Why did Voldemort assume that no-one knew about Room of Hidden Things?

Question

Voldemort hid one of his Horcruxes inside Hogwarts. It seemed to be relying on security through obscurity as far as protecting it. But as we know, it ended up not being so secure because it wasn't so obscure - Harry Potter knew about the Room of Hidden Things.

My question is, the way Rowling describes this hints at the fact that Riddle had an assumption that very few people would ever stumble upon that room. WHY???

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First, let's show Harry's theory on what Voldemort was thinking, how and why:

Here's Harry understanding Voldemort's thinking in HP7 once he figured out where the Diadem was (bold emphasis mine):

Tom Riddle, who confided in no one and operated alone, might have been arrogant enough to assume that he, and only he, had penetrated the deepest mysteries of Hogwarts Castle. Of course, Dumbledore and Flitwick, those model pupils, had never set foot in that particular place, but he, Harry, had strayed off the beaten track in his time at school – here at least was a secret area he and Voldemort knew, that Dumbledore had never discovered –

...and later on, with Harry explains the location to Ron/Hermione:

“He hid it exactly where I had my old Potions book, where everyone’s been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come on.”

“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence. “He thought he was the only one,” said Harry.

.

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Yet, from available evidence, that seems to be a completely wrong assumption, even at Voldemort's time.

Let's examine that last quote again, with emphasis on other info available:

“He hid it exactly where I had my old Potions book, where everyone’s been hiding stuff for centuries.” ...

...

“And he never realized anyone could get in?” said Ron, his voice echoing in the silence. “He thought he was the only one,” said Harry. “Too bad for him I’ve had to hide stuff in my time... this way,” he added. “I think it’s down here... “

They sped off up adjacent aisles; Harry could hear the others’ footsteps echoing through the towering piles of junk, of bottles, hats, crates, chairs, books, weapons, broomsticks, bats...

.

OK, so if there's a truckload (or train-load, by the description) of stuff in that room, isn't the only reasonable conclusion: "the room is a fairly popular destination with plenty of people who've found their way there in the past, and therefore, likely, plenty who will in the future"?

Doesn't matter what your arrogance level is, the evidence seems to point to only one conclusion - it's quite fine as a place to temporarily bury your dirt so teachers won't tag you for your misdeeds, but this is NOT the place to hide something that you want permanently safe!

So why did Voldemort make such a moronic mistake?

Answer 1

It's the room of requirement. Voldemort required a room to hide his item in. Where better to hide a small, reasonably nondescript item than in a pile of junk? If not then it's possible when he hid it it wasn't full of junk; Harry required a room full of all of the small, nondescript items that may have been the diadem. Yes he knew what it was but maybe not specifically enough to single it out.

The room also has a habit of overdoing things, like when Dumbledore needs the loo and finds tens of chamberpots there, when one would do:

"Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five-thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon - or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder."

~Christmas Ball, Goblet of Fire,

Answer 2

It is a pebble-on-the-beach approach - how many people are going to find the room, know that there is a diadem in there that is significant (and know what a diadem is, for that matter), be able to find it, and then, destroy it? Voldemort was relying on the answer being no-one, at least until such a time as he was powerful enough to not be bothered.

And remember that finding the Room of Requirement is not the same as finding the Room of Hidden Things. Finding the RoR is one challenge, but finding it as the RoHT - reliably, so that you can come back to it - was a one in a million chance.

And @OghmaOsiris - the fact that three schoolchildren thwarted Voldemort several times is one of the suspensions of disbelief required for the series.

Answer 3

I think Voldemort's arrogance has to be included in the equation. Voldemort truly believed that he was the only person to discover the Room of Hidden Things/RoR/CaGR, whether that seems logical or not. After escaping Gringotts and jumping off the dragon into the lake, Harry finds himself inside Voldemort's head, able to read Voldemort's thoughts about the Horcruxes:

[Voldemort] As for the school: he alone knew where in Hogwarts he had stowed the Horcrux, because he alone had plumbed the deepest secrets of that place ...

And Hogwarts ... but he knew that his Horcrux there was safe, it would be impossible for Potter to enter Hogsmeade without detection, let alone the school. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to alert Snape to the fact that the boy might try to re-enter the castle ...

