Welcome to Hogwarts Is Here!

Chapter 1

Hogwarts is Here; A Brief History

               This magical site started on March 31st, 2014 by <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/keith/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Keith D. Cardin</a>. At the beginning, the site was very plain. Profiles, and forums, and classes for the seven core courses, a simple way to bring the information of Hogwarts to wizards of all walks of life unable to attend the castle themselves. But on July 23rd, 2014 “The Great Schism” happened where, in the middle of a heated discussion of administrations opinions, many Professors left the virtual halls. Since then, courses have seen plenty of Professor turn outs. Some lasting for months, others a few years. You can get all of this information and more in Year Three of History of Magic.

In September of 2015, <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/headmaster/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Orion Oshiro</a> became Headmistress and still resides in the position. She is almost reaching her decade-long adventure, so don’t forget to congratulate her and thank her for her hard work keeping Hogwarts available to all who wish!

Around 2020, a student made a post about HiH on social media that went viral. In the coming months the site became so popular grading queues were seen to be in the thousands! Everyone loved the site gaining popularity. The staff spent a lot of time then to keep the servers and queues under control though, so if you plan to post about it to go viral, please give the staff a heads up 😅.

               A decade later, many new and exciting changes have happened! More courses and lessons, a library, groups and clubs, and many more! Even as I type and publish, many more changes are occurring. I will do my best to make sure I am up to date on changes that happen that affect students like us.

First and Foremost

               BE KIND. If I had a Knut for every time I won an extra House Point just for being kind to staff and Professors, I’d have two Knuts. Which isn’t a lot, but why are people like that? The wonderful people bringing you this magnificent site and material do so freely, of their own time and resources. Including people like you, me, and every Professor or Professor Assistant you will ever meet. Do not expect others to offer time and dedication of a full-time job for this free hobby. You will hear this from every course and it comes from the Code of Conduct for the entire site. Let this sink in the most. The staff talk about pretty much everything behind the scenes, so your rudeness will be mentioned to other Professors before you even have a chance to try it on them, too.

               The site has a soft rule about roleplaying as canon Harry Potter characters, which is don’t use them. This is a contract rule based on the agreement between Keith Cardin and Warner Brothers. While you can role play as an original character related to canon characters, take care how you do so. Harry Potter is currently 35 years old, married to Ginny Weasley with 3 kids at Hogwarts, a career Auror for the Ministry. Most people might be upset with your divergence off canon details. And the use of canon characters in homework assignments might get you flagged as AI plagiarism, as it’s a common spot of the use of AI-generated work. While the site conforms to canon details it also integrates new pseudo-canon material, such as the new Professors and course material. This keeps the Hogwarts magic alive for the decade the site has been open (and hopefully a few decades more).

               There are a handful of site rules you should be aware of. While they are listed in the <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/code-of-conduct/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Code of Conduct</a>, here is also a rundown of the rules:

• Don’t bully or harass; post racist, defamatory, sexist or homophobic content, sexually explicit, graphic or violent content. This also includes derogatory terms for blood status or Houses.
• Don’t advertise or post inappropriate links with any of the above in public areas (school feed, forums, Great Hall chats, comments, etc)
• Don’t encourage people to block or attack others.
• Don’t plagiarize your assignments.
• Keep it clean for minors.

             Despite, canonically, the courses being for 11 year olds and up, the site is recommended for starting 13yo users for both the age of digital consent as well as for the reading and learning capabilities when taking the courses. 

 

Starting Out

            Your Profile

               If you haven’t found it already, in the top right of your page you can click your name and the drop-down menu will have the “View Profile” option. Clicking that will send you to your profile page that can be viewed by anyone. Here, you can edit your pictures, information, and character background to your heart’s desire.

               Here, you should also note your profile ID number. It can be found at the top of your screen in the ‘www.’ line, right after should be a string of numbers. That is your profile ID number. It might not be all that useful for now, but will be required if you plan on signing up for things like Magical Study Groups or PA applications.

