OK so I know I typed this up on my last blog (like 2 years ago) and it was my most popular post (at nearly a whopping 200 notes) but I feel like this is important so I’m typing it up again for you people.
So you know the Maurauder’s Map has that magic password? “I solemnly swear I’m up to no good?” Yeah. It doesn’t do anything. The Map runs on intention, not magic words.
Think about it - there’s no way that out of all the millions and billions of possible passwords for the map that Fred and George could figure out exactly the one correct combo. They don’t exactly have a computer running an algorithm to guess it the way you can run an algorithm to guess someone’s facebook password. They could try for years and never get it. That Map knew - without the words - that they were up to no good, because the Map is sentient.
No, the map runs on the intention that it’s gonna be used for something sneaky and tricky - the Map, like the Sorting Hat, is sentient. That’s why Filch couldn’t activate it (he’d never break the rules) and that’s how it knows to insult Snape. Do you honestly think that the Marauders were like “yeah let’s program in specific insults to dish in case Snape ever finds it?” Nah. They weren’t planning that far in advance. The Map decided to dish those insults itself.
Anyways, long story short, the Map was a tool that was intended for breaking the rules - but not in a shitty way. It was sentient and could tell who was using it and what for. It could tell when someone had the wrong intentions for wanting to open it. I don’t think that even if Harry had pronounced the words over it when he was caught with it that it would have opened - the Map (smart little beastie, that Map) knew that Snape was trying to force it and, well, it was having none of that.
anyways, there’s my one useful theory on the Map, the Marauders, magical sentience, and the unnoticed little aspects of this world. That’s one of only two useful things I have discovered (I feel like I’ve explained underground werewolves like fifty times and every time I bring up the underground werewolves someone is like NOT THE FUCKING UNDERGROUND WEREWOLVES AGAIIIIN)
