Ah yes, Hufflepuff. The most underrated Hogwarts house because they honestly had nothing to do with the main Harry Potter story until Newt Scamander became the Hufflepuff MVP. (Sorry Cedric, may you rest in peace or turn into a sparkly vampire.)
Since the gang doesn’t really have consistent Hufflepuff friends or enemies, we end up not knowing much about the Hufflepuff common room aside from the fact that it exists. Whoops?
Representing the loyalty and pride of the Hufflepuff Nation, here are 10 secrets about the Hufflepuff common room.
Inclusion in the Books
Originally, our intrepid trio—or at the very least, Harry Potter himself—was supposed to visit every house common room in Hogwarts. They only got to three out of the four. Gryffindor is a given, Ron and Harry infiltrate the Slytherin Dungeon as Crabb and Goyle, and Luna Lovegood took Harry into the Ravenclaw Tower in search of Ravenclaw’s diadem.
To be fair, there wasn’t a good way to work in a visit to the Hufflepuff common room. Cedric and Harry weren’t exactly friends and the Hufflepuff cup had been entrusted to Bellatrix Lestrange. She certainly wouldn’t have put the cup in the most obvious place to look for it. So the intention was there, the plot prohibited it.
Location in Hogwarts
The Hufflepuff common room is located in the basement of Hogwarts, next to the kitchens. Isn’t basement a nicer word than dungeon? Sounds like we’re locking the Slytherins up for crimes they might commit in the future.
The dorms are only one floor beneath the ground, making them the coziest sleeping quarters as opposed to those in the towers, like Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. Sure, heat can travel up, but that means nothing in an ancient castle with no updated insulation system!
Entrance to the Common Room
To get to the common room, students have to go towards the kitchens, located in the basement of the castle. The entrance is specifically “in a nook on the right-hand side of the kitchen corridor,” behind a stack of barrels.
Unlike the other common rooms, entrance to the Hufflepuff one doesn’t require a password. But it does require knowledge and precision. You need to tap the barrel two from the bottom in the middle of the second row, in the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff. Done correctly, the lid will open and reveal a passageway for students to crawl through.
Appearance
Hufflepuffs take the badger symbol to heart. The whole basement element kind of makes the common room feel like a badger den, which is adorable and wonderfully on the nose.
There’s a circle motif going on with all the windows and doors, copper, and yellow and black. It doesn’t sound like any of this should go together, but the official art looks great.
Atmosphere
Despite being underground, the Hufflepuff common room is described as welcome and warm. And that’s not just the people who make it like that. The low ceiling and bright colors make for a nice, cozy space.
All official descriptions of the common room make it sound like a Hobbit hole and it’s amazing. You know Hufflepuffs have second breakfast.
Furnishings
Professor Sprout is the head of Hufflepuff house and just so happens to be the Herbology professor. Though they probably existed in the common room before, Sprout is credited with bringing various plants into the room and placing them in windows or hanging them from the ceiling. The plants make it even more of a lovely place, since some of them dance, talk (what???), and wave. There’s also a lot of cacti, indicating that the common room is a dry, warm place. Glad they got around the humid basement thing.
The Dormitories
Like the other dorms, Hufflepuff separates between boys and girls. There’s apparently a lot of other tunnels branching out from the common room, but we’re not quite sure where those go. The dorms themselves have the typical four-poster beds with patchwork quilts.
Keeping with the common room’s general aesthetic, the dorms have copper lamps for that nice warm glow as well as copper bed-warmers. That’s really weird to think about considering heating existed during the entirety of the Harry Potter run. Like, that was only in the mid-'90s. But hey, bed-warmers are still a valid, questionably useful invention!
The Kitchens
In order to get to the common room, a student would have to walk directly by the kitchens. Makes sense, considering the kitchens were Helga Hufflepuff’s contribution to Hogwarts. She was the originator of many Hogwarts recipes and also was particularly adept at food-related charms.
It’s probable that Hufflepuffs would know how to get into the kitchen. They do have a reputation of sneaking in there for snacks! On the way to the common room, there’s a still-life portrait of a bowl of fruit. Tickling the pear will make the doorway appear. Ha, appear.
Penalty for Failure
Unlike all other common rooms, Hufflepuff has a built-in security system of sorts. In true Hufflepuff fashion, it’s more of a nuisance than an actual defense mechanism. It’s just meant to discourage others from breaking in rather than hurting the intruder.
If the “password” is done incorrectly, one of the barrels from the stack will pop open and cover the intruder in vinegar. See? It’s only terrible if you don’t close your eyes.
The Ultimate Secret
Not being included in the books does have its lore perks. Meet Gabriel Truman, a Hufflepuff prefect from Harry’s first year at Hogwarts. And wow, was he a quintessential Hufflepuff. Leagues above Percy as a Prefect, he gave a very passionate speech and interjected with a little anecdote concerning Hufflepuff pride.
But the most important nugget of information he gave us that obviously makes Hufflepuff the best house is that the Hufflepuff common room hasn’t been seen by non-Hufflepuff students for at least a thousand years. Considering Harry entered Slytherin and Ravenclaw’s common rooms, this makes Hufflepuff’s the most secure out of the four.
Sure, you could make the argument that the Marauders got in to make the Marauder’s Map, but consider that the general location of the common rooms are known. And enchantments could’ve taken care of the details on the map without making the Marauders travel to the exact location.