Hogsmeade is attractive for many reasons other than the adventure of journeying away from school for shopping and exploring. The village is 100% wizarding and no muggles are allowed. Actually, Hogsmeade is hidden from the muggle world by special spells so not even the most inquisitive person could stumble across it. Sweets and supplies, butter beer and gossip are found in adundance in Hogsmeade - here's just a few of the places you can spend you sickles and knuts, and one location you definitely DON'T want to see!

The Three Broomsticks - Madam Rosmerta runs the Three Broomsticks. She is a very old friend of Dubmledore's and knows lots of secrets and stories. If you can find the right hiding place (under a table inthe corner is good) you just might be able to eavesdrop on a conversation or two that will curl your hair and keep you awake at night. The Three Broomsticks is an inn that was the headquarters of a goblin rebellion in 1612. Here you can buy many unusual drinks such as Butterbeer , Mulled Mead, Gillywater , Currant Rum and lots more. One mug of Butterbeer costs 5 galleons. According to Hagrid, the food is really very good.

Dervish and Banges - Dervish and Banges is the wizard equipment and instrument shop. This shop specializes in fixing things that students manage to break during the school year. They also carry a vast assortment of the standard student equipment, books and supplies, just in case you blow up, loose, or irrevocably change a textbook into a spider. One of the school vfavorites is the Pocket Sneakoscope, which lights up if there's someone untrustworthy around. You can also buy quills and parchment here and probably special treats for your rat, owl or cat.

Honey Dukes - Honeydukes is one of the best sweet shops in the wizarding world. They sell pepper imps (they smoke at the mouth), sugar quills (eat them in class), sherbet balls (they make you levitate), Ice Mice (your teeth chatter and squeak at you), exploding bonbons and many more. They also sell the regular wizard sweets such as Every Flavour Beans and Chocolate Frogs. Fred and George Weasley would love to sell the proprieter some of their special boobytrapped candies and munchies!

What do things cost at Honey Dukes?? Here's a list:

Nougat-2 sickles
Coconut Ice-3 sickles
Toffees-5 sickles
Chocolate-4 sickles
Every Flavored Beans-10 sickles
Fizzing Whizzbees-6 sickles
Levitating Sherbert Balls-5 sickles
Droobles Best Blowing Gum-5 sickles
Sugar Quills-5 knuts each
Exploding BonBons-2 Sickles

Zonkos Joke Shop - This shop is filled with pranks, jokes and all the necessary supplies to pull tricks on your friends and enemies. Zonkos is a joke shop that is very popular with the students at Hogwarts. Buy items such as Dungbombs, Hiccough Sweets and Nose-biting Teacups. This is another place that the Weasley twins would love to put on their list. Actually, they would probably like to buy it and stock the shelves with all their inventions that make their mother absolutely crazy. Ron Weasley would probably be their biggest customer.

Stuff to buy, and not even expensive, on a student's budget:

Dung Bombs-10 sickles
Hiccup Sweets-5 sickles
Frog Spawn Soap-7 sickles
Nose-biting Teacups-10 sickles

Shrieking Shack - This is probably, according to everyone who has ever been there, the most horrifying place on Earth. The Shrieking Shack is also supposed to be the most haunted place in Britain. The rumours are that there are ghosts there so violent and fierce that you better go nowhere near the place. The truth is though that the house was deserted until the inhabitants of Hogsmeade heard terrible noises coming from there and everybody avoids it now. The terrible noises though were not created by ghosts but by Professor Lupin because he was a werewolf. All these places are really cool - anyone in or out of their right mind would love to stop in and spend some time just browsing. If you do want to go to Hogsmeade, take the Hogwarts train, that Maurader's Map that George and Fred have can be a bit iffy at times, if you're not careful.