Great Lake

The Great Lake spreads across the grounds below Hogwarts castle, part of the scenery from the very first arrival in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, when first years cross its dark water in a fleet of little boats while the older students ride carriages to the door. The lake is large, deep, and cold, and the castle looks down on it from a cliff. Its most sociable resident is a giant squid, which drifts near the surface on warm days and is regarded by students less as a monster than as a fixture of the grounds. Students lounge on its banks between lessons in fine weather, skim stones, and speculate about what else lives in water that deep. By long custom, the first sight a new student has of the school is the castle's lights from the middle of the lake.