Marble Staircase Tower

Marble Staircase Tower
Location information
Location	Hogwarts Castle, Highlands, Scotland, Great Britain
Owner(s)	Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Affiliation	Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

The Marble Staircase Tower was one of the many towers of Hogwarts Castle. It was one of the most prominent and recognisable features of the castle, dominating the skyline near the Great Hall and the Quad.

Contents

The Grand Staircase

The tower was extremely large, spanning all seven floors as well as the basement level and countless attic-level rooms, judging from the many dormer windows in its conical roof. There were three smaller turrets on the roof of the tower.

The Marble Staircase Tower received its name from the Marble Staircase, a large staircase which connected the Entrance Hall to the Grand Staircase. The Grand Staircase itself, consuming most of the space in the tower in a large, rectangular room, spanned at least eight storeys and had large windows that looked out over the Quad.

The Grand Staircase contained a number of moving staircases and landings, many of which held doors that led to different parts of the castle, or portraits that guarded secret passages, and had walls filled with portraits. This included an entrance to Gryffindor Tower through the Fat Lady.

The tower also contained rounded sections of the first, third, and fifth-floor corridors, where they went around the diameter of the tower.

Behind the scenes

• In the films, three smaller turrets sit in the conical roof of the Marble Staircase Tower, often presumed to be the Headmaster's Tower. Although the books never explicitly state the location of the Headmaster's office, a 2017 illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban shows it as being in the West Tower.
• The Marble Staircase Tower is a feature that is only explicitly shown in the films, as the books make no mention of a Grand Staircase.
• The Marble Staircase Tower replaces the Astronomy Tower as the tallest tower in Hogwarts for the film series, as the Astronomy Tower did not make its first appearance until the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince film.
• For the first film, the Fat Lady is presented in a separate corridor to the tower; all subsequent films, however, show her as being on a seventh-floor landing of the Grand Staircase Tower.

Appearances

LEGO Grand-Staircase Tower

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film) (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (video game) (In cutscenes)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (video game)
• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
• Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter