Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place
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Number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London is the address of a fictitious house in the Harry Potter books. This house was formerly the home of the the Black family, an ancient, pureblood line of wizards. It first appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Grimmauld Place seems to be within easy walking distance of the King's Cross railway station; it is definitely not in the centre of London (Mr Weasley and Harry take an underground commuter train into the centre to get to the Ministry of Magic). This suggests that it is in London Borough of Camden.
"Grimmauld Place" is a pun on "grim old place". Another influence on the name may be the word "mould", referring to the dilapidated condition of the house.
| Harry Potter locale | |
| Number 12, Grimmauld Place | |
|---|---|
| Location | London |
| Owner | Harry James Potter, formerly Sirius Black, Walburga and Orion Black |
| Affiliation | currently the Order of the Phoenix; formerly the Black Family. |
| Permanent residents | Currently, no mentioned permanent residents; formerly, Kreacher, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Orion Black, Walburga Black |
| First appearance | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix |
Contents |
[edit] The House
The House is a tall terraced house (a 'row house', most of which were built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), situated on a run-down square in Muggle London: due to its closeness to King's Cross Station, it is likely to be in an older district of London. Alternatively, it may be in an area swallowed by Greater London in the 19th century. It is therefore likely to have been purchased (possibly by leasehold) from the Muggle authorities in that period. Such housing was, at the period of building, desirable; much of it today is now decrepit.
The house itself appears to be moderate in ground-space - there is one window next to the front door, and there are few mentioned rooms on each floor (the ground floor has a narrow hallway and dining room, the first floor a drawing room and bedroom; there is also an attic, a basement kitchen, and an unspecified number of bedrooms and bathrooms). The style of the kitchen is rudimentary and spartan - presumably it was altered by the family. The house has at least four storeys, plus attic and basement (houses in that part of London generally have three stories). The rooms themselves appear to be reasonably sized. Nonetheless, the style and condition of the house makes it clear that it is no mansion.
12 Grimmauld Place houses the Black family tree on a wall tapestry, and an enchanted portrait of Sirius Black's mother Walburga (which portrays her deep-seated hatred for non-Purebloods and which was given to screaming when disturbed). An ancient and deeply mad house-elf named Kreacher is loyal to the portrait of Mrs Black. There are other portraits of Blacks, including Phineas Nigellus, one-time Head of the Black family and of Hogwarts. The staircase is lined with the heads of beheaded former house elves, which are mounted onto the walls.
Prior to 1991, the ownership of the house is unclear. In the novels, Sirius implies that the house has been empty since the death of his mother in 1985 (without giving any supporting evidence of this belief), implying at the same time that his parents were the owners of the house; the Black Family Tree, however, shows that the former patriarch of the family, Arcturus Black, lived until 1991, implying in turn that the house belonged to him and became empty with his death. Nonetheless, it is clear that by 1991, the house had passed to his grandson, Sirius Black, the "black sheep" (so to speak) of the Black Family, who became its last direct male heir with the death of his uncle Cygnus a year later. Because Sirius was incarcerated in Azkaban, the house fell into disrepair over the next four years. When he later returned to his family home in 1995, it was a gloomy and unpleasant dwelling teeming with dust, decay and various dangerous magical objects, pests, and hexes. As Hermione Granger says darkly, "Stuff's been breeding in here". The house required extensive cleaning; by the Christmas of 1995, however, it was reasonably presentable and habitable, and when decorated for the season was vaguely pleasant to live in.
[edit] Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix
Many security measures are in place at Grimmauld Place. It is disguised from Muggles and other interlopers. It is as secure as any magical dwelling can be and can accommodate a large number of people. For this reason, it was chosen as the headquarters of the reorganised Order of the Phoenix when Sirius offered it to the Order. Thereafter, its location was further hidden through the use of the Fidelius Charm with Albus Dumbledore as the Secret Keeper. As revealed by J. K. Rowling on her website on February 21 2006:
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- "When a Secret-Keeper dies, their secret dies with them, or, to put it another way, the status of their secret will remain as it was at the moment of their death. Everybody in whom they confided will continue to know the hidden information, but nobody else."
Thus, no one whom Dumbledore did not invite inside will be able to enter. When all those aware of it die, it will become eternally inaccessible.
Dumbledore communicates with those within the house by using linked portraits of Phineas Nigellus, with one at Grimmauld Place and the other in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts.
[edit] The new owner
Harry inherits the house at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after the death of Sirius Black at the hands of his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. Dumbledore removed the Order of the Phoenix until he was certain that Harry actually owned it. Although Sirius left everything to Harry in his will, the spells put in place by Sirius' family might have ensured that their home could only pass to family members or to pureblood wizards, in which case it would possibly belong to Sirius' closest living relative (and his murderer), Bellatrix Lestrange (assuming that Common Laws preventing material gain by murder did not apply). Dumbledore tested Harry's ownership of the house by having Harry give orders to Kreacher, the house-elf servant, reasoning that if Harry had truly inherited Kreacher that would indicate that he had truly inherited the house as well. Kreacher, who hated Harry, was nevertheless forced to follow Harry's orders as he was bound to his new master by magic, so it was clear that Harry did in fact own Number 12, Grimmauld Place.
Harbouring no great love for a place with so many bad associations, Harry immediately gives the house to the Order to use as Headquarters (although he does not give up ownership).
Current fan speculation is that an unopenable locket, found during the cleanup of the house in Book 5, once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, and may be one of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes.
After Sirius' death, a thief and Order member named Mundungus Fletcher stole several Black heirlooms, most notably goblets made of sixteenth century goblin-wrought silver and embossed with the Black family crest. Harry was enraged when he found that his godfather's house was being robbed, and caught Fletcher at Hogsmeade, but he escaped. Fearing Dumbledore's anger, Fletcher then went into hiding, before being arrested and sent to Azkaban for impersonating an Inferius.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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| Towns | Godric's Hollow · Hogsmeade · Little Hangleton · Little Whinging |
| Schools | Hogwarts · Durmstrang · Beauxbatons |
| Homes | Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place · The Riddle House |
| Streets | Diagon Alley · Knockturn Alley · Spinner's End |
| Other | Azkaban · Hall of Prophecies · Hog's Head · Ministry of Magic · Shrieking Shack · St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries · Weasley's Wizard Wheezes · Wizarding world |
