The Houses of Harry Potter Trivia Quiz

Answer: Number twelve, Grimmauld Place

Harry Potter first visited number twelve, Grimmauld Place (a house he would later come to own) in 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'. It was the ancestral home of the Black family, whose last living member, Sirius Black, made it available to the Order to use for their headquarters. Professor Dumbledore placed the house under a Fidelius charm, so only witches or wizards who had been told the secret could actually see the house - to everyone else it looked like numbers eleven and thirteen, Grimmauld Place sat directly next to each with nothing in between.

The inside of the house was just as shabby as it and its neighbours appeared from the outside. Harry, Hermione and Ron (along with the other Weasleys) spent many hours cleaning it before their return to Hogwarts for the start of their fifth year and had to deal with doxys, massive spiders and a boggart, in addition to a screaming portrait of Sirius's mother and an uncooperative house elf named Kreacher. In fact, the house did not really get cleaned properly until Harry and the others eventually earned Kreacher's trust in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' (the description in the question coming from that latter book).

Answer: The Burrow

The Burrow was the home of the Weasley family - Arthur, Molly, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and Ginny - and first appeared in 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' when Harry visited Ron prior to the start of the school year. It was located on the outskirts of the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, where the family had to (attempt to) blend in with the local muggle population - which must have been a difficult task when their house was described as "a large stone pigsty" with "extra rooms added here and there" in an impossibly precarious arrangement.

In addition to its peculiar appearance, the Burrow also had a number of less ordinary residents than just witches and wizards - it had a resident ghoul (who pretended to be Ron suffering from spattergroit in 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows') and a garden full of gnomes (real ones, not the painted ceramic versions owned by muggles).

Answer: The Shrieking Shack

The Shrieking Shack was located in the village of Hogsmeade, close to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Children from the school were allowed to visit the village on certain weekends once they reached the third year or above and had a permission slip signed by their parents or guardians. In 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban', Harry did not have the relevant permission, so was forced to sneak out of Hogwarts via a secret tunnel to the basement of Hogsmeade's sweet shop. Both he and the reader had their first glimpse of the Shrieking Shack during one of those escapades.

It later turned out that there was another secret tunnel from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade that ran from the Whomping Willow directly to the Shrieking Shack. It had previously been used to take Remus Lupin to the Shrieking Shack for his regular transformations into a werewolf and it was his howling that had, in part at least, contributed to the building's reputation as a haunted house.

Answer: Malfoy Manor

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were both Death Eaters, and it was their extremely posh and luxurious home that Lord Voldemort chose to make his headquarters. In the opening chapter of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', two other Death Eaters, Snape and Yaxley, turned up at the manor to attend a meeting and were able to gain entry through the "impressive" gates simply by raising the arms on which they bore Voldemort's Dark Mark. Things didn't go entirely smoothly for them, though, as they were spooked on the walk down the long drive by "a pure white peacock, strutting majestically along the top of the hedge".

Later in the novel, Harry, Ron and Hermione were brought to Malfoy Manor after being captured by a group of snatchers led by Fenrir Greyback. Once there, they didn't exactly get treated as honoured guests - Harry and Ron were locked in the cellar and Hermione was tortured by Narcissa Malfoy's somewhat deranged sister, Bellatrix Lestrange.

Answer: The Gaunt Shack

The Gaunt Shack was the home of Lord Voldemort's maternal relatives which was seen by both Harry Potter and the reader in the memories of Bob Ogden, a former member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'. Marvolo Gaunt and his son, Morfin, and daughter, Merope, were descendants of Salazar Slytherin who had inherited the ability to speak Parseltongue - the language of snakes. However, their illustrious heritage (the only remnants of which were a ring and Slytherin's locket) was at distinct odds with the dilapidated house they lived in and their general poverty.

Merope Gaunt was believed to have used a love potion to entrap the rich and handsome Tom Riddle into marriage. However, the couple later split (presumably when she stopped giving him the potion) and Merope ended up dying after giving birth to the future Lord Voldemort in a muggle orphanage.

