BEASTS (IV) - DRAGONS, FIRE-BREATHING REPTILIANS

Today, The Fosters and The Grandma have met the Dragons in Hogwarts. The Grandma wants to offer two beautiful books to The Fosters to enjoy reading the wonderful world created by J.K. Rowling. 

Download Fantastic-Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling

 

Dragons are giant winged, fire-breathing reptilian beasts. Widely regarded as terrifying yet awe-inspiring, they can be found all over the world and are frequently referred to in Asian and medieval European folklore.

Able to fly and breathe fire through their nostrils and mouths, they are one of the most dangerous and hardest to conceal creatures in the wizarding world. The British Ministry of Magic classifies them as XXXXX, known wizard killers that are impossible to train or domesticate. Despite how dangerous they are, there are people who are trained to work with them, called dragon keepers, or dragonologists. A wizard or witch who trades and sells dragon eggs, which is an illegal activity,  is referred to as a dragon dealer.

Dragon mothers breathe fire on their eggs to keep them warm. They do not keep their eggs in nests. Newly born dragons are referred to as chicks. The dragon's first fire breaths, usually accompanied by thick grey smoke, appear when the dragon is around six months old. However, the ability to fly is normally developed later, at around twelve months, and the dragon will not be fully mature until it is two years old and ready to live on its own.

Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit states that you are to feed a baby dragon a bucket of brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. This apparently serves a replacement for dragon milk.

Not much is known about dragon behaviour, however it seems that, at least with the Chinese Fireball, females are generally larger and dominant over males.

More information: Wizarding World I & II

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them states that sometimes females oust males from their territories, at least with the Antipodean Opaleye.

Fantastic Beasts also states that Fireballs are unusual in that they are willing to share territory with one another, although no more than three dragons will share the same territory. This indicates that dragons are highly territorial.

Dragons are generally highly aggressive towards anything, even wizards, and will sometimes attack humans without provocation, such as in the case of the Ilfracombe Incident.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 was probably started by a young Welsh Green Dragon kept in the basement of the house in Puddling Lane.

Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709.

A rogue Welsh Green dragon descends on a beach full of Muggle holidaymakers in 1932. Tilly Toke and her family happen to be there, and her family casts the largest Mass Memory Charm of this century on all the Muggles of Ilfracombe. She is later awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class for her quick action to avoid breaking the International Statute of Secrecy.

The Muggles later remember nothing of the incident, with the exception of an old fellow known as Dodgy Dirk, who still claims that a dirty great flying lizard attacked him on the beach. People think he’s crazy, of course.

In 1799 a Ukranian Ironbelly dragon carried off a Muggle sailing ship, fortunately there was no one aboard the ship at the time.

In 1802 according to an unsubstantiated report off the coast of Norway A Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, supposedly, carries off a whale calf.

Newt Scamander, for a time, worked in the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau at the Ministry of Magic. He also spent World War I working with Ukrainian Ironbelly dragons on the Eastern Front.

More information: Wizarding World I & II

In the 1970s a rogue Antipodean Opaleye dragon killed several kangaroos in Australia. It was a male, believed to have come to Australia in search of a place to live after being ousted from its territory in New Zealand by a female.

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger arrived just in time to see a baby Norwegian Ridgeback emerge from its egg. The baby dragon sneezed some sparks and almost bites Rubeus Hagrid, who is delighted.

The first signs of hatching must have begun by breakfast time, since it was then that Harry, Ron, and Hermione received a note from Hagrid informing them of it. They go to his hut right after their morning Herbology class.

Dragons were used in the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, in which the champions had to retrieve a golden egg from a nesting mother. The varieties used were: the Hungarian Horntail, the Chinese Fireball, the Swedish Short-Snout, and a Welsh Green. Ron's brother Charlie Weasley worked with dragons in Romania at the time, and helped transport the dragons used in the Tournament. Dragons are also used to guard certain vaults at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, and one was used by Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to escape the bank following their break-in.

