The Finest Musicians Hogsmeade Never Heard

It is a little known fact that, during Voldemort's first reign of terror, Death Eaters were at one point daring enough to establish a meeting place for themselves in Hogsmeade, right under Dumbledore's nose. This arrangement didn't last long; the Death Eaters had used this place for their meetings only a couple of times before they were driven away. This story is not well known because the heroes who banished the Death Eaters were too young at the time to realise with whom they were dealing. You could also say that they weren't quite themselves when it happened.

The moon was full that night, and a bloodcurdling howl was echoing through the Forbidden Forest. Animals were running away from the sound, instinctively feeling that it was the cry of a beast much more dangerous than an ordinary wolf.

Anyone daring enough to search for the creature that was producing the chilling sound would have found a very strange sight.

On a small clearing in the forest, a wolf was howling at the moon - a wolf with a disturbingly human expression in its eyes. A large black dog was standing beside the wolf, barking or growling from time to time. Next to them stood a stag, holding his head low so that his antlers were pointing at the wolf. Both dog and stag seemed very tense, as if they were expecting the wolf to attack any moment.

To make the sight even stranger, there was a fourth animal in their company: a rat was running excitedly around the dog and the stag, careful not to come too close to the wolf.

Had anyone been able to understand what it was that these animals were saying to each other, he would have been surprised to learn that they were discussing the possibility of a career in music.

The dog was the first to bring up the subject, but he would never have had the idea had it not been for the wolf. For this was what the wolf's howling meant, translated into human words:

"Blood! I feel the call of blood, and I don't wish to pursue it! But the beast in me is stronger than the man tonight! Blood! I must have it, and I hate it! I hate this curse with all that's still human in me!"

And this was what the dog barked as an answer:

"You know, Moony, these things you keep saying are actually brilliant. If I can remember them I'll write them down tomorrow."

"Don't you dare!" the wolf growled, baring his teeth at the dog. Then he looked at the moon and howled again:

"The moon is blinding me, making me forget who I am! Blood! Why do I want blood so much?"

"See what I mean?" the dog said to the rat and the stag. "If we set Moony's words to music we'll have a song. Lots of songs. Old Moony can go on and on like this for hours. And then we could arrange a gig at The Three Broomsticks. I'm sure Rosmerta would be all for it. There's just enough space there for a band, and there's even that old piano."

"It's a harpsichord," the rat said. "It's been out of tune for a century and a half."

"Even better," said the dog. "It will give us a unique sound."

The conversation was interrupted by another long howl from the wolf: "I would claw out my heart and eat it if I knew it would kill the beast in me!"

The dog listened to him with pride and then asked the other two: "Isn't he great?"

The wolf gave him a murderous glance.

The stag shook his head.

"No, we can't do that. Rosmerta knows we are Hogwarts students, and she'd never let us come any night except on a Hogsmeade weekend. She's good friends with the teachers."

This made the dog stop and think for a moment.

"We'll do in this shape, then. As we are now. She'll never know who we are."

The other three stared at him incredulously.

"O, come on, we can do that! Moony has an amazing voice range when he's howling. He can be the vocalist. I'll play bass guitar. You could be the drummer, Prongs. And Wormtail could play that piano by running up and down the keyboard."

"Harpsichord. It's a harpsichord," the rat said.

"All right, whatever."

The wolf stopped in the middle of a howl and looked at the dog irritably.

"How will he know in which key to run?" he growled.

"What do you mean, which key?" the dog asked. "He'll be running up and down all of them, of course."

The wolf made a sudden movement as if he was going to jump at the dog's throat, but the dog bared his teeth in warning and the stag turned his antlers towards the wolf again.

The wolf took a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself.

"When I said key, I meant G major or A minor. That sort of key."

"Why do you always insist on complicating things, Moony?" the dog asked.

The stag gave the dog a warning glance and said:

"Maybe it would be a good idea to return to the Shack so that Moony can have some rest."

"Yeah, let's go," the dog said and the four of them started towards Hogsmeade, the stag and the dog making sure that the wolf, who seemed to be in a very bad mood, remained safely between them. Their conversation continued.

