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The Map of Hogwarts and Surrounding Areas: journeys around the grounds in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
This section shows the likely routes around the grounds which the characters take in specific scenes, separated up by book.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone The first years cross the lake to the castle Malfoy takes Neville's Remembrall during broom-training Snape goes to meet Quirrel in the woods Detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets The descent of the flying Ford Anglia Harry and Ron follow the spiders into the Forest
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban The Hippogriff paddock To the Shrieking Shack, via Hogsmeade To the Shrieking Shack, doubled in time
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Hagrid, Maxime and Harry visit the Dragons The Trio visit Sirius in his cave The Second Task Barty Snr is found in the woods The Third Task
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Hagrid takes his students to see the Thestrals Snape's worst memory Hagrid takes Harry and Hermione to visit Grawp The gang find Thestrals to ride to the Ministry
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry and Tonks walk from the station to Hogwarts Katie Bell touches the cursed necklace Dumbledore and Harry fly from Hogsmeade to the Astronomy Tower Snape and the Death Eaters flee the castle
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Hagrid and Grawp cross the Forest Harry goes to Voldemort in the Forest
[cut] he hurtled round a bend in the lane and collided with what seemed to be an enormous bear on its hind legs. 'Hagrid!' he panted, disentangling himself from the hedgerow into which he had fallen. 'Harry!' said Hagrid, [cut] 'Jus' bin visitin' Grawp, he's comin' on so well yeh wouldn' –' [HBP ch. #12; p. 234]
'Right then,' said Aberforth, [cut] 'Wait for daybreak, when curfew lifts, then you can put your Cloak back on and set out on foot. Get right out of Hogsmeade, up into the mountains, and you'll be able to Disapparate there. Might see Hagrid. He's been hiding in a cave up there with Grawp ever since they tried to arrest him.' [HBP ch. #28; p. 452]
But her final words were drowned as a different voice echoed throughout the Hall. It was high, cold and clear: there was no telling from where it came; it seemed to issue from the walls themselves. Like the monster it had once commanded, it might have lain dormant there for centuries. [DH ch. #31; p. 490]
‘Heard You-Know-Who from up in our cave,’ said Hagrid grimly. ‘Voice carried, didn’ it? [cut] Smashed our way through the boundary by the forest, Grawpy was carryin’ us, Fang an’ me.' [DH ch. #31; p. 498]
Voldemort's voice reverberated from the walls and floor, and Harry realised that he was talking to Hogwarts and to all the surrounding area, that the residents of Hogsmeade and all those still fighting in the castle would hear him as clearly as if he stood beside them [DH ch. #33; p. 529]
When Hagrid appears rather unexpectedly in front of Harry in a castle corridor at the start of the final battle, having been heaved in through an upstairs window by Grawp, he tells Harry that he and Grawp have come across the Forbidden Forest from Grawp's cave, after hearing Voldemort's broadcast. If Harry is right to think that the second broadcast extends "to Hogwarts and to all the surrounding area", and if that applies to the first broadcast as well, then Grawp's cave is somewhere in the area around Hogsmeade.
We know it must be somewhere where part of the Forest lies between the cave and the castle, so it isn't south or east or (probably) north-east of the castle. It probably isn't south-west of the castle either, because it sounds as though the cave is probably quite close to the Forest boundary, and south-west or west-sou'-west of the castle a position close to the edge of the Forest would also be very close to Hogsmeade, and in level fields, not mountains. It must lie on an arc from due west round to nor'-nor'-east.
Add to this that the cave is probably not a huge distance from the village, and that Hagrid seems to get to it by coming out of the main gates and turning right, and we can say that the cave is probably west or north-west of the castle, because if you move further round towards due north you're getting a long way from Hogsmeade, and if you go round as far as nor'-nor'-east it would be more natural to get to it by going up the path to the station. I have therefore placed the cave west-nor'-west of the castle, on the east side of the same mountain as Sirius's cave.
Starting from their cave (0) Hagrid, Grawp and Fang (white dots) descend the mountain and break through the boundary wall (1). Grawp then carries Hagrid and Fang right across the Forest, probably passing through or near Grawp's original clearing (2) and picking up the path (3) as they approach the castle, ending on the front lawn (4).
