The Intriguing Hogwarts Motto

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, gearing up wizards and witches to face the challenges of muggle and magic for over a thousand years. With scores of magic to tap and a history of powerful wizards, both noble & sinister, it is the talk of legends. But its school motto, given along with the school coat of arms on the initial pages of each book, reads-Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon. Now what is that suppose to mean?! I thought the school’s aim was to impart a brave and bold spirit into potential sorcerers; but what its motto tells them is not to meddle in anything dangerous. Of course, it has many interpretations…

Good ol’ saying- Stay Away from Danger and it stays away from you

The simplest meaning that it could be want to convey is that there is no use inviting trouble, and the best thing is to lie down and keep doing your own work. It is quite a good advice to give as it will ensure a problem free life, but then one thing is clear- neither Gryffindor or Slytherin, both of them bold wizards, designed the motto or had anything to do with it. This is quite not possible as they were the founders and would obviously have an active participation in such important matters.

Another possibility is that they had a major argument over the pureblood-mudblood thing, which resulted in a duel which left both the powerful wizards shaken and stirred. They both decided that it would be unwise for people to get into problems with powerful wizards who may seem reclusive at first but who had the potential to blast their opponents (in short, a sleeping dragon).

A nasty accident

It could have been that one of the founders, probably Gryffindor because of his bold nature, had a nasty accident with a dragon that left him burnt and the dragon fuming. He decided that since the students of his house were quite brave (that’s the criteria for being in Gryffindor), he should leave them a warning not to stretch their luck too far.

Who understands this language anyway??

No student would take the pain to translate it, after all.

All right, enough of humor now, let me give some serious propositions:

Hogwarts – The storehouse of Magic

Dumbledore told Harry that one of the main reasons Voldemort wanted to come back to Hogwarts was to tap the storehouse of magic, which no one had yet been able to tap completely. The nature of this untapped magical potential is both noble & sinister. The noble examples are the Sorting Hat, the sword of Gryffindor etc. The sinister ones are The Chamber of Secrets and possibly other horrendous legacies which are better not unveiled. Of course, there are some instances where the nature of the ancestry depends upon that of the user. The best example so far is the Room of Requirement, used by Harry to train Dumbledore’s Army, and used by Draco to repair the Vanishing cabinet, and also used by many students to hide their belongings. Also, Fred and George used the vanishing cabinet at Hogwarts to hide Montague, but the same incident along with Montague’s experience gave Draco the idea on how to transport the Death Eaters. Such subtle examples show that one has to tap the magic of Hogwarts at their own risk, and it is better not to experiment than to suffer the consequences.

A prophecy??

It might be a hidden message for things to come. Maybe Dragon is used as a metaphor for something. Can it be Harry? The sleeping dragon, who was tickled (attempt to be killed in this case) by Lord Voldemort, who got his penance. He may have followed the prophecy given by Trelawney, but he couldn’t follow this one. It is quite common that big V ignored Ancient magic.

Latin- the Language of Magic…

All the spells in the books are in Latin. And this motto is also in Latin. Can it be that it is an incantation? Perhaps used by the Hogwarts four to lay the foundation of the castle, or a password to seal it?

As I said earlier, it has many interpretations, so feel free to offer your own or comment on the existing ones.