When we look back on our school days, it’s usually with all kinds of mixed emotions. Yes, they’re supposed to be the Best Days Of Your Life™, but the truth is, that’s a bit of a rose-tinted view.

Sure, it was a carefree, friendship-making time, and adult responsibilities hadn’t hit us like several dumpsters full of angry cement yet. That’s all pretty darn great. However, it was also a time of youthful broken hearts and hilarious fashion and/or hairstyle decisions that came back to bite us on the cheeks later (think Ross’s afro in the Friends flashback episodes). Not to mention the darn bullies.

In short, we’ve got to be careful not to get sucked into all the romance and nostalgia of high school memories. The good times were very good, but the bad times were all kinds of awful.

If you ask any Potterhead, they’d probably tell you that their number one life ambition would be to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (whatever their age). Again, this would be fantastic in all kinds of ways, but let’s not forget: a magical education is a serious business.

Hogwarts rules are numerous, often ridiculous and diligently upheld. There’s a strict curfew, corridors that are forbidden for a darn good reason, and sometimes even dementors to stay on the right side of. Not to mention the fact that, at one point, male and female students were forbidden to stray within eight inches of each other! Let’s take a look at some of the rules Hogwarts students had to obey, and  others that were frequently flouted.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: Stay Away From The Whomping Willow

Now, in the magical world, you never quite know what you can trust. Heck, over the course of the series, everything from a darn diary to a necklace has tried to bring somebody to a dark end.

It’d be super useful to be able to instantly tidy a room with a sweep of a wand, but is it worth that to live in the magical world, where a drinking cup or something could send you to the hospital?

Let’s not even get started on the Whomping Willow, a rare, valuable and incredibly aggressive species of magical plant. The Whomping Willow was planted in the grounds of Hogwarts to guard the entrance to the Shrieking Shack (a secret age Lupin used during his werewolf transformations), and students are forbidden to approach the tree.

Considering that it came close to destroying a whole darn car in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, like it was playing that Street Fighter minigame, that’s probably for the best.

ALWAYS BREAK: Stay At Least Eight Inches From The Opposite Gender

As fans will , Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix introduces one of the franchise’s most hated characters: Dolores Umbridge. The sanctimonious, toad-tastic professor is often considered more loathsome than Voldemort, and it’s not hard to see why.

When she weasled her way into the role of High Inquisitor (and later heistress) of Hogwarts, she implemented all manner of draconian ‘Educational Decrees;’ school rules that just took things far too far. One of the worst of these was Educational Decree Number Thirty-One, which stated that boys and girls were forbidden to be within eight inches of each other at any time.

Naturally, this was only a rule for the briefest time, and equally naturally, it was constantly flouted.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: The Restricted Section Is… Restricted

Now, the Hogwarts library is a super-important place for the students. After all, they can’t just whip out their phones and Google the answer to absolutely any question they happen to have. They’ve got to take out a book and do some research like it’s 1525 or something.

With that in mind, it stands to reason that the library’s got to be well-stocked and ready for anything. So, yes, some of the volumes in there are going to be every possible kind of inappropriate for the younger students. As we learn in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, they’ve got a book in there that manifests ghostly face-pages that scream at you, so it’s probably best to take that keep the heck out of the restricted section rule seriously.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: No Magic In The Corridors

There’s an obvious problem with teaching students a whole array of magical spells, isn’t there? Yep, that’s the one: somebody’s likely to head back to their dormitory with a frog’s head in place of their own or wine glasses for hands or something.

As such, Hogwarts maintains a strict no-magic-in-the-corridors rule. Outside of the school, as we know, underage magic is also prohibited, and this is more of an extension of that than anything. Throughout the series, there are several cases of students breaking this rule, but it doesn’t tend to end well for them. Outside of lessons, those wands should be away.

ALWAYS BREAK: The Curfew

That’s right, friends. If there’s one Hogwarts rule that the professors just won’t stop mentioning, it’s the no wandering the corridors at night thing.

Over their career at the school, Harry Potter and his friends broke this one on countless occasions, but that wasn’t exactly their fault. After all, Dumbledore himself gave Harry his father’s invisibility cloak as a Christmas gift, essentially giving him permission to blunder around in the dark. That’s some preferential treatment, right there.

Considering the fact that a huge, slathering snake spent a year cruising around those corridors (and an escaped felon who was believed to be hunting Harry down once broke in), you might have expected Harry to take a break from the night-time wanderings, but there it was.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: Stay Out Of The Forbidden Forest

Now, see, this is another Hogwarts rule that just doesn’t quite follow the guidelines of common sense and logic. It’s confirmed right from the first installment, as Harry and his new friends sit down to their first Hogwarts meal, that the Forbidden Forest is… well, it’s forbidden.

You might think it’s just a little bit of a questionable decision to have a forest full of werewolves and other horrors on the grounds of a school, but we’re not here to question these things.

We are, however, here to question why they think it’s acceptable to send students in there on detention. Still, it sends out a clear message: behave your darn self at Hogwarts, if you don’t want to wind up as a werewolf’s chew toy because your homework was late or something.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: No Swimming In The Lake

Now, this one’s a bit of a grey area. During an intense Occlumency lesson, we’re given a brief glimpse into Severus Snape’s memories, and see Lily Evan dipping her toes into the Great Lake.

We also know that first-year reach Hogwarts by boating across the lake, while graduating seventh-years leave by boating back across it.

Outside of instances like these, as Pottermore reports, there were regulations against swimming/boating here. Which is, to be frank, completely understandable. While a lot of the aquatic life in there tends to be somewhat harmless (the giant squid is kinda-sorta domesticated and loves letting the students tickle its tentacles), the fact remains that there’s a darn giant squid in there.

ALWAYS BREAK: Traditional Hats And Robes Must Be Worn

School uniforms have always been a bit of a controversial topic. On the one hand, they promote a sense of community, togetherness, and they look rather smart too. On the other, they do tend to quell any kind of individuality and personal identity among the students.

Over at Hogwarts, as we’ve reported before, there’s one rather clichéd piece of attire that students of magic just cannot get away from: pointy wizard/witch hats.

Interestingly, though, they’re very rarely seen in the movies or the books. The final scene of the film adaption of Sorcerer’s Stone features them prominently, but they were more or less dispensed with after that. They’re just a little too formal for everyday wear, presumably.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: First-Years Aren’t Allowed Brooms

 

Speaking of the special treatment the super-famous Harry Potter is given, how about this whole situation? There he was, happily flying about on a broomstick Madame Hooch was gone, despite her promise that any student who tried to do so would be expelled.

For Harry, though, Neville Longbottom’s spectacularly useless Remebrall (it tells you if you’ve forgotten something, but not what you’ve forgotten) was more important than the risk of his falling off of a broom and leaving a heroic, splattery mess on the Hogwarts lawn.

Because it was Harry, though, everything was totally fine, and he was rewarded with a world-class racing broom and a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

HAVE TO FOLLOW: Only Third-Years And Above Can Visit Hogsmeade

In the third installment of the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling introduced a new element: visits to Hogsmeade village. This privilege was only for students who were third-years and above, and gives them a unique opportunity to experience a uniquely-magical community.

Considering the fact that some Muggle-born students may never have had such a chance before, the Hogsmeade visits were a huge deal. At first, Harry himself didn’t have the opportunity to go (as Uncle Vernon didn’t take kindly to his sister being inflated like a huge, tweed helium balloon and didn’t sign his permission slip), but made clandestine trips there by using the Marauder’s Map.