How does the Room of Hidden Things have so much stuff?

Question

Various official images of the Room of Hidden Things show that it's full of an incredible amount of stuff.

However, Hogwarts has a relatively small population. A very minute fraction of its population would know about and use the Room of Requirement. An even smaller amount would use its Room of Hidden Things mode.

Even if it's been used for centuries, it seems unlikely that that much stuff would accumulate naturally.

Does the Room create stuff in order to hide the real items, or is there something else at play here?

We don't know that the Room was empty to begin with. After all, it wouldn't have been nearly as good a hiding place at first if it was just a big, empty room. ‘Hide’ anything in there and the next person who comes in can't avoid finding it. It might not be that the Room creates stuff as such, but rather that it was born with a ton of stuff to act as ‘backdrop’ for a good hiding place. — Janus Bahs Jacquet, May 30 '16 at 17:21
@JanusBahsJacquet - Quite a lot of what we see doesn't seem to have been hidden, per se, just dumped — Valorum, May 30 '16 at 17:27
Some answers to this question might interest you: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/55625/why-does-the-room-of-requirement-use-the-same-hiding-chamber-for-everything/55656#55656 — LilyM, May 31 '16 at 12:10

score 13 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 12 '16 at 23:33

The Room of Hidden Things was apparently designed into the original plans. Students, teacher and house elves have been using it to hide stuff for over a millennium, presumably without realising that they're anywhere other than a convenient room to stash something in a hurry, which is of course how Harry found it.

He was standing in a room the size of a large cathedral, whose high windows were sending shafts of light down upon what looked like a city with towering walls, built of what Harry knew must be objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants. There were alleyways and roads bordered by teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture, stowed away, perhaps, to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, or else hidden by castle-proud house-elves. There were thousands and thousands of books, no doubt banned or graffitied or stolen. There were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees, some still with enough life in them to hover half-heartedly over the mountains of other forbidden items; there were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks; there were what looked like dragon-egg shells, corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly, several rusting swords and a heavy, blood-stained axe.

Assuming the room gets used just a few times a year to deposit one item, that would still be over 3000 separate items. If it's used occasionally to store more than one item, that could easily result in the room having literally tens of thousands of bits of bric-a-brac.

Trelawney seemed to be contributing at least a small number of sherry bottles per week during Harry's last few years at Hogwarts, possibly even longer. Not sure if it's been established exactly how long she had a drinking problem for... — Anthony Grist, May 30 '16 at 17:22
@AnthonyGrist - You see stacks and stacks of chairs and furniture as well. I guess transfiguring it into existence is harder than making it disappear. — Valorum, May 30 '16 at 17:25

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 02 '16 at 13:56

It's a room of hidden things so when first used, an empty room that would appear to anyone who wanted to hide something would not actually be hiding them, merely storing them.

"Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not, but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker's needs"

Given it's magical abilities, it's far more likely that when the room of hidden things first appeared to whoever first needed it, it was already at least semi-full of objects to hide their object amongst.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 30 '16 at 22:40

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'Does the Room create stuff in order to hide the real items, or is there something else at play here?'

@Valorum's answer is great, but I'd like to add that OF COURSE something else is at play here- magic. Duh. I think it's totally possible that the room would generate items- I mean, come on, it's a magical room that can transfer into whatever you need.

answered May 30 '16 at 22:40

LadySunshine

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Do you have any sources for this? – Rogue Jedi May 30 '16 at 23:24
The question is asking about the quantity of items, not how the Room of Requirements works in general... – Möoz May 30 '16 at 23:27
@Mooz Part of the question does indeed ask about the functions of the room. I quoted this in my original answer, but I will quote it again for you. 'Does the Room create stuff in order to hide the real items, or is there something else at play here?' – LadySunshine May 30 '16 at 23:50
@Rogue Jedi My sources are -all- Harry Potter books. Hogwarts is a magical school. The Room of Requirement is a magical place... With magic. My answer is an opinion- I believe that it is absolutely possible for the ROR to create items in the ROHT... Because Magic, yo. – LadySunshine May 30 '16 at 23:55

How does the Room of Hidden Things have so much stuff?

3 Answers3