Voldemort later visited the Gaunt Shack, killed his uncle Morfin and used the house as a hiding place for the horcrux that he made out of the Gaunt's ring.

Answer: Number four, Privet Drive

Number four, Privet Drive was the house that belonged to the Dursley family and where Harry Potter lived for ten years (in the cupboard under its stairs) before he discovered that he was a wizard and began his education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Since the Dursleys (Harry's Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley) were all muggles, their home was a very ordinary four-bedroom house with zero magical heritage. However, living in it provided Harry with protection after his parents were murdered by Lord Voldemort, because it belonged to a blood relation of his mother who had sacrificed herself in order to save her baby. As such, Voldemort was unable to attack him while he was able to call it his home - even if it had proved to be an extremely unhappy one.

The descriptions of the house come from the early chapters of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' and 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'.

Answer: The Lovegoods' house

Harry, Ron and Hermione went to the home of their friend Luna Lovegood in the final novel, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. It was Ron - a big fan of the game of chess - who described it as looking like a "giant rook" (he was referring to the chess piece also known as a castle rather than the bird that belongs to the crow family).

Unfortunately, the Lovegoods' house suffered severe damage during the course of the trio's visit there. It turned out that Luna had been kidnapped by Lord Voldemort and her father Xenophilius had informed the Death Eaters of Harry's presence in his home in an attempt to get her back. Xenophilius attempted to stun Harry when he became suspicious and tried to leave, but only succeeded in hitting the highly dangerous Erumpent horn that he had hanging on his living room wall. The Erumpent horn (which Lovegood had erroneously believed to belong to the non-existent Crumple-Horned Snorkack) duly exploded and took half of the house with it.

Answer: Shell Cottage

The marriage of Bill Weasley to Fleur Delacour was one of the early events of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'. Shell Cottage became their first home together, but it didn't exactly turn out to be a private retreat for the newlyweds in spite of its remote seaside location.

First, Bill's youngest brother Ron turned up there just before Christmas, after the malign influence of one of Lord Voldemort's horcruxes caused him to abandon Harry and Hermione. He then stayed with Bill and Fleur until he was able to use the deluminator bequeathed to him by Professor Dumbledore to find his way back to his friends. After that incident, Ron returned to Shell Cottage along with Harry, Hermione, Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, Mr Ollivander (the wandmaker), Griphook the goblin and the body of Dobby the house elf after their escape from Malfoy Manor. Since Shell Cottage only had three bedrooms, this eclectic group of house guests made the little cottage uncomfortably crowded!

Answer: The Riddle House

The Riddle House was once the grand home of Tom Riddle, Sr. and his parents, but it fell into disrepair after they were murdered by Tom Riddle, Jr. - the future Lord Voldemort. Although the house had been abandoned, the gardens were maintained by a later owner until the unfortunate gardener, Frank Bryce, was killed after stumbling across Lord Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew (aka Wormtail) and Nagini the snake at the beginning of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'.

The house was a convenient base for Lord Voldemort as it was close to the graveyard where the bodies of his father and grandparents had been buried. Once a Death Eater had managed to transport Harry Potter to the graveyard using the Triwizard Cup as an illegal portkey, Voldemort was able to use his father's bones, Harry's blood and Wormtail's flesh to create himself a new body and begin his return to power.

Answer: Hagrid's Hut

Rubeus Hagrid, the Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was the person sent to inform Harry Potter of his magical heritage and prepare for his return to that world. He was also the Hogwarts gamekeeper and later taught Care of Magical Creatures. He lived in a small hut on the edge of the grounds with his dog, Fang, and a variety of other fantastic creatures - which, at various points, included a dragon named Norbert and a hippogriff called Buckbeak.

Right from the first novel, 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone', Harry Potter and his friends regularly visited Hagrid's hut and were often fed inedible cakes and given dubious advice. J.K. Rowling's description of the hut and its location near the Forbidden Forest came from that book, which began the whole 'Harry Potter' phenomenon.