New students who enter Hogwarts can expect to find a school full of mysteries. This includes puzzles, which will require cleverness, magic, or a little of both. There are many types of puzzles, so be on the lookout so you don't miss out on important rewards that could make many of your quests much easier.
Ancient Magic Puzzles
These are found particularly in dungeons that hold pensieves. Basically they are puzzles that can only be solved using the ancient magic contained within the player's character. These puzzles were confirmed in the art book leak on January 20, 2023.
Brazier Puzzels
Throughout Hogwarts school you will find unlit braziers. Some of them will be on pedastals that you can simply walk up to while others will be mounted to the walls high in the air. If you set them on fire using incendio, they will provide you with a collectable field guide page. One such brazier can be found in the chart room just across the bridge from the clocktower and another can be found to the north of the portcullis hanging just below the crenelations.
Devil's Snare
During the March 2022 gameplay reveal trailer, a student needed to use "lumos" to get a patch of Devil's Snare to retreat so they could continue walking down a path. While that instance was not in itself a puzzle, it is distinctly possible that some secret passages may be covered over by Devil's Snare and thus constitute a puzzle in that way.
Doorknockers
The most obvious puzzle we know for sure is in the game are the doorknockers. Users can cast "accio" at the doorknockers to unlock secret passages and such. This puzzle was confirmed in the March 2022 gameplay reveal trailer and was a major part of the "Fire and Vice" side quest with Poppy Sweeting, where the knocker is what holds the captured dragon in place.
Eyeball Chest Puzzles
During the gameplay reveal trailer, we see there is a chest behind Ranrok while he is speaking to Rookwood that has an eyeball built into the front of it. On January 18, 2023, several YouTubers were given a preview of the game and during those previews several more of these chests were found around Hogwarts. These chests are naturally unlocked. The eyeball is constantly looking for approaching humans and the chest will lock itself if it sees the main character or any other NPC. To defeat the chest, you simply need to enter stealth before approaching it.
Floor Panels
During the original announce trailer, it was revealed that stepping on a particular floor panel caused the student to be "dragged" behind a wall which hid a secret passage. While it is possible that in the two years since such puzzles have been removed from the game, we're keeping this here for now just in case.
Leviosa Statues
Throughout Hogwarts users can expect to find statues of a man dressed in a funny hat holding a sphere aloft. Those are puzzles that require the use of the spell "leviosa" to loft that ball into the air. It is unclear at this time what if any reward you get from the statue or for completing all of the statue puzzles.
Moth Paintings
When you meet Hufflepuff student Lenora Everleigh, she explains that there is a "painting" with which she is obsessed. She knows it's activated by the spell "lumos", but she has no idea what the resulting change to the painting means.
[SOLUTION] When you cast lumos, the painting will then reveal a location within the world that you can visit--usually one within a short walking distance. If you find the depicted area, you'll find a moth clinging to the wall. Casting "lumos" again will cause the moth to follow your wand. You can then walk the moth back to the painting and, once combined, the painting will spit out a reward.
Question Mark Buttons
Throughout Hogwarts, users will find buttons mounted to the wall. During the first gameplay showcase, one of the devs took viewers on a tour of the school. Near the "Great Stairwell", the devs got close enough to one of those buttons for a prompt to appear on screen that read, "roll". Later, footage from the preview event on January 18, 2023 made its way to YouTube and we saw several people press the button. The button itself rotates to show a random icon. Those icons are identical to icons we see positioned around locked doorways in several places around Hogwarts. The presumption is that you must roll the question mark buttons until one of each icon is showing, thus unlocking all of the doors.
Roman Numeral Picture Frames
Some of the picture frames have roman numerals etched into their frame. It is unclear if this is an actual puzzle nor how such a puzzle would be solved. It's worth noting that there are almost a dozen such frames in the Gryffindor common room while the other three common rooms contain none at all so far. Thus, this puzzle may be specific to Gryffindor House, though we have found other such frames throughout the castle, including in the stairwell above Central Hall.
Viaduct Bridge Brazier Puzzle
Only one of these is known to exist. It can be found on the viaduct bridge in Hogwarts. It requires knowledge of the spell Incendio and consists of the following steps:
- make sure all four braziers on the viaduct are lit with Incendio
- at the west side of the bridge, you'll find the answers literally carved into the bridge--henceforth known as "answer ring"
- the answer ring has roman numerals and shapes that are paired together
- walk up to each brazier and spin it so the roman numeral carved into the base of the brazier matches it's shape
- once completed correctly, the answer ring will move to reveal your prize