Strange,
Unusual, and Unexpected
Other
Denizens
of
the Castle
ghosts
paintings
and other artwork
creatures
miscellaneous
Hogwarts is a place of many surprises. Not only is are the doors and staircases unusual, but also the paintings on the walls and the suits of armor in the corridors act in ways you might not expect. Everything seems to be alive in some fashion. The armor creaks and moves and even laughs at unsuspecting students. And the paintings...well, the paintings are practiacally full-fledged Beings. They speak and intereact, not just with the humans in the castle but even with each other.
A
painting of the Fat Lady wearing a pink silk dress hangs over
the round doorway into the Gryffindor Common Room. To gain admittance to
through the portrait hole, a person must give the correct password to the
Fat Lady, in which case she swings her frame out from the wall. She has
been known to get a bit testy with people who wake her up for no good reason
and even to wander off late at night out of her frame to go visiting, making
it impossible to get into Gryffindor Tower. She is friends with Violet,
a painting of a woman which hangs in the antechamber off the Great Hall
(GF ). At Christmas, The Fat Lady and Violet got a bit tipsy on chocolate
liqueurs (GF )
Sir Cadogan is a little knight whose picture hangs in a corridor near the South Tower. He is a silly fellow whose bravura outshines his commons sense and who glories in qurests and challenges. Sir Cadogan spent some time guarding the Gryffindor Common Room when Sirius Black attacked the Fat Lady (he was the only painting brave enough to take the job). He thought up ridiculous passwords and changed them on a daily basis. He challenged people to a duel whenever they would try to enter or leave through the portrait hole. Sir Cadogan has a huge sword and a little fat pony (PA6, 9)
Other paintings
and artwork:
Violet (the Fat Lady's best friend,
a wizened, pale old witch)
wizard with walrus mustache, next
to Violet in the antechamber off the Great Hall
painting with a group of monks (
painting of a group of women in
crinolines (PA6)
map of Argyllshire (on second floor,
Fat Lady hid here once)
painting of a mermaid (looking like
the mermaids of folklore, not the real things living in the lake) hangs
in the Prefects' Bathroom; she apparently watches people take baths, which
is a little weird.
suits of armor
seem
to move about (SS
laughs
at Ron
singing
Christmas carols
strange
lights inside for Christmas (PA
oiled
for the visit by Durmstrang and Beauxbatons
portraits of previous headmasters
- snoozing in Dumbledore's office (CS
statue of Gregory the Smarmy (SS
entrance to a secret passage
statue of humpbacked witch (PA)
entrance to secret passage to Honeydukes (PA
statue of Boris the Bewildered (GF25)
- a lost-looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands
near the Prefect's Bathroom on the fifth floor
statue of a large stone griffin
(SS10)
tapestry - hides the entrance to
the staircase with the trick step (GF
creatures
house-elves
- over a hundred (GF)
boggarts
- several turned up in PA, seem to be fairly common
Acromantula
(Aragog) - c.1940, kept by Hagrid in dungeon room (CS
Peeves
(sort of a ghost,
but not really)
Miscellaneous
secret passages
to Hogsmeade
- there are seven on the Marauder's Map
- behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy
- under the hump of the statue of the hump-backed witch
- under the Whomping Willow
- one that is caved in
- one with a trick step halfway up - your foot sinks into it (GF
- the staircase up to Dumbledore's office moves magically upward, like an escalator (GF
- Although seen in the movie, there are no moving staircases mentioned in the books, although there are some that lead someplace different on different days.
- the huge oak front doors of Hogwarts are apparently semi-sentient, because Flitwick teaches them to recognize a picture of Sirius Black so that can refuse to let him enter the castle (PA
