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The official home of the Lions, the Gryffindor common room, is found on the seventh floor of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The entrance to the common room is the portrait of the delightful Fat Lady. In order to gain entrance to your home away from home, Lions must know the password and speak it to her - assuming she isn't forcing you to listen to her sing of key that is.

This term's password is 'Skil-Tor'.

Be sure to remember those words. Keep them secret, keep them safe. Without them the Fat Lady won't swing away from the hole and allow you to enter Gryffindor Tower and you'll be stuck picking your nose while waiting for a housemate to let you in. Once you're lucky enough to scramble through, you'll find yourself in the central common room (a perfectly circular area full of squashy armchairs, fluffy beanbag chairs, and tables, now referred to as the 'Lions' Den'. The large circular space has two adjacent rooms, the reading room and the game lounge, equipped with the resources and materials required to complete any homework assignments and distract oneself from doing any homework at all. Fixed to the wall by the windows you will find the pasteboard for classes and other school announcements.

The windows, wedged between falling tapestries and portraits of Heads of House past, look out onto the grounds of the school, and a large fireplace takes up a large section of the wall near the entrance to the common room. It's the perfect place to relax and hang out after a long day of classes. If however you are in need of a nap a good night's rest then there are two doors leading off from the common room that open to spiral staircases. Boys' dormitories are upstairs and to the right above the reading room, while girls' dormitories are upstairs and to the left above the game lounge. Be sure you don’t go breaking any of the rules by attempting to go up the wrong staircases. Boys don’t stand a chance of beating the enchanted staircase, and frankly girls should know better.

For whatever reason you're here, make sure you take good care of your home away from home. There's bound to be a perfect or your Head of House lurking in the shadows making sure you stay out of trouble...or ready to join in on whatever mischief you may be up to. This is Hogwarts after all. Anything can happen!

Gryffindor Common Room design is based on the drawings by Whisperwings