            Getting to Class

               Now that you are all set up as a person, you can sign up for courses to receive lessons and homework! Go to the Academic tab to the left of the page, hit the drop-down menu and click “<a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/courses/by-level/1yr/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Course Catalogue</a>”. Here, you can see all the courses for each Year. If you pick a class, hit the “Open Course” button, you will be taken to the class Home Page where you can see announcements from the Professors, the overview, and the lessons. On the left side, under the overview you will see a blue button labeled “Enroll”. Click this and congrats! You are signed up for the course and able to see the lessons and take the assignments.

               After you’ve enrolled in one or more courses, you can see a new section under the Academic tab saying “My Classes”. Here you can see all the courses you are currently enrolled in. Start with a course and open up Lesson 1 and read it, take notes, and take the test(s) related to the lesson. For more information and advice about your assignments, note taking, or courses keep reading.

Good luck with your studying!

            House Points

If you were just wondering how to earn House Points, it’s simple! You get house points for completing assignments from your classes. House Points earned are directly related to the grade you get on the assignment, 100% gets 10 Points, 90% gets 9, and so on. For outstanding work in essays, most courses will allow 1 to 5 extra House Points. This will differ between courses and graders, but they are always well earned!

You can find how many points you’ve received in total in two ways. One, you can simply look next to your name in the top left corner of your screen. Under it will say [# Year] ∙ [# Points]. The number is how many points you’ve received in total. A second way is in your transcript. Under the Academic tab you can view your “Hogwarts Transcript”. This page will show you what points you have earned in each Year (from the Year’s Courses). It’s possible to receive any number of points from 0 to [limit probably does exist] based on your assignments finished, assignment grades, and any extra House Points you might get. For reference; in Year One, if you complete all required assignments for all 8 courses and receive 100% for all of them you will get 800 Points. By also completing the extra credit assignments with 100% on those too, you will get a total of 1260 Points. And then you can add any extra House Points you receive for exemplary work. I’ll add the Points for Year Two and so on in the related chapters as I complete them.

               Note: grading will not be immediate for most of your courses. You will find that some of your assignments are multiple choice only and will be graded immediately. But if there is even one short answer (like in most assignments), that it will need to be graded by actual eyes and that will take a while. Every course will tell you that the grading queue will take a while to get through, this includes high traffic courses like Charms or Flying. The Professors and PA’s have their own lives, give them a week or two to sort it out before hounding them with questions about when your assignments will be graded. The best part is you don’t even have to wait, you can continue to the next lesson without it!

While there is nothing stopping you from seeing Lessons from Second Year and on as a First Year student, you should know that to enroll and view the assignments of later years you will need to complete the previous Year with a passing grade. Unfortunately, this does count for assignments still in the grading queue. A pesky problem for courses with a slow queue.

Also, while it’s possible to take one course through each year, you should also know that to officially graduate to a Second Year, you must complete all 8 Main Courses: Astronomy, Charms, DADA, Herbology, History of Magic, Flying, Potions, and Transfiguration before being able to graduate. In the First Year chapter, I’ve added my thoughts about how each course is and pairs best with, so maybe you can read that while deciding which one you should start with!

Taking Notes

               It is consistently mentioned in every course that cheating will not be tolerated. That includes copying and pasting the written lesson into your answers. If you are here to seriously learn the material, I suggest your note-taking reflect how you learn and in your own words. That would be a step in the direction of original work.

               If you haven’t already noticed from Muggle schooling, notes are important. There is a whole psychology branch that is dedicated to understanding how best to take notes and learn from any course material. While you could find a lot of informative articles about it on your own, here are some main points that will help you during your HiH time:

·        Hand written is best. Something about your brain making your hand write the words helps retain and understand the material so much better. Some of my first days, specifically with Astronomy, gave me cramps. Do pace yourself if you attempt this. If you are still going the tech angle let me know your favorite programs!

·        Leave space between notes. There is a chance you will need margins or free lines to add more information. Whether its information later in the lesson or advice from Professors or PA’s about wrong test answers, you will need some space.

·        Colors! Using colors to highlight specific information will help not only your search through your notes but also help your brain file information away. Try to be consistent in every course, I did blue for dates, pink for names of organizations or individuals, and green for spells. But you do the best for you!

