The Gobstones Club is a student organization at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry dedicated to playing the magical game of Gobstones. The game itself is a popular wizarding pastime, similar to the Muggle game of marbles, with the key difference that the stones spit a foul-smelling liquid into the loser's face upon the loss of a point. The club has a long history at Hogwarts. During her time as a student, Eileen Prince, the mother of Severus Snape, was the captain of the Hogwarts Gobstones team. This indicates that the activity was not merely a casual club but was structured competitively, much like Quidditch. In the 1990s, the club was still active. Horace Slughorn noted that Filius Flitwick, the Charms master, had “a nose for a Gobstones champion,” strongly suggesting that Professor Flitwick was the faculty head of the club, responsible for overseeing its activities and identifying talented players.
The Gobstones Club is most notably mentioned during the 1995-1996 school year in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. When Dolores Umbridge was appointed Hogwarts High Inquisitor, she enacted Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four, which disbanded all student organizations, societies, teams, groups, and clubs. The Gobstones Club was explicitly listed on the notice board alongside the house Quidditch teams as a group that was henceforth banned unless it received special permission from Umbridge to reform. This event highlights the sweeping and oppressive nature of Umbridge's control over student life, demonstrating that her power grab extended even to seemingly innocuous recreational activities. The club's existence also serves to enrich the world of Hogwarts, showing that student interests and organized activities went beyond Quidditch and schoolwork. The earlier mention of Eileen Prince as a team captain also provides a subtle but important detail about Severus Snape's maternal lineage.