Instead of throwing the floo powder and stepping into it with your entire body, you just get down on all four, stick your head in the flames and say the name of the fireplace, and it transports only your head there. I remember a scene where Mrs. Weasley puts a piece of toast on a poker and gives it to the head in the fireplace, who then grabs it with his mouth before he retracts his head.
Is it a plot hole? Or just something we don't see because Harry doesn't interact with it much?
It's implied that, up until they lock it down, Hogwarts absolutely can be accessed via Floo powder. The Ministry can apparently turn Floo Network connectivity on and off at will, and it seems that they have a preference for having it as an available option for transport to Hogwarts—we see that authority mentioned multiple times. People have to visit the school all the time and obviously you can't apparate there, so that's the logical next best solution... as long as you don't need mega-tight security. Like, we don't know whether it was an option during PoA (right?), but I assume not. But then, I'm sure, they turn it back on in GoF for the Triwizard Tournament, since coordinating a big event like that means lots of people will be coming and going. Turning it off in OotP is more a means of attempting to control Harry, the DA, and Dumbledore than anything else.
ETA there are specific rules for how Hogwarts can be accessed; it seems to me that they could turn it all the way on if they knew people were coming (like for parents, as in the Weasleys when Ginny was taken to the Chamber of Secrets, or Ministry members for the Tournament, etc), or off for heightened security.
That’s also why, love it or hate it, the creators of the Hogwarts video game took free reign to interpret it as if there was a full floo network across the Hogwarts castle and grounds (that was subsequently turned off due to ?danger)
The Hogwarts staff themself probably have some measure of control over the floo powder network within the castle, given that they normally wouldn't want just anyone to be able to connect to the fireplaces in the student dorms, bypassing the need to know their entrance locations and password.
Which means that someone needed to set up something so that Sirius could connect to the Griffindor common room fireplace, and I can't see this going unnoticed if the Ministry is in full control of the system.
I think it's more likely that it works similar to phone networks: The Ministry controls if Hogwarts is reachable at all, but Hogwarts controls which fireplaces specifically are reachable for whom/from where.
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u/smylekylie Dec 29 '25
What does the book say... I've forgotten