Though they cannot be domesticated, there is one known instance of a dragon being used as a mount. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger rode on the back of a dragon, though they had trouble maintaining a grip on their steed, and could not control its flight.

Before playing in the Quidditch final against Slytherin, Harry dreamed that the Slytherin team were flying on dragons instead of broomsticks. When he awoke he realised that they would not be allowed to ride dragons.

The dragon model, like the model in the First Task of Triwizard Tournament, was used in a roast chestnuts sale, near Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, in Diagon Alley to hold the chestnut in place.

Dragon milk can be used to create dragon milk cheese, as noted in the revised edition of Charm Your Own Cheese.

More information: Hobby Lark

One of the big problems of living under a state of alarm is the possibility of suffer abuses managed by the power. Hogwarts has suffered this kind of situation. Dolores Umbridge, witch and British Ministry of Magic bureaucrat was installed as Hogwarts High Inquisitor and Headmistress.

The Fosters and The Grandma has known the story of Dolores Umbridge, her iron hand and her lack of empathy with Hogwarts students and professors.

Madam Dolores Jane Umbridge is a British half-blood witch and British Ministry of Magic bureaucrat who served as Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic under Ministers Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Pius Thicknesse.

By order of the Ministry, she was installed as Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and then later Hogwarts High Inquisitor and Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, after Professor Albus Dumbledore had been fired.

In all three of these positions at Hogwarts she had enormous power over the students, teachers, and the curriculum, which she wielded despotically.

Her time at Hogwarts was characterised by cruelty and abusive punishments against students, and because of her interfering and condescending ways, she was widely despised by most students and teachers alike.

After her suspension from these additional posts and the fall of the Ministry of Magic, Umbridge ran the Muggle-Born Registration Commission and sadistically prosecuted many innocent people. After the Second Wizarding War, she was sentenced to Azkaban for her crimes against Muggle-borns, where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Dolores Umbridge was the first child of a wizard named Orford Umbridge and a Muggle named Ellen Cracknell. Her younger brother was a Squib, but Dolores was born a witch. Under her father's influence, she despised her Muggle mother and her Squib brother, considering them inferior to her and her father, and Dolores and her father denounced them. Before Dolores reached 15 years old, Ellen and her son returned to the Muggle world, never to be heard of again.

At some point, she obtained her wand, made from birch and dragon heartstring with an unusually short length of only eight inches. According to Garrick Ollivander, abnormally short wands usually selected those whose moral character was stunted, rather than because they were physically short.

More information: Wizarding World I & II

Umbridge attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where she was Sorted into Slytherin and her head of house was Horace Slughorn.  

She never got along well with Slughorn, who considered her to be an idiotic woman and never liked her.  She was also never given any position of power during her studies, which made her feel deprived, and she never truly enjoyed her time as a student at Hogwarts.

After leaving Hogwarts, Umbridge quickly rose to influential positions in the British Ministry of Magic. At the age of 17, just after leaving Hogwarts, she started her political career as an intern in the Improper Use of Magic Office. 

Before reaching age 30, she became the Head of the Office, evidence of her ruthless tactics under her sweet attitude, which also involved taking credit for other people's work.

This set up the beginning of her dubious career as a Ministry employee, one who tyrannised her subordinates while flattering her equals and her superiors.

Dolores, being very opportunistic and power-hungry, was ashamed of her father, who was a low-level worker in the Department of Magical Maintenance, while she was seeking a professional career. Under her pressure, he retired early and she promised him a small monthly allowance in exchange for quietly leaving the public sight.

From that point on she lied about her family, claiming that she was a pure-blood rather than a half-blood. She eventually became Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic and had a place in the Wizengamot.

Umbridge's hatred towards half-breeds led her to draft a piece of anti-werewolf legislation in 1993, which made it nearly impossible for werewolves, such as Remus Lupin, to find work. This act also made it easier for Lord Voldemort to recruit werewolves to his cause, preying on their treatment by the Ministry. 

She also campaigned that the merpeople be rounded up and tagged, though this idea was scrapped due to it being too ludicrous to be put into effect.

