Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Places/Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
| Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter - Place | |
| Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts | |
|---|---|
| Location | Inside Hogwarts |
| Permanent Residents | Current headmaster, various previous headmasters and headmistresses |
| First Appearance | Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets |
Contents |
[edit] General Overview
The Headmaster's Office at Hogwarts is the office in which the current headmaster or headmistress of Hogwarts works. Although this is never mentioned, it is entirely likely that his residence is adjacent. It is reached by means of a circular, moving stone staircase, which in turn is concealed by a gargoyle on the third floor. The gargoyle will step aside in response to a password.
[edit] Extended Description
As the series progresses, we gradually see more and more of the Headmaster's office, and understand its function better.
We first see it in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry has just rather literally tripped over the Petrified body of Justin Finch-Fletchley. Professor McGonagall, the first on the scene, says nothing in response to Harry's pleas of innocence, except to say that it is out of her hands. She proceeds to a gargoyle in the halls, and says the password ("Sherbert Lemon"), whereupon the gargoyle leaps aside, revealing a slowly ascending circular staircase. Reaching the top of this, they find an oaken double door. Professor McGonagall leaves Harry there. Harry sees that the room contains a vast number of portraits of past headmasters, all evidently asleep; many spindly tables with intricate silvery devices upon them; and the Sorting Hat resting on a shelf. After exchanging some words with the Sorting Hat, Harry notices a very ill-looking bird on a perch behind the door; as he watches; aghast, the bird catches fire. Professor Dumbledore, then entering, tells Harry that the bird, Fawkes, is a Phoenix, and that is his method of immortality; he will shortly be reborn from his own ashes.
In that same book, in a memory of Tom Riddle's, Harry sees the Headmaster's office as it had been in the time of Professor Dippet, the headmaster preceding Dumbledore. The many intricate devices are not there, and neither is Fawkes.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry again visits the headmaster's office, finding another artifact of Dumbledore's: a Pensieve.
In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Professor McGonagall again takes Harry to the Headmaster's office, this time immediately after Harry has seen the vision of Mr. Weasley being attacked. As they approach the office doors, Harry hears a large number of voices all talking at once, but when the doors open, there is nobody there except Dumbledore himself. Over the course of the next few minutes, it becomes apparent that Dumbledore has been speaking with, and apparently receiving information and advice from, the portraits, even though they appear to be sleeping. The evidence for this is that he addresses two of the portraits, who immediately awaken, and sends them off to gather information. Harry also notes that many of the portraits appear to be simply pretending to sleep. Dumbledore also makes use of one of the small devices on the spindly tables, to determine something about the snake which had attacked Mr. Weasley.
Later in that same year, Cornelius Fudge attempts to put Dumbledore under arrest. The attempt fails, but Dumbledore does leave his office. Professor Umbridge is appointed Headmistress by the Ministry, but the Headmaster's office remains sealed to her; evidently the school itself does not recognize her authority.
When the ministry is forced to recognize that Voldemort has returned, at the end of that book, Dumbledore is re-instated as headmaster. Harry, sent to the Headmaster's office by Portkey, notes that the damage that had occurred in Dumbledore's abortive arrest had somehow been repaired. Dumbledore himself arrives shortly by means of Floo powder. In the ensuing, rather heated, discussion, Harry destroys one of the spindly tables and the instrument sitting upon it.
In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, instead of an instrument, one of the tables contains, at various times, artifacts of Tom Riddle's early life.
At the end of that book, after Dumbledore's death, a large portrait of him, asleep, appears in the headmaster's office. The portrait is already present when Professor McGonagall summons the Heads of House to discuss the future of Hogwarts, mere hours after Dumbledore has died, and without anyone else (as far as we know) having been in the office.
While we do see the Headmaster's office several times in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we hear very little of how Snape has changed the decor. The desk is present, the Pensieve is present, and the portraits are all still present on the walls, but of Dumbledore's instruments, or what has replaced them, there is no mention.
[edit] Analysis
It is most curious that Harry, then only a second-year student, should be left alone in the Headmaster's office. This actually is a signal of the respect that Dumbledore inspires in the students; he is willing to trust that the students will not pry into areas of his office that he does not wish them to see. Harry somewhat strains the limits of this respect, by trying on the Sorting Hat on his first visit, and by investigating Dumbledore's Pensieve on a later visit.
[edit] Questions
[edit] Greater Picture
In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, there is no mention of Snape's portrait being present in the Headmaster's office after his death; there is also no mention of a portrait of Umbridge appearing. In the case of Snape, it could be argued that he did not retire or die in office, but rather had run away at a time when the school needed all the help it could get; as no human agent seems to be available to create these portraits, it is possible that the school does it itself, and had refused to create a portrait for a headmaster who deserted his post. In the case of Umbridge, it is quite possible that the school, as mentioned, had never accepted her as headmistress in the first place. In particular, we can see that with assistance from Fawkes, Dumbledore can enter and depart his office without recourse to the Floo network or Portkeys, both of which can be monitored. We can also see that his office has been repaired. It is entirely possible that Dumbledore returned to his office, at least occasionally, enough so that the school recognized him as remaining its headmaster.
