Chapter 97

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The road to Hogsmeade, like most roads near the castle, was only a direction. Professor McGonagall's presence as our chaperone in itself provoked great discipline - with her, even the most irrepressible students tried to restrain their soulful urges. The older boys, who had visited the village more than once or twice before, briskly left ahead of our company. By the time our stream with McGonagall reached the stone road inside the village, senior students were already happily scurrying from store to store, from house to house.

What could I say about Hogsmeade? It was a village of several parallel streets and alleys. Stone roads were, probably, only here and another one led from the village to the platform in the distance. The houses themselves were stone and gloomy, in the classic English medieval style, with pointed roofs and big shop windows on the first floors. But what I was glad about was the lack of crazy curvature in architecture - unlike Diagon Alley, where the houses and the road are more like a play of crooked mirrors.

As we moved along the central street of the village, I couldn't help but notice an amusing fact - there were stores and benches only on this central street, while the rest were residential houses, and a couple of times, I glimpsed a hotel sign. A little away from the mass of houses, on a small hill, stood a lone large building, to which there was a fairly well-kept walkway. A boar's head was nailed over the entrance. Actually, the building was quite far away, but my eyesight was excellent.

"Let's go to Zonko's, quick," Ron hurried Dean and Seamus.

"And there are all kinds of feathers and notebooks over there," the blond Lavender pulled the Patil twins toward the Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop.

Anyway, the kids quickly began to go their separate ways.

"I suggest going through all the local establishments in turn. From the beginning to the end".

"Not a bad idea. Good thing Three Broomsticks isn't at the beginning."

So we went. The first establishment was the clothing store "The Invisible Hat. On the whole, it was not much different from the usual concept of a clothing store and from Madame Malkin's atelier as well. However, there were, of course, many fewer robes. There was a women's and a men's department. As usual, you couldn't just look into the women's department - the girls had a separate room. I was already worried that we might spend too much time here, but Hermione, though she showed obvious interest in magical fashion, still, in the end, limited herself to a colored catalog for a couple of sickels.

Zonko's Joke Shop was briefly inspected, and it seems to me that Hermione was looking not so much at different colorful shelves, all sorts of things and bright mini-fireworks and so on, as looking for possible ideas for spells. It will be necessary, by the way, to somehow study the issue of creating new spells. If my imagination is not enough, then ideas can be taken from different board games. There is already a lot of them in the ordinary world.

The biggest crowd of kids, maddened by their freedom, was in the Honeydukes. The store itself consisted of two floors of various shelves, cabinets, and showcases filled with all sorts of products of the magical confectionery industry: various lollipops, toffee, candy feathers, all sorts of cakes, a huge display case with chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's beans. It was here that the young people sat, tasting everything they could get their hands on and have enough money to buy. It wasn't easy to make my way through the crowd, but I ended up buying two bags of the usual fruit and berry lollipops.

"Sugar is bad for the teeth," Hermione remarked with a slight smile, instructively, as I approached her, thinking about something over a stand with jelly beans.

"This is it, education in a family of dentists!"

"Well, what did you want?"

"There is no sugar here. Sugar is not used in magic sweets at all. As I understand it, it is easier for wizards to use potions to give the right taste and stimulate the right receptors on the tongue. "

"Yeah? Well then, I think I can try."

Taking one pouch in her hands, Hermione tasted one of the lollipops with curiosity and enthusiasm.

"Hmm, it's not bad. And they have a rich taste."

"Here you go, and you didn't want to try them," I tasted one of the lollipops, too. "Mmm, apple."

"I didn't want? All I said was that sugar is bad. I didn't say no to sweets."

We did not go to some establishments. The tea house did not attract either Hermione or me, and Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop positioned itself as a place for lovers. They say it is romantic there. Through the window, I could see the situation and, as for me, outside and inside, this establishment looked like a kind of gingerbread house with pink icing - too "vanilla."

Walking here and there, we eventually broke away from the mass of apprentices, villagers, visitors, and passersby. We ended up not far from the Shrieking Shack, which stands at the very edge of the village. A crumbling old hut, there's no other way to say.

"There is a rumor," Hermione remarked as we passed. "That there are ghosts here."

"As if they can surprise us. We have a lot of ghosts in the castle."

"You're right, but rumor has it that ghosts are dangerous here, and they howl at night. They howl frighteningly, so gravely."

"It may well be," I shrugged. "Shall we go there?"

"No, let's skip it..."