·        Sleep. If you are planning on zipping through as many courses as possible in a day, you could be a hero, but what would you actually learn? Sleep is very important for storing long-term information in your brain. Use it.

 

               Many students also choose not to handwrite notes, or to write notes at all. If you find you are not great with notes or still not understanding the course material, then you can look for other alternatives. If you are a great listener, perhaps you can read the lessons outloud or find a text-to-speech browser add on to read it for you. If you still need a one-on-one approach help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it. Owl a Professor or Head Student of the course, Or you can join the Discordian Castle (more on that later). Many seasoned students would say that the first few years are simple enough to read and reread the lesson and pass the assignments. Owl me with what helped you!

Owls

               Don’t fret! This is not the section for your O.W.L.s, they will be added to Year Five chapter when we get there. This is referencing the messages sent by Owl system. No, HiH does not have cute fluffy owls to deliver your parcels, though.

               Sending Owls is simple. First you must click on the profile of the person you want to message, under the top banner of their profile picture will be “Follow [person]” and “Send Message”. Click the mail icon and it will send you to your messages page where it will start a thread of emails to said person. You can write up your message in the bottom box and hit send when you’re done. Don’t forget to be respectful!

               When you receive Owls, you will find at any time that at the top right of your page will be a mail icon with a red dot noting your new messages. Clicking it will pull down a drop menu where you can preview your messages, the new ones will also have a red dot by it. When you click on the messages it will take you back to your messages page where you can view the new message. On the left of the screen, you can also see all previous messages in or out.

               This will be important if you have personal needs to ask of Professors or Professor Assistants/Head Students. Rather than posting publicly on their profile, this is a good way to communicate to others on HiH. If you want to practice, try sending me one!

            FAQ’s

               If you have any questions or wish to learn you can find the <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/faq/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Frequently Asked Questions</a> under the “More at HiH” tab. For any other questions feel free to Owl Headmistress Oshiro, any Professor or Head Students. Someone will have the answer or advice for you!

The "Hump"

               If you have signed up for just a look around, great! Tell me how you like it and your initial thoughts!

               If you are just trying it out with no expectations, or have IRL responsibilities that keep you from working hard, then there is no shame in that. This site is a fun hobby with no real commitments. I hope the magic never ends for you.

               But, if you are like me, trying to knuckle down and complete all seven years and gain as much knowledge as you can, here are some tips that helped me stay focused on the goal:

·        Make friends! Sometimes, the only motivation I had to get on the site was to check Owls from friends. Plus, finding friends with the same goals or intentions help you stay focused, improve your mood, and have someone to work with. Even if you have to bring your own friends to the site.

·        Study Groups! Having a group helped me learn the courses, stay focused, and make new friends. Make one or join one already made!

·        Set a Schedule! While this might not be enough for some, it might work for those who work best with a deadline. MSG will provide a schedule (later explained), but making one yourself to best work for your life might be best. This could be 1 lesson a day, or maybe all first lessons in a weekend. Whatever works best for you, let me know what you did!

·        Groups and Clubs! HiH site offers a wide variety of groups and clubs (and the ability to make your own). You can join groups for your House dormitories, years, clubs for courses, even for roleplaying.

You should know, as a motivational tool, that if you think First Year is fun, Second Year is even more magical. There are more elective course like Alchemy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Divination to inspire learning. Enroll to any that fit your fancy (or all if you are ambitious enough, or have the desire to learn everything). Technically you will need to pass two of them to graduate to Year Three, but you might be hard pressed to find only one class that’s exciting! Not that you have to wait until Second Year to take Year Two electives.

Around the Castle

Now let's get to the real tour!

            Dormitory

               Now, I think by the time you are able to view this book, you should have already picked your House. In this section you will find a number of dormitories for your House to join. This could be your first stop to connect with others in your House and Year.

               You will only be able to join one Dorm at a time, a notible difference from the Groups and Clubs section. You do have the ability to leave and join a different Dorm if you desire it. You can scroll down the right side of the screen, under the leaderboard, and find the red button "Leave this Dorm". It will take you back to the Dormitory page where you can choose another Dorm or start one yourself! The site will automatically update you of any notifications from the Dorm.

