Raid on the Hogwarts Express

"Hey, losers. He isn't here."

- Neville Longbottom faces the Death Eaters.

Shortly after the Death Eater take-over of the Ministry of Magic, they conducted a raid at the Hogwarts Express in order to capture Harry Potter. The Death Eaters stopped the train while en route to Hogwarts Castle, in Scotland, on 1 September, 1997, but found nothing but other Hogwarts students, as Harry, Ron and Hermione were, at the time, in hiding at 12 Grimmauld Place.

Background
During the height of the Second Wizarding War, on 1 August, 1997, Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters managed to stage a "smooth and virtually silent" coup at the Ministry of Magic, by Imperiusing several high-ranking Ministry officials. Minister Rufus Scrimgeour was killed, and replaced by the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Pius Thicknesse, who was under Death Eater control.

There was a "dramatic change" in Ministry policy following the coup, so that it followed the Death Eaters ideology. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was (under the premise of involvement in Albus Dumbledore's murder) decreed Undesirable No. 1, the price on his head and wand reached, in late March of 1998, two-hundred thousand Galleons.

The raid
On 1 September, 1997, three Death Eaters Apparated onto the railway tracks as the Hogwarts Express made its way through the British countryside heading towards Hogwarts Castle. One of them stopped the train, and then they boarded the student carriages. Upon crossing the aisles of the carriages, the Death Eaters were subject of the students stares and the odd comment 'My father will hear about this,' which they silently ignored. As they reached the end of the train, Neville Longbottom stood to face them, calling them losers and stating that obviously, given the situation, Harry was not there going to Hogwarts.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Notes and references
Incursión en el Expreso de Hogwarts