book (or more) to explain about each content of it. Wish there are more books about this.

i think the locked door was possibly another time-related thing? maybe it was a way to get to the future?
i never really thought of it being a "love room", but that's possible too, ah, i love the department of mysteries(:

if we've only said 4 or 5 and there are half a dozen rooms so whats in the 6th, theres time, knowledge, death, love, possibly hate so maybe the sixth is life, maybe magic. Which of those would make more sense? I don't know what either of those could contain.



maybe that was the room of hate. he tried to open the door with an object from someone he loved, if it was thye room of hate then maybe thats why.

Ya I think that room is the mystery of love

but Death Eater, harry has had his fair share of hate, he hates Voldy, probably the death eaters too, and wormtail he hates too.

shouldn't harry potter be in azkaban by now i mean he used the cruciatus curse

I believe Dumbledore mentiones to Harry that "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all" if dumbledore is correct here then the force in there must be love. It cannot be hate because Voldemort definately has enough of that.

I think there are supposed to be 12 main chambers.
the ones we know....
1- time/ the future (time turners, prophesy hall)
2- death (the veil) do they maybe study threstals in there aswell? its a possibility.
3- thought/ the human mind (the brains)
4- space (we hear from luna that she was chased in there and then blew up pluto in the face of a death eater)
5- love/ever locked room (see quote from dumbledore)

that leaves us with 7 unknown rooms. i don't believe that hate or anger would be in there because they would have to be looked at in the rooms of love and thought if they have covered those subjects to any extent. magic is definately a likely possibility. if so that means there are 6 more- anyone have any ideas as to what they are?

I love the whole concept of the Department of Mysteries. It's really fascinating! I love having some mysteries like that that don't get solved. And the Unspeakables, the incredible mind you must have to work in there... I wonder if some people ever went crazy?


I thought it was because no one could ever open it. Dumbledore said it was kept locked at all times, I really can't imagine what would happen if we opened it. If its love... Because it's not exactly a substance right, it's like... a force... impossible to imagine what it looks like inside that room. Filled with light, or completely empty? Or no one ever comes out of there capable of telling the story. How did they get it there in the first place? Oooh, so many questions! But in the Department of Mysteries are all of the things that muggles have never been and never will be able to explain.

I doubt JKR will ever tell us EVERYTHING about the Deparment of Mysteries, and she probably doesn't even know herself. Which is cool, it leaves us some things to discuss even if the series are over!

I think of the DoM as a big maze.