Hog's Head

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This article is about the Harry Potter locale. For the unit of measure, see hogshead.

Harry Potter locale
The Hog's Head Pub
Location	Hogsmeade
Owner	Aberforth Dumbledore
Affiliation	None (owner loyal to Order of the Phoenix)
Permanent residents	Aberforth Dumbledore
First appearance	Order of the Phoenix, first mentioned in Philosopher's Stone

The Hog's Head is a pub in the fictional Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. The bar is located in Hogsmeade, a small, pleasant village within walking distance of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry and a large group of his friends visit the Hog's Head in the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to organize a Defence Against the Dark Arts study group, Dumbledore's Army. The bar is also mentioned in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when Rubeus Hagrid admits that he won Norbert the dragon from a hooded stranger in the Hog's Head. According to Hagrid, "you get a lot of funny folk in the Hog's Head".

[edit] Description

The bar has a rather "dodgy" atmosphere. The sign out front is a wild boar's severed head with its blood leaking onto the white tablecloth it sits on. Inside, the bar is nothing like the popular Three Broomsticks, where most of the students go in Hogsmeade. It is comprised of "one small, dingy, very dirty room" (pg. 335, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Most of the windows are coated so thick with grime that candles must be lit on the "rough" wooden tables to provide light. Harry also notices that the stone floor seems to be covered under "the accumulated filth of centuries" (pg. 335, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). Additionally, the people who visit the Hog's Head are drastically different from those who visit The Three Broomsticks. Here, Harry finds that "keeping your face hidden was something of a fashion" (pg. 336 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and many of the customers seem secretive and suspicious.

[edit] The Bartender

It has been recently confirmed ([1]) by J.K. Rowling that the bartender in the Hog's Head is in fact the brother of Albus Dumbledore, Aberforth Dumbledore. However, many Potter-fans had resolved this before the author's announcement for a number of reasons. For one, when Harry first saw the grumpy-looking bartender, he thought he looked vaguely familiar, possibly due to Harry's frequent meetings with the Hogwarts headmaster or because Alastor Moody showed Harry a picture of Aberforth with other members of the Order of the Phoenix. Additionally, Harry felt that the bar smelled strongly of goats, and in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore revealed that his brother was convicted of practising inappropriate charms on a goat. More recent evidence from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince also points to this conclusion. When Dumbledore leaves the school to search for more Horcruxes, he leaves with the alibi of going to visit the Hog's Head for a drink. Harry also makes a brief mention during Dumbledore's funeral that the barman of the Hog's Head was present, which would be logical if the two were brothers. Interestingly enough, though maybe even coincidentally, ‘Hog's Head’ purports to ‘Hogwarts Headmaster’.

[edit] The Hog's Head and the Prophecy

Ron Weasley, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger (Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, respectively) in the Hog's Head in a scene from the fifth film.

In addition to being the place where Harry's Anti-Dolores Umbridge league, Dumbledore's Army, was founded, it is also the place where Sybill Trelawney made the famous prophecy that marked Harry as the "Chosen One". Albus Dumbledore was intervieweing her for a Hogwarts teaching job in the Hog's Head guest rooms when she suddenly reverted into the telling of a real propehcy. She was overheard by then-Death Eater Severus Snape, who rushed off to tell Lord Voldemort what Trelawney had predicted. In some ways, this event alone makes the Hog's Head a landmark location in the Wizarding World.

[edit] References

• JKR's confirmation of Aberforth's identity

^[HP5] Rowling, J.K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. UK ISBN 0747551006/US ISBN 043935806X.

• There is a major dispute about the word 'hogshead'. A company believe it can trademark the word and a family who believe it is common English word. hogshead dispute