            The Great Hall

               <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/great-hall" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This place</a> shows all the Houses points, Head of Houses, and leaderboard for each top member of all four houses.

               If you are wondering how the House Points are calculated you can read so under the banner of Head of House. They take the members active in the last 30 days with at least 10 House Points already. And for each House they take all the points earned from active members, divide it by how many active members there are, then multiply the average by 100 (for dramatic effect!). And there is the new total for each House! The totals usually get edited every few months and the House Award gets awarded! You can always see when the totals were calculated under the same banner.

With Ravenclaw in an almost 50,000 House Point lead, I don’t see them getting 2^nd place anytime soon. Make that a rallying force for any Gryffindors, Slytherins, or Hufflepuffs!

The House student leaderboards will show the highest ranking stundents from each grade and from the entire House. The page will start you on your grade, but you can toggle by using the drop down menu from the colored banner, it will change all the other houses too.

If you are setting a goal to make the leaderboard there are two things you should know. One, it will only show you in the year you are currently based on the Points you have recieved for the years courses. If you move on to different years you will have to start over, and will not count points done in other years courses either. Two, the code has been jinxed, so it's no longer showing accurate readings. Perhaps it will be fixed next. You can find an accurate leaderboard in your Dorms. On the right, under Dorm Members, it will show the top 12 students in the entire House with their entire Points. Good luck if you are from Ravenclaw or Slytherin.

Groups and Clubs

               Here are some groups and clubs I’d suggest looking into. Sometimes these groups and clubs are not always as active as we want them to be, but you can change that by turning on notifications (on the right hand side of the groups page, choose the “Yes, send me notifications” and then hit “Update notification preferences) and chatting with other students. Hope to see you around!

·        <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/groups/3549/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Greenhouse</a> – if you are planning to make your way in the Herbology world, this might be the best place to find friends and other to continue in your pursuits! It is offered to join in your first introduction in Herbology class, and is a nice space to roleplay Herbology things.

·        <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/groups/13729/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">House Point Competition Group</a> – Professor Plumb (Professor of Astronomy and Head of Ravenclaw House) offers a monthly competition to all HiH students in a race for the most House Points. You must first have 30 points to start (an easy first week goal) and permission from Plumb himself. First, Second, and Third places receive a gold, silver, and bronze medal that are posted to your profile wall by Professor Plumb himself! If you are going to get House Points might as well put them to even better use!

·        Common Rooms – Every House will have a group, go ahead and find yours. This will be a nice place to roleplay your character and find friends within your house!

·        <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/groups/search/?term=Quidditch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Quidditch</a> – If you want to join a Quidditch team, great news! Join your House team's official club or even some of the roleplaying games. With 50+ teams and roleplaying groups you might have to scroll through to find one best for you! Or join the Hogwarts band!

·        If you have a special interest within Hogwarts (or even out), you might be lucky enough to find a group or club already waiting for you. Or you could always start one yourself and find friends with similar interests.

Magical Study Groups

*As of January 2025, Headmistress Oshiro officially closed down the HiH Magical Study Groups due to low involvement. But, from the success of the launch of the Discord group, she decided to open the Discord to all students (again, still 13yo+ users)! This place acts as a MSG itself, and more on that later.

    Whether you join <a style="mso-comment-reference: BL_1; mso-comment-date: 20241205T1637;">MSG</a> directly from HiH or on Discord (for 13+ users), it’s to help you along your way in lessons by asking questions to fellow students or guidance from PA’s or Professors. It might be your most useful tool. It certainly was for me!

               While all coursework is free on your own time, with no deadlines or timers anywhere on the site, some of you, like myself, might work best with a schedule. One is usually supplied during MSG, it’s shown to be a schedule over 6 weeks in each four or five days between each date. In my experience, it's best to set up five courses, one lesson each day from five courses to get you through the six weeks. If you want to plow through all eight courses in this time frame, absolute best wishes. It could be done, but if you, or someone you know, has successfully completed it please let me know. Otherwise, you are free to study at your own pace.

Hogwartle

               It’s the Hogwarts Wordle of the day! If you are not familiar with the Wordle I suggest looking up New York Times Wordle, it’s a fun word game where you have six times to guess a five-letter word. It will give you hints about the letters you’ve previously used, whether you have the right letter in the wrong spot or the right letter in the correct spot. And, it’s not always as easy as it appears.

