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 Scottish educational establishment in a 2008 online ranking, outranking Edinburgh's Loretto School. According to a director of the Independent Schools Network Rankings, it was added to the schools listing "for fun" and was then voted on. J. K. Rowling says she visualises Hogwarts, in its entirety, to be: A huge, rambling, quite scary-looking castle, with a jumble of towers and battlements. Like the Weasleys' house, it isn't a building that Muggles could build, because it is supported by magic. In the novels, Hogwarts is somewhere in Scotland (the film "Prisoner of Azkaban" says that Dufftown is near.) The school is