Slughorn's Office

• Type: Professor's Office, Residence
• Location: Dungeons, Hogwarts Castle, Scotland
• Owner/Residents: Professor Horace Slughorn (formerly Professor Severus Snape)
• Key Features: Lavish decorations, tent-like draperies, a magical hourglass, an extensive photograph collection of favoured students.

Located in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle, this large office was occupied by Professor Severus Snape for many years during his tenure as Potions Master. When Horace Slughorn returned to Hogwarts to retake the position in 1996, he took over the office and immediately redecorated it to suit his own extravagant and sociable tastes. Unlike the cold and intimidating space it was under Snape, Slughorn's office is warm, cluttered, and welcoming. The ceiling and stone walls are draped with rich fabrics of emerald, crimson, and gold, giving the entire room the feeling of a luxurious tent or marquee. A large, gilded lamp hangs from the ceiling, casting a warm, golden light over everything. The office is furnished with a large desk and several comfortable armchairs, usually situated near a merrily crackling fireplace. The room is filled with personal effects that reflect Slughorn's personality. One notable feature is a special hourglass, filled with emerald-green sand, which slows down or speeds up depending on the quality of the conversation. The most prominent decorations are the numerous shelves filled with framed, signed photographs of Slughorn's most famous and successful former students, the alumni of his exclusive “Slug Club”. These include figures like Gwenog Jones, captain of the Holyhead Harpies; Barnabas Cuffe, editor of the Daily Prophet; and a young, handsome Tom Riddle. The office also contains a well-stocked potions cabinet and various creature comforts, such as decanters of oak-matured mead and jars of crystallized pineapple.

Slughorn's office is a key location throughout Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It serves as the primary venue for the small, informal gatherings of the Slug Club, where Slughorn attempts to cultivate relationships with students he deems talented or well-connected, including Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. The office is central to Harry's mission, assigned by Albus Dumbledore, to retrieve a critical, untampered memory from Slughorn. This memory reveals the conversation Slughorn had with a young Tom Riddle about Horcruxes. Harry makes several visits to the office under various pretexts in his attempts to persuade the professor, but Slughorn consistently evades the subject out of deep shame and fear. These encounters in the office build the tension surrounding the memory and reveal much about Slughorn's character. A pivotal and dangerous event occurs in the office when Ron Weasley is accidentally poisoned. Slughorn opens a bottle of oak-matured mead, a gift he intended for Dumbledore, which had been poisoned by Draco Malfoy. After Ron drinks it and collapses, Harry saves his life by retrieving a bezoar from Slughorn's own supply cabinet in the office and forcing it down Ron's throat. This incident starkly illustrates the escalating dangers within Hogwarts itself.

In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the design of Slughorn's office provides a strong visual contrast to the same space when it was depicted as Snape's office in earlier films. While Snape's office was dark, stark, and filled with preserved specimens in jars, Slughorn's is portrayed as opulent, warm, and filled with soft furnishings and rich colours, effectively mirroring the distinct personalities of the two Potions Masters (film).