Hogwarts, was obviously the central setting of the Harry Potter books. However, the setting itself is rather sparse on the traditions of Hogwarts itself, which as a thousand year old school should be really quite dense. Surprisingly, the first book might have the most references to traditions, such as the singing of the School song. I think that it's useful to create an idea of what Hogwarts IS, beyond the obvious answers. What is a Hogwarts Graduate. Now, I suppose that my ideas in this primarily hold to two objectives.


1. Creating Traditions that feel true to Hogwarts as a British Boarding School

2. Creating Traditions that feel true to Hogwarts as a Magical School

On One
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Referring to point number 1, in designing Hogwarts, Rowling obviously drew from the traditional British schoolboy novel, as exemplified by Tom Brown's School Days (evidenced perhaps in the naming of a admirable older student in HP Diggory, after Tom Brown's Diggs). Perhaps this reveals my inclination to re-imagine Hogwarts as more of a British Public-School, rather than the only school, but I think that in considering the setting, it's best to understand it in the context of the material that Rowling was drawing from. Hogwarts didn't develop from nowhere, and the best traditions are probably the ones that already existed. Despite that, I think that this is useful whether or not you subscribe to that view point, in terms of creating a more engaging setting the traditions of those schools are both distinctive and rather interesting.

As an example, I might draw from the idea of the Eton Pop society, which was generally a grouping of the wealthiest and most influential members of the Etonian society, almost a Slug Club that was ingrained into the general life of the school It was above houses and generally consisted of both athletes and social elites. Again, it contextualizes to some degree Hogwarts as a school of the elite, creating a further divide within the school, but also creates a great battleground if you're trying to do a political Harry story. Of course the first battleground is Hogwarts-- everyone meets their friends at Hogwarts.

Similarly, things such as slang might have conceivably developed at Hogwarts just as it did at a place like Harrow. An isolated population is going to develop their own terms for things, and I think that could give a certain flavor to stories about Hogwarts. Especially as a way to distinguished Muggle-Raised students who don't understand and to show them as out of place.

Now personally, I think that all this works far better with an expanded Wizarding world, one where Hogwarts is the school of the elites, along with of course- as was the case in the Public Schools- a few poorer unfortunates. This would also of course bring in things like inter-school competitions and such. However, I think it's useful even without that.

On Two
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Of course, it bears to keep in mind that one shouldn't lose sight of the primary aspect of Hogwarts, not just a British Boarding School, but a School of Magic as well. Traditions should also remain tied to the theme of Magic. Traditions should have an odd side to them, perhaps drawing from folklore or perhaps leaning towards the adventurous side of magic, odd truths to certain peaces. Hidden places within the castle, secrets and such. I'm certainly not saying it has to echo entirely the Victorian age, especially in things like gender, as Wizards were never really Victorian, they were separate, and I think it was shown clearly in the books that the Wizarding world was far more egalitarian than the Muggle.

 

Re: a magical Hogwarts.

It’s in the details.

Moving staircases, talking portraits (more tickling a pear to enter the kitchens and less Salazar giving Harry life advice), funny names and alliteration, various enchantments but not limiting oneself to the Great Hall’s ceiling, and so forth.

 

I suppose the tricky part with the aspects you're describing, and why we don't see a lot more of them (at least number 1) is that Harry wouldn't and doesn't care.

He's immensely attracted to what the Weasley's offer, a warm and loving egalitarian family household and laughter, and immensely repulsed by values which he associates with the Dursleys. We can see from Smeltings Academy that all that public school malarkey is stuff Vernon was very interested in, and something Harry would have heard about before he ever went to Hogwarts.

However, in a normal relatively canon story we can still introduce those elements through Hermione - the academic, middle-class overachiever - who would likely be interested in a lot of aspects of public school life. And Ron for the magical things, I suppose.

