Overview

Hogsmeade is an all-wizarding village located in the Scottish Highlands. It is also located near the train station used by the Hogwarts Express. Hogsmeade is the only known all-wizarding village in Britain. It consists of many cottages and shops, with enchanted candles hanging in the trees during the holiday season. The entrance to Hogsmeade is located through an archway past the Hogsmeade Entrance Bridge, which crosses a river from the road leading up to Hogwarts Castle. Other ways to enter include Apparation and the Floo Network, as well as other means of magical transportation. Third-year and above students attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are permitted to take weekend trips to the village, a rule in effect since 1714. The main street in Hogsmeade frequented by Hogwarts students is High Street, where most of the popular shops are located. These include stores such as Zonko’s Joke Shop, Honeydukes, and the Three Broomsticks. If students are not traversing High Street, they are usually searching for the infamous Shrieking Shack. Unspecified spell limits regulate the use of magic within Hogsmeade.

Early History

Hengist of Woodcroft, a medieval knight, founded Hogsmeade in the 10th or 11th century while fleeing persecution by Muggles in the area. Hogsmeade was reportedly founded around the same time as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A sign over Hogsmeade states that the village was founded in 914, but Hengist of Woodcroft was not alive then. At some point in the history of Hogsmeade, it was acknowledged that its residents were extremely prone to accidents and injury, much more than witches and wizards who lived elsewhere. In 1987, Silvanus Kettleburn, a former Care of Magical Creatures professor at Hogwarts, had been given the “Hogsmeade’s Most Maimed Award" ten years in a row.

In 1612, a goblin rebellion occurred near the village. At the time, Hogsmeade was used as the headquarters of the wizards fighting the goblins. In the 1890s, Victor Rookwood and Ranrok, the goblin leader, let two Trolls run loose in Hogsmeade, launching a large-scale attack on those in the area and causing a lot of property damage. They destroyed several villages and shops while citizens of Hogsmeade tried to stop the creatures. An anonymous fifth-year Hogwarts student who was in the area luckily stopped the chaos and took down one of the trolls before things got any worse.

According to the Daily Prophet, in the 1920s, Hogsmeade would host the first-ever Magical Waterplants Festival. Sometimes in the '30s, Newt Scamander and his brother, Theseus Scamander, traveled to Hogsmeade to visit Aberforth Dumbledore in search of Albus Dumbledore. Aberforth then told them that Albus was his brother, and Albus Dumbledore arrived and told Theseus that he needed to trust him as much as he could because if not, “everything will come undone.” They moved to a window nearby, and Albus showed him the blood pact he had made. Around Halloween in 1984, an army of enchanted skeletons raced through the town in search of two Hogwarts students; however, a mysterious wizard named Pumpkin Johnny drove them off.

Later History

Harry Potter’s very first visit to Hogsmeade occurred in 1993. After running away from his caretakers, the Dursleys, Harry was permitted to visit Hogsmeade by the Marauder's Map, a gift from Fred and George Weasley. The first time he visited, Harry snuck around without being noticed, but the next time he went, he made sure to bring his Invisibility Cloak. After Draco Malfoy had spotted Harry on his second trip, after the Invisibility Cloak slipped off his head, Remus Lupin covered for him when Professor Severus Snape inquired about the situation following a report from Draco. After the incident, Professor Lupin confiscated the Marauder’s Map. The confiscation made it impossible for Harry to take any other secret trips outside the castle during the year and made him rethink his decision to sneak off to the village in the first place. Later, his godfather, Sirius Black, permitted him to enter Hogsmeade again with a written note. Neville Longbottom also lost his rights to visit Hogsmeade for the year after Sirius Black (presumed to be a criminal at the time) was able to make his way into the Gryffindor Common Room using the passwords Neville had written down, given to him by Hermione Granger’s cat, Crookshanks.

In 1994, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley visited Sirius and Buckbeak the Hippogriff in a cave on the outskirts of Hogsmeade Valley. There, they had a safe place to talk about the mysterious circumstances regarding Harry’s entry into the Triwizard Tournament, which he was not supposed to be eligible for. The next winter in 1995, a group of Hogwarts students who were unhappy with the way the Ministry of Magic was handling their educations, specifically in their Defense Against the Dark Arts classes, formed a group called Dumbledore’s Army (D.A. for short). Because of the Ministry’s new, biased rules regarding clubs, largely stemming from the influence of Dolores Umbridge, Dumbledore’s Army was technically an illegal organization, even though it had been formed before these new laws were put in place. The club was centered around teaching students how to defend themselves against elements of the Dark Arts properly, basically what the class should have been teaching them. Instead, the unqualified Dolores Umbridge had them read out of textbooks that gave her students an extremely surface-level understanding of the subject. The club’s very first meeting was held in the Hog’s Head pub in Hogsmeade, the first time any of the trio had been inside the pub. They chose this location because Hermione thought the group would be safer in a more secluded spot. Sirius Black disagreed with this notion, stating that the pub’s high traffic flow diminished their chances of not being overheard. In fact, this proved to be true when Mundungus Fletcher happened to be in the area and told the Order of the Phoenix everything he heard.

On Valentine’s Day 1996, Harry Potter and Cho Chang shared a cup of tea at Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop. However, their date turned out horribly when the interior of the shop reminded Harry exactly of Umbridge’s office, bringing to mind his recent trauma. The atmosphere of many intimate teenage couples made the situation quite awkward. Cho then started talking about the late Cedric Diggory and started crying. When Harry unintentionally mentioned Hermione in a way that could warrant a misunderstanding, Cho got jealous and dramatically left the store. Harry paid for the goods and chased after her, but Cho had already gone far down the street and out of Harry’s sight. Harry later called the store a “stupid teashop” when reminiscing on the experience with Hermione. Once again, Harry’s Hogsmeade visitation rights were revoked by Dolores Umbridge as a punishment for illegally distributing the article in which he interviewed the Quibbler talking about the return of Lord Voldemort. This was later revoked upon Umbridge’s removal from the school in 1996. In 1997, the trio only went to Hogsmeade once during the entire school year.

Credits/References

Written by Simone Winter
Base code by Andrew Sutherland, edited by Iselin Merilä and Desmond Gray.