Shrieking Shack
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Harry Potter locale | |
 |
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| The Shrieking Shack | |
|---|---|
| Location | Hogsmeade |
| Affiliation | Hogwarts/Albus Dumbledore |
| Permanent residents | None; Remus Lupin previously used it as a place to become a werewolf |
| First appearance | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
The Shrieking Shack is a building from the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, set in Hogsmeade, the only entirely wizarding settlement in Great Britain, a village close to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Shrieking Shack is believed to be the most haunted building in Great Britain.
This, as we find out in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is not true. The Shrieking Shack was built (probably around 1970–1971) so that Remus Lupin, who is a werewolf, could go there at the full moon to transform without harming his fellow students or any others. It can be reached by a tunnel underneath the Whomping Willow, which can only be seen when the Willow is frozen by a touch of the knot on one of its roots. Remus was smuggled there every full moon by the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, and as there were no humans available to bite, the werewolf had to scratch and bite himself. The villagers heard the noise and mistook it for violent spirits. This rumour, encouraged by Hogwarts' Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, lead to the Shrieking Shack being officially regarded as the most haunted building in Britain.
In Remus's sixth year, Sirius Black played a trick on their nemesis, Severus Snape, by telling him to go to the Whomping Willow and press the knot on the tree roots to open the entrance to the tunnel. Snape, who was immensely curious about Remus's regular disappearances, followed these instructions, and would have been badly injured or killed by the werewolf if James Potter had not saved him in the nick of time.
In Prisoner of Azkaban the Shrieking Shack is where Sirius Black drags Ron Weasley and his rat, Scabbers, in order to kill Scabbers, who it is revealed is actually the Animagus Peter Pettigrew, his former friend who betrayed James and Lily Potter to Voldemort, a crime for which Black was blamed. The tunnel was opened by Hermione's cat Crookshanks in this instance but when Remus used to transform there, Peter Pettigrew would activate it in rat form so that the Peter, Sirius and James could join Remus in their Animagi forms. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger chase after Ron, as they are unaware that the black dog that caught Ron was Sirius Black in Animagus form. They are joined by Remus Lupin, who tells them the story of the Shrieking Shack and Peter Pettigrew, who is revealed there and then as the true betrayer of James and Lily Potter.
The Shrieking Shack has not been mentioned in any of the succeeding books, except in Book 5 when it was discussed as a venue for the DA by Harry, Ron and Hermione.
