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The entertaining but often deliberately inaccurate CinemaSins channel put out this video some time ago:

At 5:24, they have this dialogue:

RON: Don't remember this [the tunnel from the Hog's Head Inn to the Room of Requirement] on the Marauder's Map.
NEVILLE: That's because it never existed til now.
JEREMY (V.O.): So... a magical painting of Dumbledore's sister just dug a secret tunnel to Hogwarts. THAT I am totally down with and have no questions about. [Goes on to ask why they didn't do this in the previous seven movies.]

  • Do the books clarify this?
  • Did CinemaSins accidentally on purpose leave out the part where the movie clarifies this?
  • Or did Neville actually mean the tunnel was brand new?

Charitably, I'd like to interpret Neville's "now" as "this year or thereabouts" rather than "literally right now". That would certainly be consistent with Ron never having seen the tunnel on the Marauder's Map. But I would be interested in hearing if Dumbledore's Army or anyone else had been using the tunnel before this point in the story. It does seem very convenient to the plot that they can just smuggle Harry and company into Hogwarts as soon as they arrive in Hogsmeade.

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    Isn't it Jeremy who narrates the videos?
    – caird coinheringaahing
    Apr 11, 2018 at 13:33
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    @caird: I was going by their Wikipedia, but if that's wrong feel free to fix it.
    – Kevin
    Apr 11, 2018 at 15:18
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    Just checked their Wikipedia page - the narrator is Jeremy Scott (so I can see the confusion)
    – caird coinheringaahing
    Apr 11, 2018 at 15:59

1 Answer 1

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It appeared in the Room of Requirement when Neville got hungry.

When Hogwarts was taken over by Death Eaters, Neville began using the Room of Requirements as his hideout. The Room tries to provide everything the person in it wants, but it can’t create food because it’s impossible to conjure food, so it created a passage to the Hog’s Head where food was available instead.

“It’s quite straightforward, really,’ said Neville modestly. ‘I’d been in here about a day and a half, and getting really hungry, and wishing I could get something to eat, and that’s when the passage to the Hog’s Head opened up. I went through it and met Aberforth. He’s been providing us with food, because for some reason, that’s the one thing the Room doesn’t really do.”

‘Yeah, well, food’s one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration,’ said Ron, to general astonishment.”
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 29 (The Lost Diadem)

So no, Ariana didn’t create the passage - the Room of Requirement did. The members of Dumbledore’s Army had been using it before Harry’s arrival, since it was their way to get food while staying hidden.

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    I didn't know it wasn't possible to conjure food, do you have any sources?
    – Tom J Nowell
    Apr 11, 2018 at 16:13
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    @TomJNowell The sentence right after the quoted paragraph mentions it. “Yeah, well, food’s one of the five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration,’ said Ron, to general astonishment.” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 29 (The Lost Diadem)
    – Obsidia
    Apr 11, 2018 at 16:31
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    I'm really gonna need some more clarification on Gamp's Law of Element Transfiguration -- Given that it's been shown you can turn teacups into mice and mice are basically 98% food....
    – Sidney
    Apr 12, 2018 at 15:48
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    @sidney JKR said that Transfigured objects don't last much, so you could in theory eat them, but they will vanish from your stomach or something like that. The same holds for leprechaun gold. See this: scifi.stackexchange.com/a/59279/60559
    – A. Darwin
    Apr 12, 2018 at 17:01
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    @A.Darwin: Or, more terrifyingly, the Transfigured object could turn back -- imagine Transfiguring something deadly into a cupcake, then hovering it at, say, eye-level in front of some gullible students...
    – tonysdg
    Apr 12, 2018 at 19:08

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