Hogwarts.
Hogwarts School, located somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland, consisted of the large Hogwarts Castle and extensive school grounds surrounding it, which included sloping lawns, flowerbeds, vegetable patches, as well as a loch (called the Black Lake), a large dense forest (called the Forbidden Forest), several greenhouses and other outbuildings, and a full-size Quidditch pitch. One of the castle's towers held an owlery, which housed all the owls owned by the school and by students.
Please join me to welcome, the lovely students of the
Beauxbatons.
Beauxbatons Academy of Magic was the French wizarding school, located in the Pyrenees mountains of southern France. The school took many of its
wizarding students from France, as well as large numbers from Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. It is unknown if students from other countries were allowed. The school's coat of arms consisted of two golden wands crossed over one another, each shooting three stars.
And now our friends from the north.
Please greet the proud sons of
Durmstrang.
Durmstrang once had the darkest reputation of all eleven wizarding schools, though this was never entirely merited. It is true that Durmstrang, which has turned out many truly great witches and wizards, has twice in its history fallen under the stewardship of wizards of dubious allegiance or nefarious intent, and that it has one infamous ex-pupil.
Although believed to be situated in the far north of Europe, Durmstrang is one of the most secretive of all schools about its whereabouts, so nobody can be quite certain. Visitors, who must comply with memory charms to erase their knowledge of how they got there, speak of vast, sprawling grounds with many stunning views, not least of the great, dark, spectral ship that is moored on a mountain lake behind the school, from which students dive in summertime.
