The Portiport is the castle's heart of activity, a large white-marbled rotunda. At the center of the room looms a rather pompous statue of Griffith Virell, Penwick's first Headmaster, depicted in an almost cliché heroic pose. Five large archways are carved into the rounded walls of the room, a Roman numeral etched above them. Step through an arch, and you emerge at that floor’s landing with no need to take the stairs. Similar arches can be found on the landing of each floor that transport back to the Portiport.
There are stairs in the castle, but their steep, dizzying climbs seem more like a punishment than a form of transportation. Professors insist they remain for emergencies, students insist they remain as a cruel joke.
The Portiport is noisy at every change of class, students spilling through its arches like floodgates. And while no one ever gets lost here, there are whispered tales of students arriving a floor too high, usually after offending Griffith’s statue.