Hogwarts

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Contents

Overview

Hogwarts is the only known school of magic in the British Isles, training the children of Britain and Ireland possessing magical abilities to become fully qualified witches and wizards. It is a co-educational secondary boarding school taking children from ages 11 to 18.

There are two other notable schools of magic in Europe: one, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, is located in France, while the Durmstrang Magical Institute is assumed to be located in Northern Europe (since its uniform includes thick furs, and since the students found the British climate more appealing).

It is also possible for adults to study magic by distance learning, and for children to be taught by tutors instead of attending a school of magic.

Management of the school is undertaken by the Head, assisted by a Deputy Head. The Head is answerable to the twelve-member Board of Governors.

It is unclear how Hogwarts is funded, although there is no suggestion that students pay fees. Students are required to purchase their own textbooks, robes, and other supplies, however. Some financial aid is available for students: there is mention of a special fund for books or equipment for needy students.

Enrolment

A magical quill at Hogwarts detects the birth of a magical child, and writes their name into a large parchment book. Every year, a Professor checks this book and sends a letter to the children who will have turned eleven years old by 31 August. Acceptance or declination of a place at Hogwarts must be posted by 31 July. The letter also contains a list of supplies like spell books, uniform, and other things that the student will need. The prospective student is expected to buy all the necessary materials, normally from shops in Diagon Alley, a secret street near Charing Cross in London. Students who cannot afford their supplies can receive financial aid from the school.

Letters to Muggle-born witches and wizards, who may not be aware of their powers and are unfamiliar with the concealed Wizarding World, are delivered in person by wizards, who then explain to the parents about magical society, and reassure them regarding this news.

Each student is allowed to bring either an owl, toad, or cat to keep as a pet while at school. Many students prefer owls because they can deliver post. However, other animals have been seen as pets at Hogwarts. The school year begins on 1 September.

Arrival

Students travel to King's Cross station in London to board the Hogwarts Express from Platform 9¾. The platform may be reached by walking through the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10. After a journey beginning at 11:00 am and ending after nightfall, the train arrives at Hogsmeade Station, near to Hogwarts. From there, first year students are accompanied by a Professor to small boats, which magically sail across a lake to arrive at a small landing stage near the castle of Hogwarts; from there, they walk up a path to the front doors. The older students travel up to the castle in carriages drawn by Thestrals, horse-like creatures which can be seen only by those who have witnessed a death.

When the first year students first arrive at the castle, they do not go directly to the Great Hall for the start-of-term feast. Instead, they must first undergo the Sorting, a very important ceremony. Students at Hogwarts are divided into four houses, each bearing the name of one of the school's original founders.

“ The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room. „

—Minerva McGonagall, Philosopher's Stone

Following a short speech from the Deputy Headmaster or Headmistress, first-year students line up and wait for names to be called in alphabetical order, by surname. One by one, each student is seated upon a stool in front of the rest of the student body, and a magical hat, The Sorting Hat, is placed on the student's head. The Hat examines the student's mind and assigns the student to one of four Houses based on ability, personality and aspirations. After deciding, the Hat shouts out the name of the House that it has decided, and the student joins his or her Housemates at that House table.

Houses

Main article: Hogwarts Houses

Like schools in many English-speaking countries, Hogwarts uses the House system. The student body of Hogwarts is divided into four Houses, each named after the wizard or witch who founded it. Because students spend nearly all their time at school with fellow members of their own house, this is a very important part of Hogwarts.

Each of the school Houses has a Head of House who exercises additional pastoral and disciplinary responsibilities over his or her House. The Heads of House are Eostre Garradair for Gryffindor, Janelle Parker for Ravenclaw, Cyrus Burke for Hufflepuff, and Pollux S. Arcaya for Slytherin.

There are also House ghosts. They are Nearly Headless Nick for Gryffindor, The Fat Friar for Hufflepuff, The Grey Lady for Ravenclaw, and The Bloody Baron for Slytherin.

Throughout the school year, the four houses compete to earn 'house points'. As a form of incentive or punishment, the achievements or failures of each student — academic or disciplinary — cause their respective house to gain or lose points. Points are recorded in four enchanted hourglasses located in the School's Entrance Hall. For each point or penalty a student earns, a jewel matching the colour of the house (red rubies for Gryffindor, yellow topaz for Hufflepuff, blue sapphires for Ravenclaw, and green emeralds for Slytherin) will rise or fall inside the relevant hourglass. At the end of each school year, the points are added up, and the house with the most points wins the House Cup.

