The Vanishing Cabinets appear...

As anyone who has read this blog will know, I'm quite interested in attempting to find objective evidence, in the texts themselves, of the extent to which J.K. Rowling had planned the seven-book Harry Potter story arc when she was writing the early novels.

My suspicion is that, while she may have had some vague notion that she would try to write a novel for every year Harry was at Hogwarts and while she recognized from the outset that the underlying story would be the Harry-vs-Voldemort plot, she had not really started to plan things in detail until the fourth or even fifth book.

Then I run smack into the Vanishing Cabinets.

As you all know, the Vanishing Cabinets play an extremely important role in the pivotal events of The Half-Blood Prince. Draco Malfoy uses the connection between the Cabinet that he finds at Bourgin & Burkes and the one that exists in the Room of Requirement to sneak Death Eaters into Hogwarts on the fateful night when Dumbledore meets his end.

What's amazing to me (and a clear suggestion that J.K.'s planning was much more extensive than I tend to give her credit for) is the fact that Rowling shows us both Vanishing Cabinets early in Book 2, The Chamber of Secrets. Even as she wrote her second Harry Potter novel, it appears clear that Rowling had at the very least an inkling that she would use these cabinets again.

Even more importantly, she introduces us to the idea that one of the cabinets, which she does not yet identify as a Vanishing Cabinet, is in Borgin & Burkes and the other one is already in Hogwarts.

Remember?

When Harry's first attempt at travelling via Floo Powder goes awry, he ends up in the creepy shop on Knockturn Alley. When Draco and his father walk into the shop seconds later, Harry hides himself in what Rowling describes as "a large black cabinet".

Not long thereafter, when Nearly Headless Nick wishes to save Harry from Flitch's clutches, he persuades Peeves to drop a very heavy piece of furniture on the floor directly above the caretaker's office. That piece of furniture? A "large black and gold cabinet", which after Peeves is through with it is badly damaged and in need of repair.

Repair that would come four books later at the hands of Draco Malfoy.

Now, it's possible that J.K. wasn't planning anything when she wrote these scenes for the second novel and that it was only when she came to book six that she realized she might be able to use them to help her plot along at that point in time.

But I'm more apt to think that Rowling had a plan, even as early as The Chamber of Secrets. She purposely introduced us to these two cabinets and she purposely placed one in the Dark-Arts store and one in Hogwarts.

Cool.

One question, however. I have always thought of Hogwarts as being a huge stone castle. If the floor between the classroom and Filtch's office is stone, would it have transmitted the crash of the dropping  Vanishing Cabinet down to the occupants of the office below?

The vanishing cabinet appears

More evidence that maybe J.K. was planning the whole series right from the start: in the second book, The Chamber of Secrets, Peeves saves Harry from Filch's clutches by dropping a massive object onto the floor above the caretaker's office.

The object? A vanishing cabinet.

As we all know, it was with the help of that same vanishing cabinet that Draco Malfoy managed to sneak Death Eaters into Hogwarts to help him kill Dumbledore in The Half-blood Prince, the second to last book.

I realise that much more careful readers than me have noticed this little detail a long time ago but it jumped out at me this morning as I read the second novel over breakfast. Peeves drops a vanishing cabinet! Amazing.

So either Rowling had it all planned, and took care to describe the dropped furniture as a "vanishing" cabinet rather than just a "cabinet", or she got to the sixth book and thought, "hmm, how should Draco do this? Didn't I mention an interesting piece of furniture in one of the first books that might help me out now?"

As always, I'm a little bit in awe of both her writing and her planning/memory.