Deathly Hallows - Page 444 - British Hardcover

Harry says, "He thinks the Hogwarts one is safest, because Snape’s there, because it’ll be so hard not to be seen getting in, I think he’ll check that one last, but he could still be there within hours –'

I also think Voldemort was emotionally compelled to hide at least one Horcrux in Hogwarts. Hogwarts -- not unlike for Harry -- was the only place Tom Riddle/Voldemort ever considered a home. Given his propensity for attachment to things (Hogwarts, Founders' items, the snake Nagini) rather than people, it makes sense that 1) he would want to hide a Horcrux in the place that he considered home and 2) due to his emotional attachment to Hogwarts, he could have very well thought that the castle itself claimed him as its ultimate master. If so, then of course no one else would have discovered the Room of Hidden Things, because Hogwarts belonged to Voldemort (in his mind) and Voldemort alone. This represents a twisted sense of entitlement, the inability to see others as equals (seeing people as unskilled in achieving the high level of magical power that he himself had), and unable to imagine that any wizard other than himself could possibly discover or work out the secrets contained within the castle. So, to answer the question, the reason Voldemort made such a moronic mistake in leaving the diadem Horcrux essentially in plain view is because his thinking is distorted and skewed -- for he recognises no other as an intellectual equal or someone to learn from (he already believes he knows it all -- and is full of logic and thinking errors.) Once again, Voldemort underestimates that which he does not value, and there is so much that he does not value that his perception of the world is myopic, imbalanced, and not reflective of reality.

Answer 4

Voldemort knew other people knew about the room, he must have, considering it is written in the book the history of Hogwarts, which Hermione points out. He knew this, and so used the room to hide the horcrux. Like someone said earlier, how many people are going to accidentally find the room of requirement, accidentally find the diadem and accidentally destroy it? Not many, I'm guessing.

Also, as Cho points out, the diadem has been lost for centuries, and no living person has seen it (which isn't technically correct, as Voldemort had seen it, but anyway...). This means that even if someone saw it, they wouldn't think it was the lost diadem.

The 'truck load' of stuff in the room may not have necessarily been hidden by students. Someone needs a place to hide their stuff, you are hardly going to be shown a plain room, with nothing to hide the object in. All the other items have probably been created by the room to help the student hide the item.

Answer 5

why did Voldemort make such a moronic mistake?

It probably would have been a moronic mistake not to hide one of his horcruxes there.

He needed to hide many horcruxes, and they needed to be unique hiding places. Hogwarts is one of the safest places in the Wizarding World. Access to the Room of Requirement is not well known. The ability to repeatedly access the Room of Hidden Things is even less likely. If you happen to get past all of that, you still have to almost literally find a needle in a haystack, and that is assuming you know what the horcrux actually is and looks like.

Voldemort kept his ownership of many horcruxes a secret, and certainly it would have been unlikely that someone could discover that one of them was Ravenclaw's diadem, given that Voldemort made the horcrux and hid it so quickly, and that the Ravenclaw ghost—the only person who had conclusive information about the diadem—was so closed off.

Answer 6

The simple explanation is that people can stumble into the room (like Dumbledore did), without knowing what it was and how to get back in. So, Voldemort may have thought that yes, people can come in here, but only accidentally, I am the only one who can come in here at will. If Dobby had actually not told Harry about this, no other human in the universe would have known about the room, and it would have been safe.

Furthermore, even if somebody goes into the room, the chance that they will recognize the diadem as something significant is pretty negligible. (Or even if they know about it, finding it in a room full of junk is going to be pretty difficult.)

You can call this kind of thing, security by obscurity. Voldemort seems to be following the same principle as the dungeon in the first book, use as many different kinds of security as possible, so that even a strong wizard like Dumbledore can't find and destroy each one.

Answer 7

Don't forget that pride is Voldemort's fatal flaw. He has a very inflated opinion of himself and cannot conceive of anyone being smarter (or even just as smart) than himself. Even in spite of the evidence (he found the room and there is proof others used it before him) Voldemort does not want to believe that others might have his knowledge and capabilities.