The award or deduction of points is automatically detected by magical means, and adjustments are made to the display in the relevant hourglass. For an authority figure to deduct points, they must announce the deduction aloud, otherwise no points are removed.

There appear to be no fixed numbers of points attached to specific actions; this number is decided by a teacher on the spot and may vary greatly.

Terms and holidays

Hogwarts' school year is structured in a similar way to other Muggle schools and colleges in the UK, with a three-term year punctuated by holidays at Christmas and Easter and bounded by the long summer holiday. Students may optionally stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas and Easter holidays. Those that choose to stay at the castle do not have lessons and attend a feast on Christmas Day. Students also do not have classes on the week of Easter, but this is much less enjoyable for the students due to the large amounts of work that the teachers assign to their students beforehand.

Other than summer, Easter and Christmas, and weekends, students do not as a rule get days off for holidays. There are normally four feasts per year, the start-of-term feast and end-of-term feast, as well as feasts at Halloween and Christmas.

Grading and assessment

During their first four years, students need only to pass each of their subjects before advancing to the next level the following year. Regular exams and lessons usually seem to be graded on a numerical scale from 0 (bottom marks) to 100 (full marks) although some students routinely get higher than perfect scores. If a student fails their year, they need to repeat it in the following school year.

To qualify as a registered practitioner of magic, students must study for the compulsory Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) examinations over their Third to Fifth years, being examined at the end of the Fifth Year. If passed, a student may proceed to the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test (N.E.W.T.) level, a more advanced exam regimen covering fewer subjects but in more depth, which takes place over the Sixth and Seventh Years, and is examined at the end of the Seventh Year.

Subjects are graded on the following scale:

Passing Grades

  • O = Outstanding
  • E = Exceeds Expectations
  • A = Acceptable

Failing Grades

  • P = Poor
  • D = Dreadful
  • T = Troll

In order to proceed to a N.E.W.T., a student usually needs to have achieved at least an E in the O.W.L. of the same subject, although some professors insist upon a grade of O. Students who fail their exams or who do not achieve high enough grades continue to take O.W.L. classes in their sixth and seventh years.

At the beginning of their sixth year, students speak briefly with their head of house and decide which classes to continue in depending on their O.W.L. scores and their goals after school. The classes they decide to continue are considerably more advanced.

Due to the fact that they dropped one or more classes, students in their sixth and seventh year may get several class sessions off per week; because of the heavy workload that each of their classes assign them, they usually spend these studying and doing homework. At the end of their seventh and final year, students take the N.E.W.T. exams, which test what the student has learned over the past two years. Many professions require high grades in these tests, meaning that students must work very hard to ensure that they pass.

Other staff

Aside from the teachers, Hogwarts has a large number of support staff, including:

  • Madam Pomfrey, who is in charge of the castle's hospital wing.
  • Over a hundred house-elves who handle the cooking and much of the cleaning.

Student life

The day begins at Hogwarts with breakfast in the Great Hall. Students sit at their own House table and can eat, socialise, and finish homework at the last minute. At the High Table, at the far end of the hall, the headmaster eats with the professors. During breakfast, owls (student owned or school owned) bring in post for the students: this could be the morning issue of The Daily Prophet, letters from parents or friends, sweets from home, etc. A bell signals the start of the first class of the morning at 9 a.m.

There are two long morning classes with a short ten minute break in between them for students to get to their next class (the castle is enormous and it is common for students, especially first years, to get lost). After lunch in the Great Hall, classes resume at 1 p.m., and there is a break around teatime before another class period. First year students sometimes get Friday afternoons off. In the evening students eat their dinner in the Great Hall, after which they are expected to be in their common rooms for studying and socialising.

The four House common rooms are guarded by paintings or hidden behind walls that require a password to gain entrance. Inside is the common room, in which are armchairs and sofas for the pupils, as well as tables for studying. There are fireplaces to keep the rooms warm, and students relax here in the evenings, or else complete their homework. There are notice boards in each common room too, as well as at other strategic points throughout the school. The students stay in their House dormitories while school is in session, which branch off from the various common rooms. Each year gets two rooms; one for boys and one for girls. Each student sleeps in a large four poster bed with bed covers and heavy curtains in the House colours, and thick white pillows. There is a bedside table for each bed, and each dormitory has a jug of cool water and glasses on a tray.

On designated weekends, Hogwarts students in their third year or higher, with a signed permission slip, are permitted to walk to the nearby wizarding village of Hogsmeade, where they can relax and enjoy the pubs, restaurants and shops. There appears to be a good relationship between the school and the village, and the students get along well with the locals.

Food

The food served at Hogwarts is, according to the students, very good. The house-elves at Hogwarts are skilled chefs, and cook a wide variety of dishes for every meal. The food served at the school is fresh and grown locally; the school has vegetable patches by the greenhouses. The meats and other condiments are probably bought in Hogsmeade village, and the various dishes are prepared in the kitchens directly below the Great Hall and, at meal times, magically transported up so that they appear before the students. Hogwarts food is typically British, although the school sometimes makes exceptions. The usual drinks (apart from water) are tea, coffee, and pumpkin juice.

Discipline

Apart from losing points from a house, serious misdeeds at Hogwarts are punishable by detention.

Detention usually involves assisting staff or faculty with tedious or perilous tasks.

For even more serious offences, students may be expelled from Hogwarts. The Ministry of Magic has no authority to expel students – such powers are invested in the Headmaster and the Board of Governors.

Professors seem to be able to punish students with relative impunity and can hand out detention, even for unsatisfactory grades. Enforcement of rules outside of class mainly falls to the caretaker, with the assistance of the prefects. A student's Head of House usually has the final say in disciplinary matters.

In the summer before their fifth year, two fifth year students from each House are picked to be prefects, which grants them extra privileges and disciplinary responsibilities; they remain Prefects, unless appointed Head Boy or Girl or stripped of their position, for the rest of their school career. There are at most six prefects per house, all from the fifth, sixth, and seventh year students: if one of them has been appointed Head Boy or Head Girl, they are not replaced as Prefects. The leaders of the student body, the Head Boy and Head Girl, are drawn from the seventh year students. Prefects have the authority to deduct points from other students for infractions, though they cannot take points from fellow prefects. They may also give detentions.

Location and grounds

Main article: Hogwarts layout

“ A huge, rambling, quite scary-looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements. It isn't a building that Muggles could build, because it is supported by magic. „

—J.K. Rowling,  Interview

Hogwarts is located in a mountainous and secluded region in Scotland, near a wizarding village named Hogsmeade. The castle has extensive grounds with sloping lawns, flower beds and vegetable patches, a loch, a large and dense forest (called the Forbidden Forest), a number of greenhouses and other outbuildings, and a full-size Quidditch pitch. There is also an Owlery, which houses all of the owls owned by the school and those owned by students.

The village of Hogsmeade is used as a commercial centre by students, and as lodging by visitors to the school. Hogsmeade is the only remaining exclusively magical community in Britain, and is famous for Honeydukes Sweetshop, and pubs The Hog's Head and The Three Broomsticks. It is popular with Hogwarts students, who visit it from school on certain weekends. The Hogwarts station (Hogsmeade Station), though not at all near to the village, nonetheless takes its name from the settlement. The station appears to be south-east of the school, while the village of Hogsmeade appears to be north-west. The station is reached by the Hogwarts Express, a train service solely for the use of the students.

Since Apparition is not possible within the school or the school grounds, due to magical security charms, the Hogwarts Express is the primary means of transportation to and from Hogwarts. It is possible to arrive by means other than the school train however: by using broomsticks, Apparating or taking the Knight Bus to a location outside the grounds and walking through the gates, or using other magical means of travelling such as Floo powderand portkeys. The school still has a network of protective charms and magical barriers, however. The school also owns a number of carriages, drawn by Thestrals, which bring students around the lake from Hogsmeade station up to the school entrance. First-year students, after arriving at the Hogsmeade station by the Hogwarts Express, traditionally cross the lake by boat to reach the castle, while the rest of the students are taken by the Thestral-drawn carriages. The carriages pass through enormous gates flanked by winged boars, and then ramble up a curving drive to the main entrance of the castle, passing the loch on their way. After the students have entered the grounds, the gates are locked and stringent security measures are reinstalled.

The school is enchanted to repel Muggles, to whom Hogwarts appears to be "a mouldering old ruin with a sign over the entrance saying DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, UNSAFE". Electronic devices go haywire and do not work around Hogwarts because there is too much magic in the air.

History

Hogwarts a History

Coat of arms, school motto, school song

  • Shield renaissance, Quarterly, I gules a lion salient to sinister Or, II vert a serpent argent, III Or a badger reguardant proper, IV azure an eagle displayed Or, in fesse couped Or scroll with letter H sable, top riband for the name Hogwarts, base riband for the motto "draco dormiens nunquam titillandus".

The motto of Hogwarts is "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus," which in Latin means "A sleeping dragon [is] never to be tickled/poked."

The lyrics to the school song are as follows:

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something, please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.

The song does not have a set tune; everyone sings the lyrics to a tune and time of their choosing.

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