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'Lets get out of range!' yelled Ron, as the giant swung its club again [cut]'The Whomping Willow,' said Harry. 'Go!' [cut] He sprinted [cut] faster than he had ever moved in his life, and it was he who saw the great tree first, the Willow that protected the secret at its roots with whip-like, slashing branches. [cut] [cut] the only way forwards was to kill the snake, and the snake was where Voldemort was, and Voldemort was at the end of this tunnel ... [cut] Harry wriggled into the earthy passage hidden in the tree's roots. It was a much tighter squeeze than it had been the last time they had entered it. The tunnel was low-ceilinged: they had had to double up to move through it nearly four years previously, now there was nothing for it but to crawl. [DH ch. #32; p. 522-523]
They crawled back through the tunnel, none of them talking, and Harry wondered whether Ron and Hermione could still hear Voldemort ringing in their heads, as he could. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest ... one hour ... [cut] The castle was unnaturally silent, [cut] The flagstones of the deserted Entrance Hall were stained with blood. [DH ch. #33; p. 530]
The Great Hall seemed to fly away, become smaller, shrink, [cut] He turned away and ran up the marble staircase. [cut] The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall. Harry ran without stopping, clutching the crystal flask of Snape's last thoughts, and he did not slow down until he reached the stone gargoyle guarding the Headmaster's office. [DH ch. #33; p. 531]
He looked down at the battered gold watch he had received on his seventeenth birthday. Nearly half of the hour allotted by Voldemort for his surrender had elapsed. [DH ch. #34; p. 556]
He moved down the steps and out into the darkness. It was nearly four in the morning [DH ch. #34; p. 557]
Hagrid's hut loomed out of the darkness. There were no lights, [cut] He moved on, and now he reached the edge of the Forest, and he stopped. A swarm of Dementors was gliding amongst the trees; [DH ch. #34; p. 559]
[cut] he heard slight movements around him that suggested frail bodies shifting their footing on the earthy, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer edge of the Forest. [DH ch. #34; p. 560]
And he set off. The Dementors' chill did not overcome him; he passed through it with his companions, and they acted like Patronuses to him, and together they marched through the old trees that grew closely together, their branches tangled, their roots gnarled and twisted underfoot. Harry clutched the Cloak tightly around him in the darkness, travelling deeper and deeper into the Forest, with no idea where exactly Voldemort was, but sure that he would find him. [DH ch. #34; p. 561]
Two figures emerged from behind a nearby tree: their wands flared, and Harry saw Yaxley and Dolohov peering into the darkness,[cut] 'Time's nearly up. Potter's had his hour. He's not coming.' [cut] [Yaxley] and Dolohov turned and walked deeper into the Forest. Harry followed them, knowing that they would lead him exactly where he wanted to go. [cut] They had travelled on mere minutes when Harry saw light ahead, and Yaxley and Dolohov stepped out into a clearing that Harry knew had been the place where the monstrous Aragog had once lived. The remnants of his vast web were there still, [DH ch. #34; p. 562]
'I was, it seems ... mistaken,' said Voldemort. 'You weren't.' [DH ch. #34; p. 563]
'You carry him,' Voldemort said. 'He will be nice and visible in your arms, will he not? Pick up your little friend, Hagrid.' [cut] [cut]Harry could feel Hagrid's arms trembling with the force of his heaving sobs, great tears splashed down upon him as Hagrid cradled Harry in his arms, [cut] 'Move,' said Voldemort, and Hagrid stumbled forwards, forcing his way through the close-growing trees, back through the Forest. Branches caught at Harry's hair and robes, but he lay quiescent, his mouth lolling open, his eyes shut, [cut] The two giants crashed along behind the Death Eaters; Harry could hear trees creaking and falling as they passed; [cut] The victorious procession marched on towards the open ground, and after a while Harry could tell, by the lightening of the darkness through his closed eyelids, that the trees were beginning to thin. [cut] [cut]Harry wondered how many centaurs were watching their procession pass; he dared not open his eyes to look. [cut] A little later, Harry sensed, by a freshening of the air, that they had reached the edge of the Forest. [DH ch. #36; p. 582/583]
The Death Eaters came to a halt: Harry heard them spreading out in a line facing the open front doors of the school. He could see, even through his closed lids, the reddish glow that meant light streamed upon him from the Entrance Hall. [DH ch. #36; p. 584]
This sequence contains a major timing-related error. As detailed in the section on Hogsmeade, we know that it feels to Harry as if it takes him an hour to walk the tunnel from the castle to Honeydukes, up to the point at which the passage begins to rise, and from then on it takes him a definite ten minutes to reach the end. The whole journey from castle to village can hardly have taken less than a minimum of twenty-five minutes, and that's assuming that what felt like an hour was only a quarter of an hour.
We know the Shrieking Shack is near the village, so fairly near Honeydukes, and we are also told that the tunnel from the Whomping Willow to the Shack goes "on and on" and that it feels to Harry to be at least as long as the one to Honeydukes. Even if Harry is wrong about that, it's still a fair length. By my calculations the Shack is about three quarters of a mile from the Willow, so even if the tunnel is straight it should take a quarter of an hour to walk it upright, and probably double that to crawl it. [With practice, people can "bear crawl" slightly faster than normal walking speed - but there's no reason to think the Trio are practiced crawlers, or that they know how to bear-crawl - that is, running on hands and feet like a baboon, with the body well off the ground.]
