Historical Information

The Gryffindor Common Room, ever since, serves as the gathering place for Gryffindor students at Hogwarts. It is located in one of the castle’s highest towers and has remained unchanged for centuries, granting a home away from home, as some call it, for some of the most famous wizards in history, including Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall and Harry Potter.

The entrance is hidden behind a large oil painting of the Fat Lady. While her true identity is lost to history, she has guarded the entrance for generations. She is known for her love for food and wine and for her mood swings. Students must give the right password to the Fat Lady. If she is not in her frame because she is visiting another portrait, or if the student forgets the right password, they got to stay outside. In 1993, the Fat Lady was temporarily replaced by the painting of Sir Cadogan after her canvas was slashed by Sirius Black.

The room is warm, inviting and somewhat cluttered. It is a round room, as it is within a round tower. The room is filled with armchairs, tables and puffs to laze on. There is a stone fireplace, too. The general colours are scarlet and gold. The walls are lined with tapestries like the Lady and the Unicorn, showing the House’s mascot, the lion, and a unicorn that stands for one of the house traits being chivalry. Portraits of famous Gryffindors, including past Heads of House, line the walls. There is a notice board for communication, lost-and-found notes, dates for Hogsmeade weekends and sales for second-hand broomsticks and whatnot.

Two spiral staircases go off from the Common room leading to the sleeping quarters. The Boy’s Dormitory has four-poster beds with red velvet curtains and the Girl’s do have the same but theirs is protected by an enchantment. If a boy got the guts to climb the stairs to the girl’s dormitory, the stairs turn into a smooth stone slide, sending the intruder sliding back down straight to the Common Room. The Founders believed girls were more trustworthy than boys, so the girl’s staircase doesn’t repel girls from entering the boy’s dorms.

The room has hosted thousands of students over a millennium so it is only natural that there are several events that have happened in the Common Room. Godric Gryffindor oversaw the construction of this tower personally, wanting it to be a place of rest for the brave. In the 1970’s, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew planned the creation of the Marauders Map here by the fireplace. 1993 Sirius Black broke into the Common Room with a knife to search for Peter Pettigrew, the first known time an outsider got in. Dumbledore’s Army was founded here to go against Dolores Umbridge. The fireplace was used by Sirius Black to stay in touch with Harry Potter while being on the run, a risky thing given Ministry surveillance. The house Ghost, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy- Porpington, was a Gryffindor wizard in the 15th century. He often goes to the room to offer advice or complain about the Headless Hunt.