12 Grimmauld Place is the address of Black Family home in London which becomes the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It is located in a Muggle neighborhood, but is hidden to people who haven't been told where it is. The house has long been in the Black family, and one of its more colourful previous owners, Sirius's mother, Walburga Black, continues to make her presence felt through the hostile shreiks of her portrait and through the mutterings and insults of her former house-elf, Kreacher. As the house had not been occupied by Sirius during his imprisonment in Azkaban, it required a great deal of cleaning up to make it useable and safe for the Order, and much of this work fell to Molly Weasley.
After Sirius Black is killed at the Department of Mysteries, the house is inherited by Harry Potter. After the death of Dumbledore, Alastor Moody placed a number of enchantments to keep Severus Snape from entering it. These were a Tongue-Tying Curse, a dust-composed form of Dumbledore, which disintegrated when the person it attacks admits that they did not kill it.
The name is another of J.K. Rowling's puns: Grimmauld Place = "grim, old place."
The House
Number 12, Grimmauld Place is a Georgian terraced house (Number 12, having at least 5 floors, was probably built in the 18th century for the newly formed middle classes), situated on a run-down square in Muggle London: due to its closeness to King's Cross railway station, it is likely to be in an older district of London. The house is described by Harry as "eerie, cobwebbed". Alternatively, it may be in an area swallowed by Greater London in the 19th century. It is therefore likely to have been purchased (possibly by leasehold) from the Muggle authorities in that period. Such housing was, at the period of building, desirable; much of it today is now decrepit.
The house itself appears to be moderate in ground-space—there is one window next to the front door, and there are few mentioned rooms on each floor (the ground floor has a narrow hallway and dining room, the first floor a drawing room and bedroom; there is also an attic, a basement kitchen, and an unspecified number of bedrooms and bathrooms). The style of the kitchen is rudimentary and spartan—presumably it was altered by the family. The house has at least four stories, plus an attic and basement (houses in that part of London generally have three stories). The rooms themselves appear to be reasonably sized. Nonetheless, the style and condition of the house makes it clear that it is no mansion.
Number 12 houses the Black family tree on a wall tapestry, and an enchanted portrait of Walburga Black, Sirius Black's mother (which portrays her deep-seated hatred for non-pure-bloods and which was given to screaming when disturbed). An ancient and deeply mad house-elf named Kreacher is loyal to the portrait of Mrs Black. There are other portraits of members of the Black family, including Phineas Nigellus Black, one-time Head of the Black family and least-popular Headmaster of Hogwarts. The staircase is lined with the heads of beheaded former house-elves, which are mounted onto the walls.
Prior to 1991, the ownership of the house is unclear. In the novels, Sirius implies that the house has been empty since the death of his mother in 1985 (without giving any supporting evidence of this belief), implying at the same time that his parents were the owners of the house; the Black family tree, however, shows that the former patriarch of the family, Arcturus Black, lived until 1991, implying in turn that the house belonged to him and became empty with his death. Nonetheless, it is clear that by 1991, the house had passed to his grandson, Sirius, the "black sheep" (so to speak) of the Black family, who became its last direct male heir with the death of his uncle Cygnus a year later. Because Sirius was incarcerated in Azkaban, the house fell into disrepair over the next 4 years. When he later returned to his family home in 1995, it was a gloomy and unpleasant dwelling teeming with dust, decay and various dangerous magical objects, pests, and hexes. As Hermione Granger says darkly, "Stuff's been breeding in here".[1] The house required extensive cleaning; by Christmas of 1995, however, it was reasonably presentable and habitable, and when decorated for the season was vaguely pleasant to live in.
The house at Number 12, Grimmauld Place has a snake on the door, like that of the Gaunt family. In fact, the Gaunts and the Blacks share many characteristics; both are pure-blooded, obsessed with their heritage (with the exception of Sirius Black, his cousin Andromeda (Black) Tonks, and possibly Merope Gaunt), and own dilapidated houses.
Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix
Many security measures are in place at Grimmauld Place. It is disguised from Muggles and other interlopers. It is as secure as any magical dwelling can be and can accommodate a large number of people. For this reason, it was chosen as the headquarters of the reconstituted Order of the Phoenix when Sirius offered it to the Order. Thereafter, its location was further hidden through the use of the Fidelius Charm with Albus Dumbledore as the Secret Keeper. As revealed by author J. K. Rowling on her website on February 21, 2006:
| “ | When a Secret Keeper dies, their secret dies with them, or, to put it another way, the status of their secret will remain as it was at the moment of their death. Everybody in whom they confided will continue to know the hidden information, but nobody else. | ” |
It was confirmed by Mr. Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that everyone to whom Dumbledore confided the location, upon his death, had in turn become a Secret Keeper as well. This compromised the security of the place when Yaxley, a Death Eater, managed to grab a hold of Hermione as they apparated there. As Hermione was now one of the Secret Keepers, this was effectively equivalent to revealing the location to Yaxley.
Technically, the Muggle Dursley family is aware of Grimmauld Place's existence and function; Dumbledore had openly discussed it with them while fetching Harry in Half-Blood Prince. [2] However, it is unlikely they will attempt, or are even able to access the house.
Communication with those outside the house is possible by using linked portraits of Phineas Nigellus, with one at Grimmauld Place and the other in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts School.
New owner
Harry inherits the house at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after the death of Sirius Black at the hands of his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange (née Black). Dumbledore removed the Order of the Phoenix until he was certain that Harry actually owned it. Although Sirius left everything to Harry in his will, the spells put in place by Sirius' family might have ensured that their home could only pass to direct family members or to pure-blood wizards, in which case it would possibly belong to Sirius' closest living relative (and his murderer), Bellatrix Lestrange. Dumbledore tested Harry's ownership of the house by having Harry give orders to Kreacher, the house-elf servant, reasoning that if Harry had truly inherited Kreacher that would indicate that he had truly inherited the house as well. Kreacher, who hated Harry, was nevertheless forced to follow Harry's orders (Namely, "Kreacher, shut up!" when the house-elf was yelling "Won't, Won't, WON'T!", referring to his desire not to be owned by Harry) as he was bound to his new master by magic, so it was clear that Harry did in fact own Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Harbouring no love for a place with so many bad associations, Harry immediately gives the house to the Order to use as Headquarters.
After Sirius' death, Order member and thief Mundungus Fletcher stole several Black family heirlooms, most notably goblets made of 16th century goblin-wrought silver and embossed with the Black family crest, as well as a locket originally owned by Salazar Slytherin, which had been one of the seven Horcruxes of Lord Voldemort. Harry was enraged when he found that his dead godfather's house was being robbed, and caught Fletcher in Hogsmeade, but he escaped. Fearing Dumbledore's anger, Fletcher then went into hiding, before being arrested and sent to Azkaban for impersonating an Inferius.
In the final installment of the series, the house at Grimmauld Place has been abandoned as a result of Severus Snape's knowledge of its existence. Deemed uninhabitable by members of the Order of the Phoenix, it has several curses and safeguards cast upon it should the [then considered] turncoat attempt to re-enter it. Harry, Ron and Hermione use it as a base of operations during the first segment of their search for Voldemort's Horcruxes and find a previously unforeseen hospitality in Kreacher. The elf, robbed of his heirloom possessions, has a turn of heart regarding Harry and his friends when they present him with an imitation horcrux, which formerly belonged to Sirius' brother Regulus Black. The house's location is finally discovered by a Death Eater who follows the trio via side-along apparition during their flight from the Ministry of Magic. While the house is never seen again, Kreacher makes a notable appearance at the Battle of Hogwarts and leads the castle's house elves in a charge against the enemy, rallying them around in Regulus's and Harry's names.
References
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