Inside Hogwarts Castle

"Oh I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts' secrets..."
     -- Albus Dumbledore

I haven't drawn [a floorplan of Hogwarts], because it would be difficult for the most skilled architect to draw, owing to the fact that the staircases and the rooms keep moving. However, I have a very vivid mental image of what it looks like.
     -- J.K. Rowling

It is not possible to create an accurate floorplan or map of Hogwarts (Sch1) because rooms and staircases move around a lot.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump ¹. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place ², and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk (PS8).

But it is possible to list and describe almost all of the rooms and indicate where they seem to be found most often.

Dungeons and sub-levels

Ground Floor

First floor

Second Floor

Third Floor

Fourth Floor

Fifth Floor

Sixth Floor

Seventh Floor

Towers

Dungeons and sub-levels:

• Potions classroom

  • large enough to accomodate a double class (about twenty cauldrons)

  • "Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls." (PS8)

  • icy cold water pours from a gargoyle's mouth into a basin in the corner

  • students can see their breath in this room during the winter months

• Snape's office and private stores

  If one follows the narrow stone staircase leading from the Entrance Hall to the dungeons, the entrance to Snape's office is halfway down the cold passageway leading from the foot of that staircase (CS5). Snape's office is adjacent to the Potions classroom, or at least close enough that Hermione could slip from one to the other and back without being spotted during a commotion in class during her second year. By Harry's fourth year, Snape had a charm on his office that "none but a wizard could break" which would have prevented Peeves from getting in and meddling with his possessions, although Dobby was able to get in and steal gillyweed from Snape's stores anyway.

  Snape is in the habit of keeping the place dimly lit, judging from Harry's visits during his second (CS5), third (PA14), fifth (OP24 and other tutorials), and sixth years. Snape has a fireplace (which is sometimes lit) that is apparently connected to the local Hogwarts Floo network, since he was able to call Lupin (then working at Hogwarts) through the fire, and Lupin was able to travel through the fire to Snape's office.

  The walls, which are in shadow, are lined with glass jars, including the wall behind Snape's desk. Each jar contains some potion (differently coloured in different jars) in which is suspended slimy bits of some animal or plant (different ones in different jars). For example, one jar contains a large dead frog suspended in some purple liquid (OP26). Snape also keeps a cupboard in one corner containing his private stores of potion ingredients. Snape also keeps a wall clock, occasionally an extra table, and a chair or two for visitors (HBP24).

• Slytherin dungeon common room

  • Entrance is a hidden door in a blank stone wall, opens by password

  • A labyrinth of corridors separates this entrance from the stone staircase leading up to the Entrance Hall (CS12).

• Dungeon Five

  • some third years accidentally plastered frog brains all over the ceiling in this dungeon, which suggests that it is used for making potions (CS8)

• other dungeons, including one large enough for a Deathday party

• kitchens
  The Hogwarts kitchens are located directly below the Great Hall and are just the same size. They have high ceilings and a great brick fireplace at one end. Mounds of brass pots and pans are heaped around the walls. There are preparation tables directly below the four house tables in the Hall above, and when the time comes for the food to be served, it is magically transported through the ceiling of the kitchen onto the plates. The kitchens are staffed by over a hundred house-elves. To get to the kitchens, take the door to the right of the main staircase in the entrance hall. Follow the corridor until you come to a painting of a bowl of fruit. Tickle the pear and it giggles and becomes a door handle (GF21).

• corridor with door to kitchens

  • pictures on the wall, mostly of food

  • down a flight of stone steps into a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches

  • this corridor also leads to the Hufflepuff common room

• the Chamber of Secrets and passageways leading to it - far beneath the school, at least partly beneath the lake

• the chamber of the Philosopher's Stone and passageways leading to it - far beneath the school

• Hufflepuff common room and dormitories

  • located in the basement near the kitchens, down the staircase to the right of the main staircase in the Entrance Hall

• Entrance Hall

  • Double oak front doors, opening to the west (PA21). Large, cavernous room, lit by torches, with ceiling so high it's barely visible. Wide marble staircase opposite the front doors (east wall) leads up to first floor. Double doors to the right (south wall) lead into the Great Hall. On the east wall are two doors, one on either side of the staircase. To the north of the staircase is a door leading down a flight of steps to the first dungeon level. To the south is a door leading to the Hufflepuff common room and the kitchens. On the left (north wall) is a door leading to a smaller antechamber where First Years wait to be sorted.

