Harry Potter: 10 Best Scenes That Take Place In Hogwarts Classrooms

While the Harry Potter series has many locations from boring Privet Drive to the creepy Malfoy Manor, the majority of the story takes place in the Hogwarts castle or around its grounds. The classrooms themselves are the backdrop for many iconic moments and scenes that show character development. Often, Harry, Ron, and Hermione discuss clues to mysteries like the Sorcerer’s Stone all while learning how to perform charms or brew potions.

The classroom scenes also reveal a lot about the professors at Hogwarts and often foreshadow what’s to come. Because of this, these schoolroom moments are a vital part of the tone, plot, and visuals of the series, and they are home to some of the most memorable sequences that fans love.

10 Lockhart Can’t Control Cornish Pixies

Gilderoy Lockhart might claim to be a brave and heroic wizard who has saved countless people from terrifying dark creatures, but the first indication of how much of a fake he is occurs when he brings Cornish pixies into the classroom.

He can’t even handle these tiny pests and leaves a bunch of 12-year-olds to clean up after them. It’s a rather chaotic scene that involves poor Neville ending up hanging from a chandelier, and it also reveals a lot about how awful and selfish Lockhart really is.

9 Impostor Mad-Eye Teaches Unforgivable Curses

Not all of the scenes that take place in classrooms are upbeat or funny. In fact, some of them are rather disturbing. When Mad-Eye Moody teaches the Unforgivable Curses to his 14-year-old students, it’s hard to understand why Dumbledore would allow it.

It’s a shocking demonstration that made fans and the character feel bad for spiders. This scene might be rather cruel, but it does get the point across to viewers of just how vicious these curses actually are.

8 McGonagall Transforms Into A Cat

Professor McGonagall is an underrated Hogwarts professor because she’s actually one of the most powerful of them all. She might not be an easy teacher, but she is a good one. In Harry’s first Transfiguration class, which he and Ron are late to, McGonagall turns into her animagus cat form.

It’s the first introduction to this intricate and difficult kind of magic, and it makes for a great visual in the movie version. Ron and Harry were definitely not happy to miss most of that class.

7 The First Potions Class

Severus Snape is a mysterious and shady figure immediately when he’s introduced in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and his hatred of Harry is shown in that first class. He singles out Harry for being a celebrity and gets mad at him for taking notes. It’s an important scene because it establishes a core conflict in the story between Harry and Snape and sets Snape up as a potential villain.

This is just the first of many classroom moments where Snape is rude to Harry and bullies him and his other students, but it was a rather dramatic introduction that landed just right.

6 Harry Beating Hermione At Potions

While Harry was never a potions master, even without Snape intimidating him, the Half-Blood Prince book gave him an edge over all of his peers, including Hermione. He is able to brew perfect concoctions and Hermione struggles to keep up.

She clearly is not pleased that Harry is beating her, especially because he’s cheating in her mind. It’s a rather hilarious scene that also established the Half-Blood Prince as a key plot point that will continue to play out.

5 Trewlaney Says Harry Has The Grim

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has some of the best classroom scenes and some of the most fascinating Hogwarts professors are introduced, including Trelawney and Lupin. Professor Trelawney is shown to be an eccentric character immediately when the trio arrives at the first Divination class.

She has them read tea leaves and exclaims in horror that Harry has the Grim and that he’s likely to die. It was definitely one of the more hilarious but also dramatic classroom moments in the franchise.

4 Wingardium Leviosa

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the magic of Hogwarts is in full force, and Harry is just learning about magic and the mysteries of the school. He’s also learning who his friends are. So, this scene when Hermione shows her magical skill while also being rather condescending to Ron is a great character-revealing moment.

It shows a lot about both of these characters, and it also sets the stage for Ron making fun of Hermione which later leads to her encountering the troll in the bathroom. Plus, fans love repeating Hermione’s explanation of how to say the incantation, and it’s a fun spell to see on the screen.

3 Hermione Quits Divination

Professor Trewlaney’s classes are never boring, and she almost always says or does something outlandish. However, while Trelawney being weird is predictable, Hermione quitting a course is not.

This is one of Hermione’s more dramatic moments, and fans loved seeing her put her foot down about Trewlaney’s teaching methods. It was a bit of a triumphant moment for Hermione, and it definitely showed another side of her that no one had seen before.

2 Hagrid Introduces Hippogriffs

While Care of Magical Creatures classes doesn’t technically take place inside of the castle, they are a class. So many fascinating magical creatures are introduced in these classes including unicorns and nifflers, but the most memorable of all are the hippogriffs.

Fans quickly fell in love with Buckbeak, and he also becomes a big part of the plot of Prisoner of Azkaban. It’s also one of Hagrid’s best teaching moments, so it’s a shame Malfoy ruins it by ignoring the rules.

1 Lupin Shows Boggarts To The Class

Perhaps the most exciting and interesting scene in any of Harry’s classes takes place when Remus Lupin introduces boggarts to everyone. For one thing, boggarts are scary but compelling creatures as they reveal the worst fears of those they face, and this allowed fans to get insight into the characters.

Then, the way that boggarts are defeated, using laughter, was hilarious to watch play out. And, fans will never forget seeing Snape in Neville’s grandmother’s clothing. This scene also shows how good of a professor Lupin was compared to the other Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers.

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