The Shrieking Shack
The Shrieking Shack was built at Professor Dumbledore‘s disposition, who was one of the last but now dead headmasters of Hogwarts, for Remus Lupin, a former student and teacher of Hogwarts, on a hill outside the village Hogsmeade.
The sight of this shack, which is a bit crooked, cast in concrete and cased with wood still makes the inhabitants of the village shiver today. Not for nothing it is considered by witches and wizards as the “most haunted house” in whole Great Britain. The only entrance leading to the shack is found on the Hogwarts grounds under the Whomping Willow.
The interior of the shack is waste and dusty. The hangings are coming off the walls everywhere and the floor is covered in stains. The curtains are hanging from the ceiling, shredded into tatters and every piece of furniture is destroyed. A mealy, rotten staircase leads to the first floor.
The reason for the building of this shack was, as already mentioned, Remus Lupin! As a young boy he was bitten by a werewolf. At that time there was no cure for these bites and so Lupin’s parents were powerless and had to witness from then on how their son turned into a full-grown monster, a werewolf, every month when the moon was full.
So it seemed impossible for Remus Lupin to ever be taught in Hogwarts. ‘Cause whose parents would expose their children to such danger? But Albus Dumbledore had sympathy, he said that under certain precautions there was no reason why Lupin shouldn’t come to Hogwarts.
This was why the Shrieking Shack was built, for Remus Lupin to hide inside this shack as long as he was a werewolf. The Whomping Willow should keep anyone from following him, because this would probably have turned out deadly to the follower! Due to the fact that it was very painful to turn into a werewolf and that he was far away from humans who he could have bitten, he bit and scratched himself. The villagers heard the noise and the screams and believed that these were very rough ghosts. Dumbledore aroused these rumours so that nobody would assume what really was going on inside this house.
Even today, though there is silence in the house since years, people don’t dare to go near it. And even Hogwarts’ ghosts give the Shrieking Shack a wide berth.
