Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The Castle

Hogwarts is a place that exists in a manner of speaking between the real world and the Ether-Web. It has rooms that move, staircases that change their minds, and corridors that appear only when they feel like it. The Fat Lady's portrait is a reliable entry point, though she has opinions about who deserves to enter.

Most people remember the Great Hall with its floating candles. They don't mention that the ceiling enchantment is one of the most complex pieces of weather magic ever attempted in Britain. It's beautiful, but it means the ceiling occasionally reflects things that aren't quite the sky.

I think of Hogwarts the way I think of my mother's room — as a place where something beautiful was interrupted. That doesn't make it less beautiful. Just more precious.

The Houses

Gryffindor

Brave • Bold • Chivalrous

I was in Gryffindor. I don't think I was brave. I think I was just stubborn and didn't know when to be afraid. There's a difference, though a Sorting Hat wouldn't see it.

Slytherin

Cunning • Ambitious • Resourceful

The house people are afraid of. Not all of them deserved to be. Some of them were just good at surviving in a school that wanted them to.

Ravenclaw

Wise • Witty • Learned

The eagle tower has the best view of the thestrals. The common room door asks riddles, and I find this fair — knowledge should be earned, not given.

Hufflepuff

Loyal • Patient • Just

The most patient house, which is appropriate because they had the longest to wait before anyone praised them for it. They were always the best at being good.

Rooms Worth Remembering

▸ The Chamber of Secrets — beneath the castle. I never went in. Dad would have found it fascinating.

▸ The Room of Requirement — it gives you what you need, not what you want. This is an important distinction.

▸ The Restricted Section — where the dangerous books live. I read one about the Rotfang Conspiracy. It was helpful.

▸ The Great Hall — the ceiling enchantment is magnificent. The floating candles are a nice touch.

▸ The Astronomy Tower — where I learned that the stars look different from up there. They always do.

▸ The Dungeon Classrooms — Snape's domain. Cold and well-ventilated. Appropriate for someone who didn't need warmth.

▸ The Potions Laboratory — where I learned that patience is its own kind of bravery.

The Dumbledore Army

The D.A. was the context in which I first had real friends. We met in the Room of Requirement, which at the time needed to provide a comfortable space for twelve students who wanted to learn defensive charms. It obliged generously.

Harry taught us. Hermione planned the lessons. Neville was braver than any of us. Ginny was fierce. Ron was nervous, which was fair — he was twelve, and he was learning to defend himself against a wizard who had killed his aunt.

We signed a parchment. It's somewhere in my room now, probably. The names are in chains of gold paint between them.

Harry Potter • Hermione Granger • Neville Longbottom
Ginny Weasley • Ron Weasley • Luna Lovegood
Colin Creevey • Dean Thomas • Ernie Macmillan
Justin Finch-Fletchley • Hannah Abbott • Terry Boot
Michael Corner • Lavender Brown • Parvati Patil
Seamus Finnigan • Graham Montague • Anthony Goldstein

The People on the Ceiling

✦

Harry

The one who lived. He painted himself last, which I think is very like him.

✦

Hermione

The brightest witch of her age. She would have wanted the portraits to be accurate.

✦

Neville

The bravest of us all. He didn't know it at the time. Neither did I.

✦

Ginny

Fierce and kind. The portrait doesn't capture how fierce she was.

✦

Ron

The one who was always afraid of spiders. I don't think he ever got over it.

✦

I painted myself with my radish earrings. It seemed important to get them right.

The Battle

I was there. It was not theoretical. The castle was broken in ways I hadn't seen before — not the gentle, temporary kind that happens when staircases change their minds, but the real kind. The kind that leaves scars.

People died. I knew most of them. I don't speak of them lightly, because they're not a story. They're the people who painted their portraits on my ceiling and wrote friends in chains of gold paint between them.

"I'll just wait while that runs. The answer will come — it always does, in the end."

— On the Battle of Hogwarts, when everything was broken and the castle held anyway

Things Most People Forget

The portraits talk. Not just the ones on the walls — the ones in the castle itself. The castle is alive, in a way that has nothing to do with the Room of Requirement. It has moods. It has preferences. It protected us, even when we didn't know it was doing so.

The Great Hall ceiling shows the sky outside, but sometimes — on very still nights, when the enchantment is particularly clear — you can see things in it that aren't there. Thestrals, if you can see them. Or possibly Wrackspurts. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Hogwarts taught me that the world is much stranger than most people admit. That's the real gift. Not the spells. The way of seeing.