Answer 8

Think of how many lucky breaks and flashes of inspiration Harry and co had to find that horcrux. First

• To even know that there were Horcruxes and what they did (it was not exactly common knowledge)
• To workout what Voldemort's plan was
• To have the nerve to actually try to stop him
• For Dumbledore to stumble onto the room
• For Dumbledore to mention it to Harry
• For Harry to believe him and later try to use the room
• For Harry to actually be able to use the room
• For Dumbledore and Harry to work out that Voldemort had hidden a horcux under their noses at Hogwarts
• For Harry to workout what the Horcrux was
• For Harry to workout where the Horcrux was
• For Harry to find it and have a means for breaking it

If any of these had not gone their way the horcrux would still have been safe. The hiding place was very secure, no one could anticipate all of the above but even if it is found then that does not really matter as there are six more anyway.

Answer 9

Voldemort probably thought he was very clever, stumbling upon the Room of Requirement. The boatloads of stuff looked like they hadn't been touched for years, and he probably figured the chances of anyone using the same section (form?) of the Room of Requirement, let alone knowing where to find the diadem, let alone knowing that it was even a Horcrux, was very, very low. Which it was, but it was on that very slim chance that Harry got it.

Answer 10

I think that possibly a lot of people who found the room over the years probably believed they were the only ones to do so - at least the only ones of their generation. The only reason it was so well known amongst the students in Harry's time at school was because it was used for Dumbledore's Army meetings and then later as a hideaway by Neville and his little band of rebels in DH. Even then, the room changed its function as neeed. It could be that many people who found the room, found it in a different configuration to that Voldemort and Harry had found it in to hide their items.

Answer 11

I think that you are looking at the room the wrong way. I think voldemort believed he alone knew how it operated, and that the room was what it was.

Obviously people had been hiding stuff there forever, but I think Riddle used the room in the same way Neville does in the sentence book. On a consistent basis, knowing the rules.

Remember that before Harry, the only one who knew how to get it consistently were the house elves, which Riddle believe are beneath him.

He believes others stash their unwanted belongings there, have chamber pots appear for them, etc. But believes he alone can access it at his will.

Therefore, someone going past the door with the sole intent of finding and destroying his horcrux is extremely unlikely. They would have to stumble across the room, making sure it was the room where everything is hidden (rather than da headquarters or chamber pot room), then find the diadem, then destroy it, any singular part of that nearly impossible, which is undoubtedly whyou it was the last one to be discovered.

That is all to say that Voldemort obviously knew people had ACCESSED it, but there is a large difference between access and control. He thought he was the only one to discover how it operated.

Answer 12

I think it was only Harry's assumption that arrogance plays any role here. This assumption is something Dumbledore was teaching him whole year anyway.

The real reason, in my opinion, is that this was supposed to be only temporary hideout. And he knew that the Room of Hidden things is full of random junk. He thought he can come back to Hogwarts any time and pick it up when he has some real hideout for it.

But he never did, because (to his own shock) he lost the ability to even truly care for pieces of his own soul, until he realized they are lost. The last part of Deathly Hallows describes his shock and fear. But for 20 years until then, he probably didn't give his horcruxes a single thought.

Answer 13

In some sense, Harry Potter did not find it. It was the Voldemort who revealed it through shared visions due to the connection he had made with Potter when he tried to kill Potter. In grand scheme of things, Voldemort never expected people to know that he has created Horcruxes and that too seven of them.

Answer 14

The best and in my opinion answer here is that the ROR and the ROHT are distinctly different magical options that the ROR provides and only shows or doesn't show the user what they may see. So, Tom Riddle (at the time, newly crowned Voldemort) sees the ROHT as a place where only he can see. Harry and Draco in later years find all of the contents of the ROHT because, like the Mirror of Erised, they don't care what they find, they are only hiding. Which means, and per Neville's discoveries in DH, the ROR can only provide that which has no loophole.

So in the end, I was one of the people who thought this was a plot-hole, but as always, I was corrected by the HP community. Voldemort's own hubris blocked his knowledge of the ROHT, which so fits into his character arch/ faults.