The Great Lake

The Great Lake, Insider - "It's time to pass the magic on with the new Bloomsbury Harry Potter books" - alternatively known as the Black Lake, "Brilliant Event: Back to Hogwarts" was a large body of water. It was a landlocked freshwater lake located to the south of Hogwarts Castle. The castle stands on a cliff overlooking the water. It was about half a mile in diameter and the castle's plumbing network drained into it. The lake had a number of very unusual inhabitants, including a Giant Squid, a village of Merpeople, and many Grindylows.
==Description==
===Inhabitants===
===Temperature===
The lake was often said to be very cold, but Viktor Krum was known to have swam in it, wearing nothing but swimming trunks, apparently not affected by the low temperature (although this was probably due to the fact that his school, Durmstrang, was located in a place that was even colder). Harry Potter while under the effects of Gillyweed stated "the water didn't feel icy anymore either... on the contrary, he felt pleasantly cool and very light".Lily Evans and her school friends were also said to dangle their legs over the water, which could mean that there were no rules whilst they were in school against swimming in the lake.
==History==
Every school year at Hogwarts, after the Hogwarts Express arrived at Hogsmeade station, Rubeus Hagrid (or a substitute) called the first-year students to follow him to the lake shore and the Hogwarts boats. Whereupon Hagrid occupied one boat and each other boat carried up to four students. The boats then self-propelled across the lake to a dock under Hogwarts Castle as per tradition. At the start of the 1994–1995 school year, first-year Dennis Creevey said he fell into the lake and the Giant Squid pushed him back into a boat.Upon reaching the castle, Hagrid and the first-years disembarked and climbed the stairs to the lawn, entering the castle through the front doors. First-years then waited until summoned into the Great Hall to get Sorted into their houses. At the end of their first year, students took the boats back to Hogsmeade Station, while most older students rode down the lane in carriages.At the end of every school year, graduating seventh-years left the school by sailing back across the lake.2007 PotterCast Interview At some point during the 1987–1988 school year, the Black Lake incident involved a student flying a broom over the lake and diving repeatedly into the water, which resulted in Professor Dumbledore forbidding all students from using school brooms outside of Flying class.
==Behind the scenes==
*In the Harry Potter films:
** was the reported location of the Great Lake.
**The lake is known as "The Black Lake".
**Dumbledore's body is placed on a small island in the middle of the Great Lake. After this, in 1998, Voldemort accesses Dumbledore's grave and takes the Elder Wand from it. It is possible that the island was first seen in .
*In , the lake has quays.
*In an early draft of , J. K. Rowling planned to have Harry and Ron crash the car into the lake and be introduced to the merpeople at that point.
*Although most likely a coincidence, Lily's character token in is collected in the lake after swimming in a floaty by following a path of studs.
===Author's comments===
"The lake is the setting for the second task that the Triwizard competitors must face in Goblet of Fire, which is also my favourite task. I find it satisfyingly creepy; I like the diversity of the methods employed by the competitors to breathe underwater, and I enjoyed plumbing the depths of a part of the grounds that had never been seen before. In the original draft of Chamber of Secrets, I had Harry and Ron crash into the lake in Mr Weasley's Ford Anglia, and meet the merpeople there for the first time. At that time I had a vague notion that the lake might lead to other places, and that the merpeople might play a larger role in the later books than they did, so I thought that Harry ought to be introduced to both at this stage. However, the Whomping Willow provided a more satisfying, less distracting crash, and served a later purpose in Prisoner of Azkaban, too. The Great Lake (which is really a Scottish loch, apparently freshwater and landlocked) never did develop as a portal to other seas or rivers, although the appearance of the Durmstrang ship from its depths in Goblet of Fire hints at the fact that if you are travelling by an enchanted craft, you might be able to take a magical shortcut to other waterways."
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==Notes and references==
Category:Hogwarts School Grounds
Category:Lakes
Category:Triwizard T Tournament
Category:Wildlife Known Reserves