Harry Potter: 10 Things That Make No Sense About the Common Rooms

Harry potter himself gets to visit three of the four Hogwarts common rooms during his time at school (only missing out on Hufflepuff). While common rooms are some of the most beloved locations to Harry Potter fans the world over, they are still very strange spots for students to spend so much time.

From bright and airy Ravenclaw tower to the Slytherin dungeons below the lake, the common rooms are as diverse as the students who reside there. But, despite everything, magic and mischief included, Hogwarts is still a school, and the common rooms are a bit strange when it comes to keeping students safe and happy while at school.

10 Friends Can’t Visit Friends

If the common rooms are meant for doing homework and hanging out, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that they are so segregated and secret. While most of Harry’s friends are in Gryffindor, that is not true for other characters like Luna Lovegood.

It seems silly that she can’t visit her friends in Gryffindor on weekends, or that they all have to find a place to meet up in the library if they plan to study together. The separate common rooms are detrimental to friendships in general.

9 They Are Secret

Why shouldn’t students in different houses know where the other students they are boarding with live and sleep? Why is it so necessary to keep the locations of common rooms a secret? Was there ever a history of students destroying the spaces?

How can students build relationships, trust, and magical cooperation if they are told, as soon as they arrive at school, that they should lie to one another. Why can’t students just be honest?

8 They Are Always the Right Size

Not every year has the same amount of students. Harry and his father both roomed in a dorm with five boys, but when Teddy Lupin eventually attends Hogwarts he is likely part of a smaller cohort, since less children were probably born during the Second Wizarding War.

Yet, no one ever mentions that the common rooms are too small or too large for the students who need to spend time there. They always seem to be the right size for the house they need to accommodate.

7 They Don’t All Use Passwords

Why all the houses, if they have to be secret, don’t use passwords has always been strange. Of course, it seems that each house creator (Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, Salazar Slytherin, and Godric Gryffindor) could make their own choice, but it seems strange that they should be so individualistic about bit.

If anyone was going to make a different decision it might have been Slytherin, who didn’t always agree with the other founders, but yet he simply places a password on his house’s common room. It’s strange that not all houses can be accessed with a password.

6 The Passwords Change

Of course passwords change for security reasons, but it’s never been clear who comes up with the passwords (especially since Slytherin is protected by a stone wall, rather than a portrait of some kind). It’s never been clear how the passwords change, only that they do.

The secrecy that surrounds Hogwarts houses is a bit overdone, it would seem. Apparently Slytherin wasn’t the only founder who was paranoid about protecting his own.

5 No Adult Supervision

Except when McGonagall comes to speak with the Gryffindors about the break in of Sirius Black, or when she and the Carrows join Harry and Luna in Ravenclaw tower, adults are never a presence in the common rooms of any house.

It’s the prefects who show first years the way when they first arrive at school. The fact that faculty should be so hands off with so many minors in residence is very strange. Not only are the common rooms secret from other students, but from other staff as well. Emergencies must be very problematic when they arise.

4 No One Looks For Them

The fact that three other common rooms exist, outside of the one each first year is introduced to, is no secret, only their locations are. It’s strange that more students don’t go searching for the common rooms of the other houses. There are enough inter-house friendships that it would make sense for friends to go searching one another out.

Yet, except for using polyjuice potion and trying to interrogate Draco, no students in Harry’s year are ever seen searching for other common rooms.

3 Very Popular

The common rooms at Hogwarts are very popular. Think of all the times Harry, Ron, and Hermione are seen discussing things, doing homework, or just being exhausted on the maroon couches in Gryffindor Tower.

What doesn’t make sense is why so much time is spent in a particular common room when Hogwarts is a huge castle. Why don’t more students hang out elsewhere? Look for more secluded corridors or classrooms to rest in, do homework, tell secrets?

2 Secret Entrances

Gryffindor tower and Ravenclaw tower both boast sentient guards on their respective doors (the Fat Lady and the knocker). Why should Gryffindors have to know a password and Ravenclaws answer a riddle?

Why don’t the secret entrances recognize the members of their own houses (the same way the Sorting Hat can identify who belongs where)? If the secrecy surrounding common rooms is based on security, this would be much more secure.

1 Professors Not in the Know

Again, it’s about safety and the number of children at Hogwarts, but the fact that professors don’t have regular access to common rooms (unless they are the head of house of a particular group) seems like an unfortunate oversight when it comes to student safety.

Why common rooms should be secret to staff (who should not be trying to sabotage another group of students) doesn’t make much sense.

About The Author