  • To the right of someone coming down the stairs (north wall) is a door leading down to the Slytherin common room (OP38, also CS12).

  • Four giant hourglasses - one for each House - stand in niches in a corner opposite the main doors. Each hourglass is filled with gemstones rather than sand, one gemstone in the lower bulb for each House Point currently held by that House. Gryffindor's contains rubies, Ravenclaw's sapphires, and Slytherin's emeralds (OP28, OP38). Presumably Hufflepuff's hourglass contains some sort of yellow gemstone.

  • Flagstone floor (HBP28).

• Great Hall

  • Vast chamber with an enchanted ceiling that mirrors the sky outside. Four long tables for the four houses. Closest to the doors from the Entrance Hall is Slytherin, then Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and next to the far wall, Gryffindor (this order may possibly be reversed, depending on how you orient the room to the entrance hall). The teachers sit at the High Table, a table on a raised platform at the front of the room.

  • A door behind the staff table allows a person to enter the Great Hall from outside without going through the main entrance (Hagrid enters this way to the welcoming feast in GF12); it isn't clear if this is the same door as the one leading into the antechamber.

  • There are windows into this room from the lawn outside (CS5)

• There is a smaller antechamber connected to the Great Hall, door behind the teachers' table, with a fireplace and many portraits (including that of the Fat Lady's friend Violet) off the Great Hall (GF17)

• small chamber

  • located off the Entrance Hall, opposite the Great Hall

  • where first years wait to be sorted

• broom cupboard

  • located off the Entrance Hall

  • Harry and Ron locked Crabbe and Goyle in it (CS12)

  • Hermione and Harry hid here while using the Time-Turner to wait for themselves to pass through the Entrance Hall (PA21)

• staff room

  • long panelled room

  • mismatched, dark wooden chairs

  • large wardrobe, sometimes inhabited by a boggart

  • located off the Entrance Hall (PS16)

  • see stone gargoyles (OP17)

• corridor

  • opposite the doors into the Great Hall, this corridor has at least one classroom down it, Classroom 11 (OP)

  • a side door in this corridor opens out into the courtyard where the students congregate during break times (CS)

• classroom eleven

  • in the corridor leading off the Entrance Hall on the side opposite the Great Hall

  • one of several unused classrooms

  • Dumbledore arranged for this room to look like the middle of a forest clearing; Firenze, who couldn't easily negotiate the stairs, taught Divination in this room. He could lower the lights and display a starry sky with a wave of his hand. (OP27)

• Filch's office

  Filch's office is a small room with a single oil lamping hanging from the ceiling. It smells of fried fish. In it are filing cabinets with details of the misdeeds of students. Fred and George have an entire drawer to themselves.

  • filing cabinet with records of the misdeeds of students, including an entire drawer for the Weasley twins (CS8)

  • chains and manacles (not used these days but kept polished just in case) (CS8)

  • cabinet full of confiscated magic items marked "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous." (PA10)

  • desk and chairs

  • lots of forms to write up malefactors

  • smells vaguely of cooked fish

  • probably on the ground floor because Filch took Harry "back downstairs" to write him up for befouling the castle, and because the Vanishing Cabinet which Peeves broke directly over Filch's office (CS8) was located on the first floor (OP)

• Muggle studies classroom

  • to get to her Muggle Studies exam, Hermione stopped at the first floor while Ron and Harry went on (PA16)

• Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom

  • "(Lockhart) set off back to the castle with Harry, who was wishing he knew a good Vanishing Spell, still clasped to his side. 'A word to the wise, Harry,' said Lockhart paternally as they entered the building through a side door [from the courtyard, so they're on the ground floor]...Deaf to Harry's stammers, Lockhart swept him down a corridor [the ground floor corridor that runs opposite the Great Hall, probably] lined with staring students and up a staircase [so now they're on the first floor]...They had reached Lockhart's classroom and he let Harry go at last." (CS)

  • has windows

  • had an iron chandelier until Neville was hung from it by his ears by pixies and it broke off the ceiling (CS6)

• History of Magic classroom [7]

  • blackboard through which Binns enters and exits the room

  • Has a window through which Hedwig could enter; the window has thick glass and a narrow ledge (OP17)

  • Just up the corridor from Binns' classroom, in the direction of the marble staircase, is a window with a view of Hagrid's cabin (OP17)

• McGonagall's office

  • up the marble staircase and down a hallway, on the first floor (PS15)

  • Her office has a fireplace with a mantelpiece, and the entrance is evidently within easy walking distance of Myrtle's bathroom (CS18). The fireplace can be connected to the Floo Network when necessary (HBP18).

