Cellars

A cellar is a subterranean room, typically found beneath a building and used for storage or as a confined space. In the Harry Potter series, cellars serve several critical functions, ranging from entry points for secret passages to makeshift prisons for enemies of the Death Eaters. While many buildings in the wizarding world likely have cellars, two, in particular, play a significant role in the narrative: the cellar of Honeydukes sweetshop and the dungeon-like cellar beneath Malfoy Manor.

• Type: Prison/Dungeon
• Location: Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England
• Owner/Residents: The Malfoy family
• Key Features: Dark, damp, musty-smelling, with an earthen floor and no furniture or light sources. It was secured by a heavy, locked door.

The cellar at Malfoy Manor was repurposed as a prison during the Second Wizarding War after Lord Voldemort chose the manor as his headquarters. The conditions were bleak, intended to demoralize and contain prisoners of the Death Eaters. The captives were left in total darkness without food or water for extended periods.

In 1998, this cellar served as the holding cell for several individuals captured by the Death Eaters or Snatchers. Its known prisoners included:

• Mr. Ollivander, the wandmaker
• Luna Lovegood
• Griphook, the goblin
• Dean Thomas

When Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger were captured and brought to the manor, Harry and Ron were thrown into the cellar with the other prisoners. Above, Bellatrix Lestrange brutally tortured Hermione for information about the Sword of Gryffindor. The cellar became the site of a dramatic escape. Desperate, Harry used a fragment of the Two-Way Mirror given to him by Sirius Black, calling for help and seeing the eye of Aberforth Dumbledore. In response, Dobby the house-elf Apparated into the cellar to rescue the group. During the escape, Peter Pettigrew was sent to investigate the noise. When he hesitated to kill Harry, the enchanted silver hand given to him by Voldemort turned on him and strangled him to death on the cellar stairs. Dobby successfully Disapparated with the prisoners to Shell Cottage, though he was tragically killed by Bellatrix Lestrange's knife in the process.

• Type: Storeroom / Secret Passage Terminus
• Location: Honeydukes, Hogsmeade
• Owner/Residents: Ambrosius Flume and his wife
• Key Features: Filled with wooden crates and boxes of sweets; contains the exit of a secret passage from Hogwarts.

The cellar of the Honeydukes sweetshop in Hogsmeade is primarily a storeroom for the shop's inventory. Its most important feature is its connection to Hogwarts Castle via the One-Eyed Witch Passage. A stone slide emerges from behind a trapdoor in the cellar floor, which is the terminus of the secret tunnel leading from the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor of the castle. A set of wooden stairs leads from the cellar directly into the sweetshop above.

During the 1993-1994 school year, the Honeydukes cellar was instrumental for Harry Potter. Having been denied permission to visit Hogsmeade by the Dursleys, Harry was given the Marauder's Map by Fred and George Weasley, who showed him the secret passage. Harry used this route multiple times to sneak into the village. The cellar provided him with covert entry and exit, allowing him to experience Hogsmeade with his friends and to overhear crucial information about Sirius Black's past at The Three Broomsticks.

• The Leaky Cauldron Cellar: Hagrid mentions that the Philosopher's Stone was temporarily kept in the Leaky Cauldron's cellar before being moved to vault 713 at Gringotts.
• Shell Cottage Cellar: The cellar at Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's home was used for storing supplies, such as the Essence of Dittany that Hermione Granger retrieved to treat Ron's splinching injury.

In the film adaptation Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the cellar at Malfoy Manor is depicted as a more structured dungeon with stone walls and a well in the center, a more elaborate design than the simple, earthen-floored room described in the novel (film).