The steam engine used in the film adaptations is the GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall, but it was not the first locomotive to be disguised as the Hogwarts Express. To promote the books, the Southern Railway locomotive 34027 Taw Valley was repainted and renamed temporarily, but was rejected by director Chris Columbus as looking 'too modern' for the film. Filming locations for the Hogwarts Express sequences include Goathland on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, Kings Cross railway station and the route of the Jacobite Express which follows the West Highland Line from Fort William to Mallaig in Scotland, as it crosses the Glenfinnan Viaduct. [26] The Chamber of Secrets, which is deep under the school (most likely under the lake), [22] was home to an ancient Basilisk, intended to be used to purge the school of Muggle-born students. Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts, built the Chamber before he left the school. There are twelve named teachers (referred to as Professors), each specialising in a single subject. All professors are overseen by a school head and deputy head. Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Herbology are compulsory subjects for the first five years, as well as flying lessons. At the end of their second year, students are required to add at least two optional subjects to their syllabus for the start of the third year. The five choices are Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures. According to J.K. Rowling, "very specialised subjects such as alchemy are sometimes offered in the final two years, if there is sufficient demand." [18]

Transcript of J.K. Rowling's live interview on Scholastic.com". Scholastic. 16 October 2000. Archived from the original on 1 May 2001. Rowling has suggested that she may have inadvertently taken the name from the hogwort plant ( Croton capitatus), which she had seen at Kew Gardens some time before writing the series, [31] although the names "The Hogwarts" and "Hoggwart" appear in the 1954 Nigel Molesworth book How to Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans. [32] [33] The name "Hogwart" also appears in the 1986 Labyrinth fantasy film. [34] From there, first-year students are accompanied by the "Keeper of the Keys, Game and Grounds" (which was Rubeus Hagrid during the first novel) to small boats, which magically sail across the lake and get them near the entrance of Hogwarts. The older students ride up to the castle in carriages pulled by creatures called Thestrals. When the first-year students initially arrive at the castle, they wait in a small chamber off the entrance hall until the older students have taken their seats, and then enter the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony to determine their House assignments. As Professor Minerva McGonagall said in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, "The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room." Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly. Hogwarts ... Logically it had to be set in a secluded place, and pretty soon I settled on Scotland in my mind." Fraser, L., An interview with J.K.Rowling, Mammoth, London, 2000. ISBN 0-7497-4394-8. pp 20–21.The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling: Part Two". MuggleNet. 16 July 2005. Archived from the original on 24 July 2005 . Retrieved 20 June 2017. Melissa (30 July 2007). "J.K. Rowling Web Chat Transcript". The Leaky Cauldron . Retrieved 16 July 2011. Letters to Muggle-born witches and wizards, who may not be aware of their powers and are unfamiliar with the concealed wizarding world, are delivered in person by a member of Hogwarts staff, who then explains to the parents or guardians about magical society, and reassures them regarding this news. [HP7] Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry ( / ˈ h ɒ ɡ w ɔːr t s/) is a fictional boarding school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and serves as a major setting in the Wizarding World universe. [3] History Establishment

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War. Among the plant species within the Forest are trees such as beech, oak, pine, sycamore, yew and knotgrass and thorn undergrowth. Though the Forest is vastly dense and wild, there are a few paths and clearings. Hagrid, who frequently travels into the Forest for various reasons, mostly makes these trails. The Forest is also home to an assortment of creatures, many of them dangerous. A completely functioning full-scale replica of the Hogwarts Express was created for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter's expansion at Universal Orlando Resort connecting King's Cross Station at the Diagon Alley expansion in Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure, [29] manufactured by Doppelmayr Garaventa Group in the form of a funicular railway people mover. [30] The Hogwarts Express King's Cross Station features a wall between Platforms 9 and 10, where guests can "walk through" to get to Platform 9 + 3⁄ 4, as in the first film. The entrance to the Chamber is hidden in the second-floor girls' lavatory (haunted by Moaning Myrtle). One of the sink taps has a snake scratched into its side; when a command in Parseltongue is spoken, it opens to reveal the mouth of a dark, slimy chute, wide enough to slide down, that gives onto a stone tunnel. There are many skeletons of small animals littering the floor and even a gigantic skin shed by the Basilisk. The tunnel leads to a solid wall, carved with two entwined serpents with emeralds for eyes. [22] At a command in Parseltongue, the wall opens to expose a long, dim corridor, lined with monumental statues of snakes, including two rows of towering stone pillars with more carved serpents that brace the ceiling. A colossal statue of Salazar Slytherin, looking ancient and monkey-like, is at the centre. The Basilisk rested inside the statue and emerged from its mouth when the Heir of Slytherin, Tom Riddle, summoned it. [23] Doppelmayr/Garaventa built the Hogwarts Express" (Press release). Doppelmayr Garaventa Group. 25 July 2014 . Retrieved 6 September 2014.

Slytherin

MacDonald, Brady (9 May 2013). "What may come to Wizarding World of Harry Potter 2.0 at Universal Orlando". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 10 May 2013 . Retrieved 18 May 2013. a b c "Online chat transcript". Scholastic. 3 February 2000. Archived from the original on 13 April 2001. Apart from losing points from a house, serious misdeeds at Hogwarts are punishable by detention. Whenever a student loses a house point, their house jewels ( ruby for Gryffindors, emeralds for Slytherin, sapphires for Ravenclaw, and diamonds for Hufflepuff) are taken away from a glass hourglass located in every classroom. The same goes for adding points to the specific house, although the teacher or prefect must conjure the gems from thin air.