"So you think I'd make a good drummer? But who's going to play lead guitar?"

"We'll think of something. We could order one of those self-playing guitars by owl post."

"Blood! The moon is driving me mad, taking control of me, commanding me to kill!"

They saw that something was wrong the moment the Shrieking Shack was in sight. A light was visible through one of the windows on the ground floor - not the flickering light of a candle but a steady, faint light: the sort of light the Lumos spell would produce.

"What the hell...? No one ever comes here except for us!" the stag said quietly.

They approached the house as quietly as possible; even the wolf refrained from howling, which wasn't an easy thing for him to do.

"I'll look in through the window," the stag said.

"No, I should do it," the black dog said, "because I'll be more difficult for them to spot if they look out through the window."

He walked up to the window very softly and stood up on his hind legs to peek inside.

"There are at least ten people inside," he told the others in a low growl. "Definitely wizards, all dressed in black cloaks. Strangely white faces. They are all sitting around our table. Looks like they're having a party!"

"In our house! The bloody cheek!" the stag said, outraged.

"How dare they!" the rat squeaked.

"Well, they're going to have to leave," the dog said. "Maybe Moony could..."

"Don't even think about it, Padfoot!" the wolf growled. "You know I can't control myself!"

"No, we should all do this together," the stag said. "We'll scare them away. But we must give them a proper fright, so that they never even dream of coming back."

After a brief consultation, the four friends stood in front of the window together. The wolf jumped on the stag's back; the dog managed, with a lot of effort, to keep its balance on the wolf's back; finally, the rat climbed on top of the dog's head.

The black dog was the one who gave the others the signal to start. He closed his eyes and, just as if they had been in front of an audience at The Three Broomsticks, he barked quietly:

"One! Two! One, two, three!"

All as one, the four of them started making as much noise as they could: the stag belled, the wolf howled, the dog barked and the rat squeaked, doing his best to be heard among three much louder voices. The pale, cloaked figures inside turned to the window and froze for a moment; the silhouette the four of them formed together against the moonlight must have looked monstrous.

Then the stag took a giant leap forward and the four crashed inside, shattering the window into pieces. The people inside didn't wait to see what kind of creature had interrupted their meeting; they all Disapparated immediately.

The four friends burst into laughter, or at least into what would have been laughter had it been expressed in human voices. They didn't know that they hadn't quite won the battle for the Shrieking Shack yet.

The Death Eaters' first reaction had been to Disapparate, in accordance with their rules: the secrecy of their meetings was much more important than the destruction of their enemies. But one of them, Macnair, decided to come back. This was his reasoning: the enemy was a beast, not a person, and a beast didn't present a threat to the secrecy of their meeting place. Besides, Macnair had some experience in fighting against magical creatures and he wanted to try his luck against this unknown particularly hideous one.

He Apparated outside the house, opened the door and entered as quietly as possible, holding his wand at the ready. But before he could do anything, he heard a loud howl that made his blood freeze in his veins. It sounded as if it was coming from someplace very near.

Frozen at the spot, he watched the door to one of the rooms open slowly, and then all hell broke loose. There was the sound of hooves pounding on the wooden floor, red eyes were glowing in the dark all around him, a figure with antlers on its head was rushing at him, there was howling and barking, and finally something small and furious jumped at his face from a dusty shelf and bit him in the nose.

Macnair turned around, ran outside and kept on running until he was out of breath. He leaned against a tree and rubbed his bleeding nose. Only then did he realise that he had been clenching his wand with his hand all the time, but he didn't feel like returning to the Shrieking Shack and using it.

The four friends laughed at that night's events for a long, long time. Even though they were to have much closer encounters with wizards wearing white masks in the years to follow, they never realised who it was they were fighting against that night.

Not one of them ever tried to pursue a musical career, but the quartet they sang in front of the Shrieking Shack that night was a performance to be remembered with pride.

As for Macnair, from that night on he decided that if there was one thing he hated even more than Muggles and Mudbloods, it was animals.