Summary
- Hogwarts professors can live wherever they want and have families outside of term, contrary to what is portrayed in the Harry Potter series.
- Examples of professors living outside of Hogwarts include McGonagall in Hogsmeade and Snape in Cokeworth.
- Neville Longbottom, after becoming a professor, lives in Diagon Alley with his wife, proving that professors can have personal lives outside of their teaching duties.
Little is said in the Harry Potter series about what the Hogwarts teachers do outside of term. It's unclear if they live in the castle all year round or whether it's possible for them to have spouses or children. Real-world boarding schools will often have faculty living on campus with their families, but nothing of the like is ever seen at Hogwarts in Harry Potter. This seems to imply that accepting a job at Hogwarts means swearing off getting married or having a family. However, life at the wizarding school may not require such abstinence.
None of Harry Potter's professors at Hogwarts seemed to have any kind of life outside their jobs. They were all single and childless, which appears to the idea that this was a job requirement. Still, it's important to that only a select few Hogwarts professors were ever explored in the Harry Potter books or movies. From time to time, Harry would mention another teacher whose classes he had never taken, and we know nothing of those teachers' marital statuses—or where they live. However, a few hints throughout lore indicate that Hogwarts professors could live wherever and marry whoever they wanted (and have as many children as desired).
Dumbledore & McGonagall Lived At Hogwarts In Harry Potter - But That Wasn't Always True
During the events of the Harry Potter series, Minerva McGonagall lived at Hogwarts Castle. This is clear since she was frequently seen in her nightrobe whenever anything happened at the school that called her from bed. The same was true for Dumbledore, though it's hard to imagine the old heaster sleeping or doing anything else so human. Regardless, he called Hogwarts his home in the Harry Potter books, and he too was seen to be in his office in the late hours of night. Still, the backstories of these characters indicate that they didn't live on school grounds throughout their entire teaching careers.
Minerva McGonagall married Elphinstone in the years following the First Wizarding War after Voldemort had fallen to the infant Harry Potter. They lived together in Hogsmeade, and J.K. Rowling's entry for McGonagall on the McGongall's romance ended tragically just before the start of Harry Potter, when Elphinstone was killed by a Venomous Tentacula. Still, her story proves that Hogwarts teachers could live off campus with their spouses.
Dumbledore, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. Harry even once wondered what the heaster did over the summer in the books, daydreaming about Dumbledore and his long beard basking in the sun on a beach somewhere. However, the Fantastic Beasts series is what really shines a light on Dumbledore's personal life. His brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, owned the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade Village, and it appears that Albus would stay there often when he wasn't at school. Additionally, his adventures took him all over the world while he wasn't teaching, so he would stay wherever was convenient.
Severus Snape Lived In A Town Called Cokeworth Outside Of Term
Another example of a Hogwarts teacher living outside Hogwarts Castle is Severus Snape. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we see Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange visit Snape's home. This is where Snape's Unbreakable Vow was made. A lot is unclear about Snape's home, such as why Peter Pettigrew was presumably living there as well. However, the exact location of the house, at least, has since been revealed on the Wizarding World website.
Rowling has since explained that the town seen in Half-Blood Prince is called Cokeworth and that it is the same town that Snape and Lily had grown up in as children. It's an industrial town in the English Midlands—classicly split in two by a river that divides the town's well-to-do from the working class. Snape inherited his house from his parents and had presumably kept it since their deaths (though it's unclear when this would have been). Snape certainly lived at Hogwarts during the term, but he returned to his home in Cokeworth for at least one year—proving again that Hogwarts teachers' lives extend beyond the classroom.
Professor Longbottom Lives In Diagon Alley With His Wife After Harry Potter
The epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows revealed that Neville Longbottom wound up becoming the Herbology professor at Hogwarts during the years that Harry's children attended the school. Since this reveal, the details of Neville's adult life have been shared on Wizarding World. As it turns out, Neville and his wife, Hannah Abbot, a Ravenclaw mentioned throughout the Harry Potter series, moved into an apartment above the Leaky Cauldron.
The details of Neville's commute to Hogwarts aren't clear. The Leaky Cauldron is in London's Diagon Alley, relatively far from Hogwarts' location in Scotland. However, as an adult wizard (and a skilled one now that he developed some confidence), it would have been no issue for Neville to Apparate to Hogsmeade and then walk or take a carriage to the school. It's unclear whether Neville and Hannah ever had any children, but there is no reason that they couldn't have.
In Conclusion - Harry Potter's Professors Can Live Virtually Anywhere
Ultimately, the fact that known Harry Potter professors have lived all over Britain proves that the teachers were allowed to live virtually anywhere. Though Apparition was impossible on the Hogwarts grounds (despite what the Harry Potter movies say), Hogsmeade Village made commuting to the school no major issue. Just like any other boarding school, the teachers could easily live their own lives with spouses and children of their own and return to teach the students when required.
Really, the only reason this has been a topic of confusion in the Harry Potter series is that the books and movies always made it seem as if the professors existed only to teach their students—end of story. However, it's important to that the books and movies are from Harry's perspective, and as a teenager, he was naturally uninterested in the personal lives of his teachers. He only took much notice of the professors whose classes he was taking and even those he remained rather oblivious of. He never knew that Snape lived near his mother's childhood home or that McGonagall had once had a tragic romance—and what teenage boy really would?