               If you are familiar with the Wordle, do not think you are completely ready. The Hogwartle uses five-lettered words from the Harry Potter universe. You could use regular words, but the answer will exclusively lie in the Harry Potter words. This does include names like Snape and Fleur, and also -s words like Wands or Robes. So, don’t get too comfortable.

               Currently you do NOT get any House Points for guessing correctly (even with the correct second guess). But your statistics are a great way to show off to friends (or hide if you’re rubbish like me). You can also join the <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/groups/71826/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hogwartle Hub Group</a> to share your winning game, just not the answers. I usually start with the word “Magic”. And now that you have five words already under your cap get going and good luck!

The Library

               You are probably already slightly familiar with the library if you are reading this. Under the Library tab you can search through Textbooks (books written by staff, or books needed for few courses), New or Updated books, Your Bookshelf or even books you’ve published yourself. To add books to your bookshelf just click on the book and it will take you to the page. To the right, under the header, is a blue button that says “Add to my Bookshelf”. Click that and you’ve done it! You can always see your books under your Bookshelf tab. And great news! You can keep it for as long as you need, no return dates!

              As of March 24th, 2025, the Library received a huge upgrade! In previous years, the coding for the library has been neglected and was opened for a multitude of spam ads and bots. Additionally, the lax publishing policies (read: none) allowed students to publish unsavory content such as violent or mature content, content that was for personal communication or advertisement, or content that was derived from course material that allowed cheating or had out of date material. Our Librarian, <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/1637966/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Miss Cornelia Kensington</a>, worked diligently with our Headmistress for two long weeks to  clean and reconfigure the Library to better suit students.  

              The new Library now comes with new requirements for publishing content that will have to be approved by Librarian or library staff. The <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/policy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Library Policies</a> can be found by the link but they pretty straightforward. If you are still looking to publish a book on the site, Miss Keningston has outlined how the new publishing process will go:

"Once a student submits a book/chapter, it firstly lands in our approval queue. I read the contents and make sure the book is up to our library policy codes. If the contents are good to go, I will accept the book and it will show in our library publicly. If the contents need a small change I will send it for a revision*. If the book is obviously against our policies, I will reject it."

             *Depending on severity of revisals. Miss Keningston mentioned she will edit simple typos before publishing, but for sections that need fixing will result in the author being notified. All submission updates, like approvals or revisals, will notify the author through their HiH notifications. If comments are made from librarian staff the notification will send them to a page where they can read the comments on their submissions.

             Another exciting new addition to the library is the Spotlight section! 

"The spotlight section is planned to have books in it that I enjoyed reading, the most read books, or simply a book we would like more attention on."

             So if you are planning to write and publish in the HiH Library don't forget to familiarize yourself with the new policies and criteria. If your just looking to browse around, don't forget to give the spotlight section a look to find new and exciting books recommended by the Library staff themselves.

              

Ads

               I’m sorry, the site will have advertisements. Everywhere. They will be annoying, and might add to the lagging of the site. Ads are how the site makes its money to stay active. I’d suggest that if you are writing an essay, start in a different document and copy and paste to the assignment submission box. If you are in a quiz that includes more than a handful of short answers, wait until the site starts to slow down then cancel all the ads on the page you can. That will free up a few more seconds to write your answers and submit the work. Or find a way to download a free and reputable ad blocker to your web browser. Then, consider <a href="https://hogwartsishere.com/donate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">donating a few dollars</a> to the site.

Site Outages

               You should also know, that under current management and coding team, that the site has occasional issues. They usually manifest as security certification ended or servers become overloaded. These also effect the PA’s and Professors and there is not much to be done until the coding team gets a hold and fixes the problem. This could take weeks. No one on the site will suggest you still log in and put your internet security at risk. If the site outages take more than a few days (as they are apt to do), most competitions and events will cease or wait until the site is running again. Do not despair! Check in every few days to see if the site is up, or if you are in the Discord or Facebook groups most of the time updates will be posted and you can resume your work!