Boarding school life:

• We see this one in the films, but prep. Taure does this noticeably in VP, and it's one of those things that if I see in a story it immediately twigs that someone's trying to capture the public school tone and build up Hogwarts. Quite a low-key flag. Essentially, prep is enforced homework time (particularly for lower years) where a teacher patrols and the whole year works on their homework in silence for a couple of hours before dinner. In the films, this is what they're up to when Snape wanders behind Harry and Ron and smacks their heads together in a weird beat of comedy from him.

• Prizes. In the first book, we encounter the trophy room and never see it again. There seems to be more than the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup, certainly. There are a lot of other clubs in Hogwarts and I think expanding them would give you your additional societies within the school, and perhaps the odd bit of unique slang. As well as extra-curricular prizes, there would also be academic prizes, which gives you an excuse to show these via Hermione. We don't see Dumbledore announcing things beyond the two big cups above, so maybe have the interminable and dreaded prizegiving be in the room off the Great Hall where the champions go after selection in GoF. Have very, very long boring speeches and the governors present, and parents and all the prize winners attend and get called up and get to shake hands with whomever - the Headmaster or Malfoy senior, or something like that. Have a Transfiguration Prize and a Charms prize etc. At my university, prize winners would get distinct robes to wear to formals that marked them out from plebs like me, and Hogwarts being Hogwarts, this would be a reasonable thing to do, maybe.

• House meetings - having more interaction with their housemaster. After Prep and dinner, at around 8, a daily roll call would be held to make sure everyone who should be in the house is in the house before letting them go off and do whatever they'd like for the last few hours before curfew. McGonagall is quite aloof in canon so you could make this a function of the prefects of the house, if it is a bit much. It was an opportunity to hear any announcements from the day or for the students to complain about things in general too, and build a bit of a rapport and relationship with their teachers.

• Hazing - this could be a place to insert magic quite easily. But... boarding houses are quite self-policing and sometimes cruel. A little lord of the flies goes a long way. We had beehives at the far end of the school that new kids would have to run through and back. Prefects would offer people in trouble 40 beats, 40 blue (lines) or a run around the cage in their underwear (which was one of the tarmac football fields). Famously, fagging was something younger students would often do for a specific older student in boarding schools - though I think it's rarely a modern phenomenon.

For magical traditions, I'd be inspired by and perhaps convert traditions that I could get away with from some of the most famous boarding schools. I think, as one of the oldest continuous schools in the UK, 600 years of which was unhidden from the muggle world - likely inspiring the muggle education system - you can get away with anything you want in terms of oddness. There's definitely a war-timey boys novel feel that's shot for with Hogwarts indeed, but one or two things like the list linked might be useful.

I definitely think that Hogwarts should have unusual term names, and that they should be magical in origin too.

An edit appears:

I talked to my partner about this, her brother and herself went to separate, rather more prestigious, schools than I did. She emphasised how they both had founders days essentially, and various other ceremonial things. As well as this, I forgot to mention the focus on the arts which you don’t really find at non-public schools. Their schools and mine all had theatres, pools, things like that and would use them for annual events to draw the parents in to.

Founders days which have never been mentioned before might feel a bit off in a canon-divergent story, but in a year 1-7 rewrite it might feel entirely appropriate.

 

Founders day sounds like it'd fit nicely, and inner-house traditions could come of it as well.

What do you guys think Hogwarts detentions would usually be like? I could see Prefects doing what Blorcyn mentioned, giving small punishments over lesser things like losing 5-10 points during that day but what about detentions? In canon I know filch was in charge of some but I'd like to think there are more magical punishments like when Hagrid took them out into the forest, I could see other students having to do more detentions like that, such as gathering herbs for Sprout from the forest with Hagrid.

 

For me, the castle's geography is a big part of fleshing it out. So many fics just have the building full of empty classrooms and not much more. I prefer to depict it as a functional castle. There should be stables, armouries, granaries, etc. Maybe they're not all in use any more, but the rooms still exist and mark the nature of the building. Then I add the quirky bits - an aquarium, a gallery full of blank canvases, etc.

 

We had a thread a few years ago to come up with "wonders" to add to Hogwarts.

https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/the-wonders-of-hogwarts.34182/

Some of the ones I like best.