Yet, we are told that after Voldemort gives Harry an hour to come to him, Harry crawls back the full length of the tunnel, crosses the lawn from the Willow to the castle, spends at least some moments contemplating the dead in the Great Hall, runs upstairs to the Head's office and views Snape's memories - all in less than half an hour.
Even if the viewing of Snape's Pensieved memories is an instantaneous process which happens in a bubble outside time, there's still a missing fifteen minutes somewhere here - and if Snape's memories were viewed in real-time there's at least half an hour missing.
One obvious solution is that the castle magically shortened the length of the tunnel or suspended time so Harry could crawl it in just a few minutes. After all it seems to have created a tunnel in wizardspace from the castle to the Hog's Head, and in PoA the very-low-ceilinged tunnel to the Shack is suddenly high enough for unconscious!Snape to be carried through it upright.
Another solution is just to treat this as a production error and assume that Voldemort really gave Harry two hours, not one - or at least an hour and a half.
Harry (white dots) and Ron and Hermione descend the steps from the main doors (0) and head for the edge of the Forbidden Forest, in the direction Hagrid had been taken by the Acormantulas. They get halfway to the trees (1) when they have an encounter with Dementors, and then with a giant. Harry then realises that he has to go where Nagini is and they run to the Whomping Willow (2). After crawling down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack and witnessing Snape's murder, they return to the Willow and thence back to the main doors (0).
After looking at the ranks of the dead in the Great Hall, Harry goes upstairs to the Headmaster's office and views Snape's memories in the Pensieve. Now he has just over half an hour left. Allowing a few minutes to get back downstairs and across to the edge of the Forest, and bearing in mind that he reaches Voldemort just after his hour is up, we can say that it takes him half an hour to walk from the edge of the Forest to Aragog's old nest, where Voldemort has set up his camp.
At normal walking speed that should mean the route from the edge to the nest is just over one and a third miles long. Going through bushes and literally off the beaten track should slow Harry down, but on the other hand when he's on the path he'll be going as fast as possible, so it's not impossible that he averages a fairly fast walking speed. We want the Acromantula nest to be as far from the edge of the Forest as we can make it and still be consistent with this scene, because when Harry and Ron are taken to Aragog's nest in CoS we're told that to reach the nest they head into "the very heart of the forest", and if the heart of the forest were to be less than about a mile and a half from the edge that would make the forest ridiculously small for the amount of wildlife we know it supports.
Harry sets out again from the main doors (0) and passes Hagrid's hut (3), so he must be planning to enter the Forbidden Forest via the path (4) which begins by Hagrid's hut.
Harry and his spirit companions pass through the outer edge of the Forest (5), which is haunted by Dementors. He does not really know where he is going, he's just following his sense of Voldemort's position, but since he ends up at Aragog's nest in a fairly short period of time, he must take the right-hand fork (6). He passes into an area of old, tangled trees, and the reference to knotted roots "underfoot" suggests that he leaves the path at the point nearest the nest (7), rather than sticking with the smoother, easier path for as long as he could. He is following his homing instincts and walking in a fairly straight line towards Voldemort, and it is just after leaving the path that he encounters the very old, dense trees (8).
Harry seems not to be using wand-light, but even so the dense-packed trees and the darkness under them may work to his advantage, because the less light gets through in daytime, the less undergrowth there will be to impede him.
Normal walking speed is around eighty yards a minute. Harry encounters Yaxley and Dolohov (9) "mere minutes" before his hour is up, and arrives at the nest (10) just after the hour finishes, so let's say he follows Yaxley and Dolohov for around five minutes, after meeting them about four hundred yards out from the nest, or just under a quarter of a mile. That's if he's going at normal walking speed: he may well be going a little slower when he is off the path, but then the reference to "mere minutes" allows for him to have met them six or seven minutes before the hour was up, if we like.
Voldemort tries to kill Harry with the Elder Wand, but it recognises its master and instead kills the Horcrux inside him, then refuses to Cruciate Harry, instead following its master's best interests by tossing him around without hurting him, to make him look convincingly dead.
The Death Eaters (gold dots) then move off (11) with Hagrid at the front, carrying Harry. The full-blooded giants are at the back, so they aren't breaking out a new path ahead of the humans. Because this is such a large party and Voldemort is an old man (although that may or may not affect his regenerated body) they probably eschew the straightest route through the trees and instead pick up the path as soon as they can (12); soon afterwards the trees begin thinning a bit (13).
The description of the thinning tree cover sits a little oddly with the fact that they must pass through or close to the "dim, dank" clearing (14) where Harry and his friends met fifty centaurs and the Thestrals they were going to ride to the Ministry, which itself ties in with the fact that Harry expects centaurs to be present and watching the procession, even though his eyes are closed. I have explained this by running a stream close to the clearing.
Eventually they reach the fresher air at the edge of the Forest (15), and muster in front of the castle (16). Since they are marching mob-handed I have assumed that they break away from the path and enter the grounds at the nearest point, rather than going right round by Hagrid's cabin (3).