  • At least one of her windows overlooks the Quidditch pitch (PA9).

  • Some of the corridors along the route from her office to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower have windows overlooking Hagrid's cabin (HBP18).

  • To get from the DADA classroom to McGonagall's office, take a corridor from the DADA classroom to the nearest flight of stairs leading down; McGonagall's door is on the left (OP12)

• Hospital Wing 1992-1993 [3]

  • lots and lots of beds with white sheets

  • Madam Pomfrey's office

  • privacy screens

  • bedpans (Ron once had to scrub them for detention) (PA9)

  • moved to the third floor in 1995-1996

• Moaning Myrtle's bathroom (out of order)

• empty corridor with stone gargoyle the entrance to the Headmaster/Headmistress' Office [4]

• suit of armor

  • near the Defence Against the Dark Arts office (OP

• Defence Against Dark Arts professor's office

  • "Saturday afternoon seemed to melt away, and in what seemed like no time, it was five minutes to eight, and Harry was dragging his feet along the second-floor corridor to Lockhart's office. He gritted his teeth and knocked." (CS6)

  • faces south (GF, Moody looked out and saw Durmstrang ship) and the Quidditch pitch (OP13)

  • Quirrell - unknown 1991-1992

  • Lockhart - vanity pictures of himself 1992-1993

  • Lupin - grindylow tank and other creatures for use in class, tea things 1993-1994

  • Moody - Foe-Glass, Dark Detectors, seven-lock chest 1994-5

  • Umbridge - plates on the wall with foul kittens in bright colors, frilly doilies and the like, flowered tablecloth 1995-6

• statue of humpbacked witchwith secret passage to Hogsmeade

• forbidden corridor where Fluffy guarded the trapdoor to the hiding place of the Philosopher's Stone

• Trophy Room

  Hogwarts has a trophy room where all the old awards, trophies, statues, cups, plates, shields, and medals are kept in crystal display cases. There is also a list of all the head boys and girls. It's adjacent to a long gallery full of suits of armor (PS9, CS7, CS13). Peeves likes to bounce around the trophy room (PA10, GF25).

• armor gallery (adjacent to the trophy room)

• Charms classroom, down the Charms corridor

  • has a window overlooking the front drive (OP30)

• Hospital Wing (1995-1996) [5]

  • double doors

• The corridor below the prefects' bathroom leads from the nearest staircase to the prefects' bathroom on the floor above and has a tapestry hanging about halfway down the corridor. This tapestry conceals a narrower staircase forming a shortcut that leads down two floors, which contains the trick step that Neville often forgets to jump. The bottom of the staircase is also concealed by a tapestry (GF25).

• fourth floor corridor - Harry encountered Peeves here (GF)

• there is a bathroom on this floor, into which Montague Apparated (OP28)

• there is a landscape painting here which the Fat Lady was seen running through after Sirius Black attacked her (PA8)

• there is a secret passageway out of Hogwarts behind the mirror on the fourth floor, but the twins say it caved in and completely blocked, so they stopped using it after the winter of Harry's second year (PA10)

• library [6]

• narrow corridor leading to...

• Mirror of Erised room

• A statue of Boris the Bewildered stands in one corridor. The shortest route from the statue to Gryffindor Tower lies in one direction down this corridor, while the nearest staircase leading down to the Fourth Floor lies in the opposite direction (GF25).

• prefects' bathroom

  • Cedric's directions to Harry on how to reach the prefects' bathroom were extremely clear: "fourth door to the left of the statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor" (GF23). The door requires a password, and can be bolted from the inside. No mention is made of any portrait or statue guarding the room's entrance; apparently the door itself recognizes the password. There is one piece of artwork in the bathroom itself, however, a rather flirtatious picture of a mermaid on one wall (see). Myrtle, who occasionally enjoys spying on the prefects as they bathe, doesn't seem to like her much.

