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I am trying to explain to myself why Peter was not caught in the same bed as Ron, and I now wonder whether there is anyway to trick the map.

Is it possible to hide from the Marauders Map?

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  • 5
    You could always go sit in the Chamber of Secrets.
    – Valorum
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 20:53
  • 2
    Peter was not caught because nobody thought to look in Ron's bed.
    – CHEESE
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 21:00
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    Or change your name to Barty Crouch. That would effectively hide you if there's another Barty Crouch on the grounds.
    – RichS
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 21:43

2 Answers 2

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Not as far as we know ...

From the Pottermore fact file on the Marauders' Map:

Shows the location of any person or ghost on Hogwart’s grounds, isn’t fooled by an Animagus or an Invisibility Cloak

As far as I can remember, there's no case in canon of anyone ever managing to hide from the map. It detected Peter Pettigrew when he was in rat form; it detected Barty Crouch Jr. when he was using Polyjuice Potion; it detected Harry Potter when he was under the Invisibility Cloak. If there's any concealing magic sufficiently powerful to bamboozle it, we never saw it in the books.

As for why Peter Pettigrew was never seen in the same bed as Ron, the simple solution is that among so many people in the castle, nobody noticed. The best way to avoid being detected using the Marauders' Map is simply to hope that the user of the map doesn't notice you. See also Why couldn't Harry or anybody else see Peter Pettigrew aka Scabbers on the Marauder's Map when Lupin could?, where the top answer has a quote from JKR as follows:

Why didn't Fred and George notice Peter Pettigrew on the Marauder's Map before ("Prisoner of Azkaban")?

It would not have mattered if they had. Unless somebody was very familiar with the story of Sirius Black (and after all, Sirius was not Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's best friend – indeed, they never knew him until after he escaped from Azkaban), Fred and George would be unlikely to know or remember that Peter Pettigrew was the person Sirius had (supposedly) murdered. Even if Fred and George HAD heard the story at some point, why would they assume that the 'Peter Pettigrew' they occasionally saw moving around the map was, in fact, the man murdered years before?

Fred and George used the map for their own mischief-making, so they concentrated, naturally enough, on those portions of the map where they were planning their next misdeeds. And finally, you must not forget that hundreds of little dots are moving around this map at any given time… Fred and George did not know everyone in school by name, so a single unfamiliar name was unlikely to stand out.

... unless you go to the right place.

Although we never see any concealing magic which can fool the map, it's possible not to appear on it simply by being in a location which it doesn't cover. For instance, leaving Hogwarts (a trivial solution, since the map is a map of Hogwarts alone), or going to the Room of Requirement (apparently the magic which makes the Room undiscoverable is stronger than the magic which makes the map plot everything). As discussed in the top answer to Why didn't the Marauder's Map show Mad Eye Moody hidden in the trunk?, it's definitely true that the Room of Requirement doesn't show up on the map:

Although he consulted the map as often as he could, sometimes making unnecessary visits to the bathroom between lessons to search it, he did not once see Malfoy anywhere suspicious...at these times Malfoy was not only nowhere near them, but impossible to locate on the map at all. [...] And still there were those inexplicable times when Malfoy simply vanished from the map [...]

“I think it’ll be part of the magic of the room,” said Hermione. “If you need it to be Unplottable, it will be.”

-- HP and the Half-Blood Prince

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  • related: Why didn't the Marauder's Map show Mad Eye Moody hidden in the trunk?. Apparently you can?
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 20:56
  • @Edlothiad Personally I believe the top comment on that answer: maybe Moody did show up on the map even while hidden in the trunk, but nobody ever noticed. However, I edited while you were commenting to cover the possibility of going to a place the map doesn't cover.
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 20:59
  • I just thought people who came here might be interested in that as well. Which is why I linked it to your answer, and it might help supplement your answer if you wished to add it. Still was a +1 from me though
    – Edlothiad
    Commented Feb 18, 2017 at 21:00
  • Is it possible that the inside of the Room of Requirement and the magic chest exist outside of Hogwarts - either as pocket dimensions or simply translocating to other places in this dimension? In such a way, no special magic would be required to defeat the map, just the regular "being outside the bounds of Hogwarts" would be sufficient.
    – delinear
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 12:44
  • As you say, we never see anyone defeat the Map. However in TGoF fake-Moody says that an "exeptionally powerful" Confundus charm could fool the Goblet, so presumably something similar could be applied to the map, if the caster knew about the map and had access to it. Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 9:33
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It's kinda like air traffic control there are hundreds of dots on the map at any given time "flying" around the school so if Fred and George are the ATC they aren't going to notice an unusual plane unless it's transmitter is turned off in the schools case if Peter did something unusual to stand out which is likely why he never used his magic despite having the trace removed from his wand by Voldermort.

Then it (he) will stand out as the only one in the area with no flight info being displayed or fed THEN Fred and George would DEFINITELY without a doubt notice and do something about it.

In this case all the names just blended in together.

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  • Whilst this addresses the basis of the question it doesn’t really answer the core of the question.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Commented Oct 15, 2018 at 19:46

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