That’s the day your world turns upside down, you just received your acceptance letter from Hogwarts. You are overjoyed and you already sent an owl to all your friends to let them know the good news. Before catching the Hogwarts express and walking through the giant doors of Hogwarts, let us remind you a tiny detail : Hogwarts have rules! The golden trio tends to forget about that but just like any school, Hogwarts has a strict set of rules that students must obey … more or less. 

Some of these rules have been in place for decades, existing since the school was founded. Others only recently came into effect or were temporarily put into place during Harry’s time at Hogwarts. While many of these rules, such as always attending class, appear basic, not all of them are as normal as they appear to be.

Turns out that several of the rules at Hogwarts are actually pretty crazy, especially if you look at them from a muggle’s perspective. No wonder that Harry and the rest of his generation were responsible for causing so much trouble at Hogwarts.

Here comes a list featuring 10 nonsense rules that Hogwarts students need to follow.

10. ALWAYS RESPECT THE CURFEW

That sounds pretty normal when you first say it. Oh yeah, there’s a curfew, makes sense — these kids are younger than seventeen, they don’t need to be out late. But what’s weird is that the curfew wasn’t restricting them just from going outside, but from wandering around the castle. So if they needed food, or something specific from another part of the castle, they weren’t trusted to walk around what was supposed to be a safe home.

Of course, we know it wasn’t always safe but in theory, it was supposed to be. Guess the curfew blows that cover of it supposedly being safe!

9. HOUSES MUST STICK TO THEIR OWN COMMON ROOMS

In addition to respecting curfew, it is further implied that students cannot visit or enter the dormitories of other houses. The moment they first get sorted into a house, students from each house learn a secret method of entering their respective dormitories. Students are also forbidden from sharing the method of entry with any student outside of their house.

It sounds crazy that friends from other houses can’t even be invited to one another's common rooms.

There was a divide between houses that often seemed like it could be damaging to students. Gryffindor and Slytherin, in particular, had a rivalry and never quite seemed to see eye to eye on things — and this surely wasn’t helped by the rules that meant that students couldn’t go between house common rooms. All of their social time was restricted to their own house. They even had to eat meals at the same table with their house, so the only time to talk to other houses was in class.

Seems a little like Hogwarts is causing those house rivalries, right?

8. BOYS CAN’T ENTER THE GIRL’S DORMITORY

Like a lot of boarding schools, if not all of them, dormitories are separated by gender. Girls had one dormitory off the common room, boys had another, and they were restricted to sleeping there. Okay, makes sense — they’re teenagers, they don’t need to be sleeping in the same room.

But the weird thing about this one was that boys were totally not allowed in the girls' dormitory, but the girls were allowed in the boys’. Hermione pointed this out as an old-fashioned rule, and she was right. Hogwarts clearly trusts girls more than boys (and has some equally old-fashioned views about same-sex relationships).

7. AND TEACHERS CAN’T GET PAST THE PASSWORDS

Each of the students is required to give a password (or answer a riddle) to get into their House dorms… which makes sense, if you buy into the idea that no one from another House should be able to enter. But even the teachers seem to have to know the passwords and answers, as was revealed when Professor McGonagall had to answer the Ravenclaw riddle to get in, and we learned that the Carrows were incapable of doing so without help. But surely this is dangerous, and any teacher should be able to get into the dorms to help children if needs be?

6. HOUSE QUIDDITCH TRYOUTS ARE TOTALLY CONFUSING

Each of the Houses has their own Quidditch team, and they compete each year… but the team members and the process for tryouts seems to make no sense. For most of the Harry Potter series, it seems that there simply are no tryouts – Harry never has to try out (although McGonagall does vouch for him), but when he becomes Captain, it is stated that every player has to go through tryouts, every year. Another plot hole, probably, otherwise the rules for the House Teams changed halfway through Harry’s schooling and no one mentioned anything about it!

5. IF THE STAIRCASES MOVE AND YOU’RE LATE TO CLASS … IT’S YOUR FAULT

One thing that must be incredibly annoying about Hogwarts is the staircases.They move of their own accord and have no schedule — they’ve even been known to move when students are literally standing on them. You can see how this would pose a bit of a problem and yet, classes are on a fixed schedule and students aren’t allowed to be late. How does that work for getting to class on time? Do they just need to allow an hour to walk anywhere within the castle?

It seems a little harsh to blame students for being late because of these staircases, and certain allowances should probably be made.

4. THE RESTRICTED SECTION IS, WELL, RESTRICTED

Knowledge is power. The Hogwarts library contains a ton of books and most of them are open access to the students — but there is one section that requires a permission slip, and it’s called the restricted section. What happens here is that all of the books that contain dark information are stored away, but then — why even have it at all? If the books aren’t necessary for study, why not just get rid of them? Or… assume students would get the information some other way and just let it be a free for all anyway?

This section is just a weird concept.

3. DON’T ENTER THE FORBIDDEN FOREST (UNLESS YOU HAVE DETENTION THERE)

The Forbidden Forest rule is one that, again, seems sensible on first look. Students aren’t allowed to enter the forest because it’s dangerous and full of creatures that could hurt or even kill them. But why is this forest allowed to exist in the first place right by the school? If it’s full of evil creatures, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have a school for children somewhere else?

And of course, this rule goes out the window when students are given detention there. For some reason, an appropriate punishment is taking troublemakers into the depths of the forest to help teachers or groundskeepers with certain tasks. Dumbledore, a comment maybe?

2. STUDENTS WHO CAN TURN INTO ANIMALS MUST REGISTER WITH THE MINISTRY

Animagi are really special beings in the wizarding world and it’s not technically forbidden for a student to become one. It’s a long, arduous process that not many people can go through or have the skill to see through, but it means that a witch or wizard can turn into an animal at the end of it. So, for example, the Marauders, Minerva McGonagall, and Rita Skeeter all had the ability to turn into an animal whenever they wanted. The only rule is that they must register it with the Ministry. Seems like a bit of an invasion of privacy though, and of course, not everyone did…

1. BOYS AND GIRLS CANNOT BE WITHIN 8 INCHES OF EACH OTHER... AND SOME OTHER CRAZY EDUCATIONAL DECREES

But of course, the craziest rules ever introduced at Hogwarts were the ones that were created by Dolores Umbridge. When she was hired as a professor and given special powers by the Ministry, she introduced a number of ridiculous rules — like not allowing literature by what she deemed as half-breeds, disbanding all student organizations, and not allowing boys and girls to be within eight inches of each other.

Yeah. Umbridge really takes the cake when it comes to crazy school rules. Luckily, those didn't even last a year before she was removed from the school, but they must have been a pain to follow while they existed

Source : screenrant