- "Once you’ve arrived inside Gryffindor Tower, come inside and be welcomed by the roaring fire, stuffed armchairs, and the great view we have from our windows. Our dormitories are reached by climbing the winding mahogany staircase, decorated with crimson and gold. As I said, there's plenty of gold around the tower. Our four-posters are covered with thick scarlet blankets (we have quite windy nights up in the towers) and are embroidered with gold. Gold chandeliers cast warm glows all around."
- —Description of the tower[src]
Gryffindor Tower, also known as the Gryffindor Common Room,[1] serves as the common room for students in Gryffindor House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In general, it sports several shades of red and the mantle is adorned with a portrait of a lion (all associated with the house).
Entrance[]
Gryffindor corridor and the Fat Lady's portrait
The entrance to the Gryffindor common room is concealed under the portrait of the Fat Lady, on the lavish Gryffindor Landing. To enter one must present the Fat Lady with the correct password of the week, otherwise said student will have to wait the day for another student to come by and pass them the code. Other houses have security arrangements and concealed ways, such as the Hufflepuff barrels, the concealed Slytherin door, and the Ravenclaw questions.[2]
Common Room[]
The common room is a circular room where Gryffindor students can relax after a long day of studying. It is full of squashy armchairs, tables, and a bulletin board where school notices, ads, lost posters, etc. can be posted. The common room is decorated in several shades of red, which is associated with the house. The common room is comfortable, but not more comfortable then the Hufflepuff basement.[3] There are many windows that look out onto the grounds of the school, and a large fireplace dominates one wall. The mantle of the fireplace is adorned with a portrait of a lion.[4] The walls are decorated with scarlet tapestries that depict witches and wizards, but also various animals. There are also bookcases located in the room.[5]
The common room is usually where celebration parties are held after Gryffindor Quidditch victories, or when Harry Potter completed a task for the Triwizard Tournament. It was also the location for Harry and Ginny Weasley's first kiss following Gryffindor's Quidditch Cup victory in 1997. The common room fireplace was used on several occasions by Sirius Black to contact Harry while he was on the run from the Ministry of Magic.
Dormitories[]
Gryffindor boys dormitory
The Gryffindor dormitories are also located in the Tower, with two doors leading off from the common room that open to spiral staircases. One of them leads to the girls' dormitory, the other to the boys'. The stairs to the girls' dormitory are enchanted to become a slide if any boy attempts to climb them, but not vice versa, since it was deemed that girls were more trustworthy than boys, and Hermione Granger went into the boys' room on several occasions.
Known Passwords[]
1991-1992 school year[]
- Caput Draconis (Latin for "Dragon's Head")
- Pig Snout
1992-1993 school year[]
- Wattlebird
1993-1994 school year[]
- Fortuna Major (Latin for "greater luck")
- Flibbertigibbet
- Oddsbodikins
- Scurvy Cur
1994-1995 school year[]
- Balderdash
- Banana Fritters
- Fairy Lights
1995-1996 school year[]
- Mimbulus mimbletonia
1996-1997 school year[]
- Abstinence
- Baubles
- Dilligrout
- Tapeworm
- Quid Agis (Latin for "How are you")
In the films[]
The Gryffindor Common Room as seen in the films differs slightly from its description in the books in that it is not a perfect circle, and that both the boys' and girls' dormitories are accessed via the same staircase: boys on the left, girls on the right.
Behind the scenes[]
- In the movie adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one of the portraits on the wall of the common room is of a young Minerva McGonagall.
- When Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown began dating, one chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince described them as being "in a prominent corner of the common room". However, the Common Room is circular. It is possible that there are nooks or alcoves in various areas around the wall.
- The charm used to make the Girls' Dormitory stairs into a slide may be the Glisseo charm. It is never stated if similar enchantments are placed on the entrances to the Girls' Domitories in other houses, but is highly likely, as Hermione identifies the Founders collectively as the ones responsible for the charm.
- In the PS1 video game adaption of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the Gryffindor Tower leads to the Entrance Hall, Charms Corridor, Upper Castle, a side-room behind a bookcase and the Great Foyer/First Floor East Wing, it is also located next to the Rear Hall in the 1992–1993 school year.
- In the PS2 video game adaptation of Chamber of Secrets, after going through the portrait-hole, there is a short stone hallway leading to the actual common room. This hallway also leads to an old room behind a tapestry, a quiet study area for Gryffindor students, frequently used by Percy, and a secret bathroom used by Fred and George Weasley as an in-school joke shop.
- The Chamber of Secrets video game is also the only place in the games or the films where the common room is accessed by crawling through an actual hole (albeit a square-shaped one). All other adaptations depict a doorway.
- In film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the entrance is on one end of a hallway. Whereas in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the video game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it is located on the Seventh Floor of the Grand Staircase Tower. As the shape of the common room doesn't change, one explanation of this change of location may be that these particular stairs were not there in the first movie, and were built to replace the corridor during the summer of 1992, before Harry's third year started.
Gryffindor Tower at one corner of the Quad
- In the film adaptations of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, we can see the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory is shown to be located in a small tower (see above) at one corner of the Paved Courtyard close to the Clock Tower. This is consistent with the Fat Lady's location in Philosopher's Stone, but it is inconsistent with Fat Lady's location in the third film and fifth and sixth video games (in the Grand Staircase Tower). One possible explanation is that the portrait is a secret passageway or shortcut which connects the two areas of the castle.
- In film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry and Ginny have their first kiss in the Room of Requirement instead of the Gryffindor common room, due to the Quidditch match and Harry's detention with Snape being cut.
- The common room as depicted in the video game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a near-perfect replica of the common room as seen in the films. One very subtle difference is that in the video games the stairs leading to the dormitories only go up, creating the misconception that there's only one dorm room for the boys (shared by Harry and the other boys in his year) and one for the girls. In the films (although it is difficult to notice unless you pay attention) you can see that, in addition to going up, the stairs also lead down (presumably to more dormitories). In the books it is stated that Harry's dorm is located at the top of the stairs.
See also[]