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harry potter - Could a Muggle Access the Room of Requirement?


Could a Muggle access the Room of Requirement?




‘Because [the Room of Requirement] is a room that a person can only enter,’ said Dobby seriously, ‘when they have real need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker’s needs. Dobby has used it, sir,’ said the elf, dropping his voice and looking guilty, ‘when Winky has been very drunk; he has hidden her in the Room of Requirement and he has found antidotes to Butterbeer there, and a nice elf-sized bed to settle her on while she sleeps it off, sir ... and Dobby knows Mr Filch has found extra cleaning materials there when he has run short, sir, and –’

Order of the Phoenix - page 343 - Bloomsbury - chapter 18, Dumbledore's Army



The Room of Requirement is clearly an incredibly magical part of the Hogwarts castle; its powers even broach the possibility of sentience. To access the Room of Requirement, whoever is seeking it must walk past its wall three times and concentrate very hard on his or her need. It doesn't seem as if any magic is involved on the seeker's part, though. If Mr Filch -- a Squib who has no magical abilities -- can access the Room of Requirement, would that suggest it would be possible for a Muggle (such as a visiting parent) to access the room as well? I haven't been able to find any examples in canon where wizarding magic is necessary to enter the Room of Requirement.



Answer



I have no evidence for anything I'm about to say, and I will probably come back later and edit this to add to it, but I don't have time right now, but here's my line of thinking:


As we've all ready established in the comment section above, being magical does not seem to be necessary for the Room of Requirement to "read" you. As you mentioned in your original question, Slytherincess, the room's abilities seem to border on sentience. Since the "magic" in question here is emanating from the room rather than the seeker, then I don't see why a muggle couldn't access the room if they happened to be at Hogwarts and just so happened to wander past the Room of Requirement and they happened to be thinking of something they really needed at that particular moment.


We know that magic from external sources is practiced on muggles from time to time. We know that the Ministry of Magic will occasionally find itself in a situation of needing to practice memory charms or enchantments of one kind or another on muggles who have witnessed something they shouldn't have. Hermione performs such a charm on her parents who completely forget that she ever existed.


Additionally, we know that muggles are sensitive to other types of magic, such as those that shield Hogwarts, the entrance to platform 9 3/4, Grimmauld Place, and other magical locations that are really hidden in plain view within the muggle world.


Since the Room of Requirement would be another form of "external" magic being practiced on a muggle, if everything just happened to fall into place then it seems entirely plausible that a muggle would be capable of gaining access to the Room of Requirement even if they didn't know what it was.


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