Gryffindor Tower

Gryffindor Tower is located behind the portrait of the Fat Lady on the Seventh Floor of Hogwarts Castle. A password is required to enter it, which is spoken to the portrait. A circular hole is behind the painting, leading to the common room, which is a circular room where Gryffindor students can relax after a long day of studying. The common room is full of squashy armchairs, tables, and a bulletin board where school notices, ads, lost posters, etc. can be posted. A window looks out onto the grounds of the school, and a large fireplace dominates one wall. The common room is usually where celebration parties are held after Gryffindor Quidditch victories, or when Harry Potter completed a task for the Triwizard Tournament. It was also the location for Harry and Ginny Weasley's first kiss following Gryffindor's Quidditch Cup victory in 1997. The common room fireplace was used on several occasions by Sirius Black to contact Harry while he was on the run from the Ministry of Magic.

The Gryffindor dormitories are also located in the Tower, with two doors leading off from the common room that open to spiral staircases. One of them leads to the girls dormitory, the other to the boys. The stairs to the girls dormitories are enchanted to become a slide if any boy attempts to climb them, but not vice versa, since it was deemed that girls were more trustworthy than boys, and Hermione went into the boy's room once.

Known Passwords used to enter the Gryffindor Common Room

 * Abstinence
 * Balderdash
 * Banana Fritters
 * Baubles
 * Caput Draconis (Latin for "Dragon's Head")
 * Dilligrout
 * Fairy Lights
 * Flibbertigibbet
 * Fortuna Major (Latin for "bigger luck")
 * Mimbulus Mimbletonia
 * Oddsbodikins
 * Pig Snout
 * Quid Agis (Latin for "How are you")
 * Scurvy Cur
 * Tapeworm
 * Wattlebird

Behind the scenes

 * When Ron Weasley and Lavender Brown begin dating, one chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince describes them as being "in a prominent corner of the common room". However, the Common Room is circular. It is possible that there are nooks or alcoves in various areas around the wall.
 * The charm used to make the Girls' dormitory stairs into a slide may be the Glisseo charm.
 * In the video game adaptation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after going through the portrait-hole there is a short stone hallway leading to the actual common room. This hallway also leads to an old room behind a tapestry, a quiet study area for Gryffindor students, frequently used by Percy, and a secret bathroom used by Fred and George Weasley as an in-school joke shop.
 * In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the entrance is on one end of a hallway. Whereas in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the video game adaptations of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, it is located on the Seventh Floor of the Grand Staircase Tower. As the shape of the common room doesn't change, one explanation of this change of loaction may be that these particular stairs were not there in the first movie, and were built to replace the coridor during the summer of 1992, before Harry's third years started.
 * In the film adaptations of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, we can see the Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory is shown to be located in a small tower (see above) at one corner of the Paved Courtyard close to the Clock Tower. This is consistant with the Fat Lady's location in Philosophers's Stone, but it is inconsistent with Fat Lady's location in the third film and fifth and sixth video games (in the Grand Staircase Tower). One possible explanation is that the portrait is a secret passageway or short cut which connects the two areas of the castle.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
 * Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
 * The Queen's Handbag
 * The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
 * Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4