  • Inside, the bathroom's walls, floor, and single sunken bathtub are all made of white marble, lit softly by a candle-filled chandelier that impressed Harry on his first visit. The rectangular tub is the size and depth of a swimming pool, and even has a diving board, but unlike an ordinary pool the tub is lined with about a hundred taps, each with a differently coloured jewel set into the handle. Each tap automatically releases not only water, but bubble bath (a different kind of bubble bath for each colour-coded handle). A pile of fluffy white towels are kept in one corner (GF25).

• A statue of Gregory the Smarmystands in a corridor in the East Wing, where Fred and George created their magical swamp before leaving Hogwarts for good (OP29).

• Harry once duelled Draco Malfoy in a boys' bathroom on this floor; there is a passageway between that bathroom and the marble staircase leading up to the seventh floor (HBP24)

• see Hogwarts denizens page for artwork around this floor - among other things, there is a statue of Lachlan the Lanky just to the right of the stairs leading down to the sixth floor (OP13 and a suit of armour somewhere along Harry's detour to the Room of Requirement, the entrance to which is across the corridor from a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy (HBP24).

• Room of Requirement

• Gryffindor common room (base of Gryffindor Tower)

  • entrance behind a large painting of a Fat Lady in a pink silk dress in a corridor on the seventh floor. If you know the right password to tell her, she opens to reveal a round opening in the wall leading into the Gryffindor common room, which is the lowest floor of the tower

  • common room with squashy armchairs, a fireplace, tables

  • the common room has windows (OP17)

  • dormitories - one boys' and one girls' per year for a total of fourteen -  with four-poster beds - round rooms with windows (although these dormitories are not really on the seventh floor but in the tower which rises above the common room.

• Divination classroom

  • base of North Tower

  • round room

  • access is by means of a ladder through a ceiling trapdoor from the room below (PA/f was incorrect about this and showed the room being accessed by stairwell)

  • oppressive fire with a copper kettle that gives off sweet-smelling fumes

  • walls lined with shelves: tea cups, crystal balls, decks of cards, etc.

  • small round tables, squashy armchairs and little pouffes

  • at least one window which Harry opened just a crack to let fresh air into the room (GF)

• Flitwick's office

  • thirteenth window from the right of the West Tower

• Corridors

  • A moving tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, depicting his foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet, hangs on the 7th floor of Hogwarts Castle, opposite the entrance to the Room of Requirement. That stretch of corridor has a window on one end and a man-sized vase at the other (OP18)

  • There's a statue of Lachlan the Lanky on the seventh floor to the right of the top of the stairs, between the stairs and the Fat Lady's portrait (OP13).

  • another corridor on the seventh floor is the location of the gargoyle which guards the entrance to the Headmaster's office in Harry's sixth year, although not in earlier years (HBP

• Astronomy Tower (tallest tower)

  • where they had Astronomy class every Wednesday night at midnight during Harry's first year

  • Handy for meeting with broomstick riders in the dead of night - except when it requires hauling a heavy crate up the three flights of stairs from the Entrance Hall to the corridor beneath the tower (PS14).

  • The top of this tower where observation sessions are held for Astronomy is more or less directly above the front entrance of the castle; the top of the tower has a parapet (OP31)

  • A steep spiral staircase leads to the top of the tower (PS14, OP31), with a door (which has an iron ring as a handle) leading out onto the ramparts, which are crenellated (HBP27).

  • To get from the foot of the Astronomy Tower's staircase to the staircase leading to the entrance hall, one must pass through two corridors before rounding the corner to see the staircase leading (eventually) to the Entrance Hall (HBP28).

• Headmaster/Headmistress' office and residence

• North Tower

  • Trelawney's residence and the Divination classroom (PA16)

• Gryffindor Tower

  • Harry's dormitory room is at the top (PS7, GF12)

  • Atlas: Harry's dormitory room

• West Tower

  • the Owlery
    The Owlery, where the school owls and the owls belonging to students live, is located on the top of West Tower (GF15).

