Content Type: Gaming Guides
One of the spells you’ll be able to learn fairly early on in Hogwarts Legacy is Alohomora, the Unlocking Charm. Notably used by Hermoine Granger to rescue Sirius Black in The Prisoner of Azkaban, in Hogwarts Legacy it takes the form of a lock-picking minigame. In this guide, we’ll explain how the Unlocking process works, and give you some tips and tricks to help you succeed at the Alohomora minigame.
How to Get the Alohomora Spell
To unlock Alohomora, you’ll need to complete the quest “The Caretaker’s Lunar Lament”, which is a Main Story quest.
How to Unlock Objects & Doors
Once you’ve acquired Alohomora, you’ll be able to interact with the locks found throughout the game. These can appear on doors or other objects, and are easily spotted thanks to their size — you’ll also get a prompt when you’re close enough to something unlockable that indicates you can interact with it. By default, you’ll need to press
/
when prompted to begin the Unlocking process.

Doing so will cause your character to cast Alohomora — after a brief delay, you’ll be taken to the Unlocking screen. Here, you’ll be able to control two different colored magical sparks, a green one and a red one. These fit into one of the slots on the dial of matching color (the green spark goes into the green dial, and the red into the red), with the left stick controlling the green spark, and the right stick the red spark.
Focus on one stick to start, and push it all the way up, down, left, or right to get it to fit into a slot. Then, slowly rotate that stick, which will move the dial. Continue rotating the stick until the corresponding gear starts to turn continuously, then hold the stick there. If you’re rotating the stick too quickly, you may only see the gear “jump” a bit — if this happens, rotate the stick slowly the other direction until you find where the gear moved. Once you’ve got the dial in the correct position, not only will the matching gear start to rotate, but a spark will appear in the gear as well — indicating you’ve got it in the right spot.

You’ll need to hold this first dial in place as you repeat the process with the other stick. Again, push the stick far to the left, right, up, or down, so that the spark slides into a slot, and then rotate the stick until the gear that corresponds with the dial you’re turning starts to rotate (and gets its own spark). Once you’ve found the correct spot for the second dial, hold it there — if both gears spin for a few moments, the lock will unlock! After a brief animation, you’ll exit the minigame, with the target object or door now unlocked.
We hope this guide on the Hogwarts Legacy unlocking minigame was helpful! Questions and suggestions both welcome in the comments below.