Hogwarts the Hogwarts Express that students take at the start of each school year. Students board the train from the also fictional and hidden Platform 9¾ at King's Cross station in London. The train arrives near Hogwarts, some time after nightfall. From there, first-year students are accompanied by the "Keeper of the Keys, Game and Grounds" (which was Hagrid during the first novel) to small boats, which magically sail across the lake and get them near the entrance of Hogwarts. The older students ride up to the castle in carriages pulled by creatures called Thestrals. When the first-year students initially arrive
Hogwarts from the Ministry of Magic. Students who achieve a high enough O.W.L. grade in a particular subject may take its advanced course for the final two years, in preparation for the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.W.T.) given at the end of the seventh year. The day begins at Hogwarts with breakfast in the Great Hall. Students sit at their own House table and can eat and socialise, or finish homework. The Headmaster or Headmistress eats with the professors at the High Table placed at the far end of the hall. During breakfast, owls bring in the students' post, generally consisting