    The Owlery was a circular stone room, rather cold and drafty, because none of the windows had glass in them. The floor was entirely covered in straw, owl droppings, and the regurgitated skeletons of mice and voles. Hundreds upon hundreds of owls of every breed imaginable were nestled here on perches that rose right up to the top of the tower, nearly all of them asleep, though here and there a round amber eye glared at Harry. He spotted Hedwig nestled between a barn owl and a tawny, and hurried over to her, sliding a little on the dropping-strewn floor (GF15).

• Ravenclaw Tower

  • located on the west side of the castle (OP18)

  • location of the Ravenclaw common room and dormitories

• classroom

  • Transfiguration

    • all we know is that it's "miles from Umbridge's office" (OP)

1. Harry found himself stuck in just such a staircase on his way back from the prefects' bathroom. He was almost caught by Snape and Filch but he was rescued by the fake Moody (GF25). Neville kept forgetting this particular step and had to be pulled out of it more than once.

   Neville's foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Neville's memory was notoriously poor. Harry and Ron seized him under the armpits and pulled him out, while a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily (GF12).

2. The door to the kitchens is an example of this. It's hidden behind a large painting of a bowl of fruit.

   (Hermione) seized his arm again, pulled him in front of the picture of the giant fruit bowl, stretched out her forefinger, and tickled the huge green pear.  It began to squirm, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle. Hermione seized it, pulled the door open, and pushed Harry hard in the back, forcing him inside (GF21).

3. Harry leaves the hospital wing, intending to go up to the seventh floor and the Gryffindor common room. He gets to the floor above the hospital wing and he is at Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Later in that chapter it states that they go up the marble staircase to get to the hospital wing (CS13).

4. Harry ran into the castle to find Dumbledore when Mr. Crouch accosted him and Viktor near the forest. He was clearly heading for the second floor:

   Harry tore up the stone steps, through the oak front doors, and off up the marble staircase, toward the second floor.
   Five minutes later he was hurtling toward a stone gargoyle standing halfway along an empty corridor (GF28)

   This presented a question of how Dumbledore that year could have wound up in the Room of Requirement early in the morning when in urgent need of a bathroom, since the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor in Harry's fifth and sixth years. In book 6 the entrance to the Headmaster's office was relocated to the seventh floor.

5. Harry runs from the Entrance Hall to the hospital wing and clearly goes up farther than the first floor:

   The second that the old man's heels disappeared over the threshold into the Great Hall, Harry ran up the marble staircase, hurtled along the corridors so fast the portraits he passed muttered reproaches, up more flights of stairs, and finally burst like a hurricane through the double doors of the hospital wing, causing Madam Pomfrey - who had been spooning some bright blue liquid into Montague's open mouth - to shriek in alarm (OP32)

   Then later he leaves the hospital wing, goes down two floors, and ends up on the first floor:

   He wheeled around and strode blindly from the hospital wing into the teeming corridor where he stood, buffeted by the crowd, panic expanding inside him like poison gas so that his head swam and he could not think what to do...

   Ron and Hermione, said a voice in his head

   He was running again, pushing students out of the way, oblivious to their angry protests. He sprinted back down two floors and was at the top of the marble staircase when he saw them hurrying towards him.

6. Harry leaves the library, runs around for a while on that floor, then realizes he's lost:

   [Harry] streaked off up the corridor, the book's shrieks still ringing in his ears. He came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. He had been so busy getting away from the library, he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. Perhaps because it was dark, he didn't recognize where he was at all. There was a suit of armor near the kitchens, he knew, but he must be five floors above there.

   The kitchens are one floor below the ground floor, so Harry must be on the fourth floor. He discovers the room with the Mirror of Erised on this floor immediately thereafter, just down a narrow corridor.

7. Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the History of Magic classroom, talk to Colin Creevey, then go up a flight of stairs to find themselves on the second floor, where Moaning Myrtle's bathroom is:

   As they were shunted along in the throng, Colin Creevey went past.
   
   But Colin was so small he couldn't fight against the tide of people bearing him toward the Great Hall; they heard him squeak, "See you, Harry!" and he was gone.
   
   The crowd thinned and they were able to climb the next staircase without difficulty...
   
   ...they turned a corner and found themselves at the end of the very corridor where the attack had happened. (CS9).