More information: Screen Rant I, II & III

As Senior Under-Secretary to the Minister for Magic, Umbridge managed to claw her way up to power using Cornelius Fudge's increasing paranoia and insecurities to her advantage.

She also used her authority to intimidate Harry Potter during an interrogation before the Wizengamot. She was very outspoken against him and tried to discredit his claim that the only reason he cast a Patronus Charm was because of the presence of Dementors.

She said that the Dementors were under the control of the Ministry, and that it was preposterous that they would just happen to wander into a Muggle suburb and chance upon a wizard. She believed Harry Potter should be punished for inadvertently violating the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery.

Owing to the fairness of Madam Amelia Bones and a majority ruling of the court, Harry Potter was found innocent. Only Fudge, Umbridge, and roughly a half-dozen of the court voted for conviction. Harry Potter was cleared of all charges, much to Umbridge's disappointment.

Umbridge was placed at Hogwarts as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, by order of the Ministry of Magic, under the terms of Educational Decree Number Twenty-Two, without Albus Dumbledore's consent. Her placement was to limit the learning of martial magic and allow the Ministry to monitor the activities at Hogwarts.

The Minister did this because of an unfounded fear that Albus Dumbledore was trying to upturn his position as the Minister and was also afraid that Albus Dumbledore was using the students as a means of overthrowing the Ministry.

She taught according to a politically restricted Ministry-approved curriculum. This curriculum entailed learning strictly the theory of Defence Against the Dark Arts, with no practical applications. Umbridge taught exclusively from a simplistic book: Defensive Magical Theory, by Wilbert Slinkhard, which seemed, based on the chapter headings, to concern itself with negotiation and appeasement of, rather than actual defence against, the Dark Arts.

After working at Hogwarts for a short while and having a discussion with the Minister, Educational Decree Number Twenty-Three increased Umbridge's power and influence in Hogwarts.

She was appointed the first-ever Hogwarts High Inquisitor and used this position to evaluate, harass, and fire any teachers at Hogwarts.

More information: Screen Rant I & II

Dolores Umbridge was described to be a short squat woman resembling a large pale toad. She had a broad, flabby face, a wide, slack mouth, and little neck. Her eyes were bulging and pouchy, and in her mousy brown hair she often wore a black velvet bow, which reminded Harry of a fly perched dangerously above a toad, furthering Umbridge's toad-like characteristics.

She spoke with a simpering high-pitched voice that was girlish and breathless, contrary to her appearance, Harry expected a croak, and decorated her office with kittens and other cute pink paraphernalia. Her wide toad-like smile and tendency to speak in a sugary voice that was often described as poisoned honey was a physical exemplification of her cruelty that was barely hidden by her seemingly harmless dress-style.

Umbridge's thick stubby fingers were adorned with several gaudy old rings. She also was said to have a big chest, as noted by Harry Potter when he saw Slytherin's locket lying there.

Dolores Umbridge was an evil woman, being nothing short of a sociopath, who represented the very worst of political power. She was extremely ruthless, cruel, brutal, corrupt, sadistic, arrogant, intolerant, and devoid of any kind of moral or ethical centre.

Dolores is a common Spanish name, although it also occurs as an English name. In Spanish and Latin, dolores is also the plural form of dolor, which means pain. In English, the similar sounding word Dolorous means causing or expressing grief and suffering. Dolor is the Danish name of the Cruciatus Curse.
 
Umbridge is a pun on the English umbrage meaning offence or insult, indicates that Dolores Umbridge is destined to do only harm and cause only unhappiness. It also symbolises how she is offended by any challenge to her limited world-view and her secretive nature.

Umbrage, which came from the Middle French ombrage and ultimately from the Latin umbra is a word whose meaning has evolved over time. Originally, Umbrag meant shadow or shade, then it evolved to refer to that which provides shadow or shade, then took on the meaning semblance or suspicion, and eventually to the suspicion that one has been slighted and its present meaning.

More information: The Guardian

You will be pleased to know, however,
that these problems are now to be rectified.
We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centred,
Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year.
Copy down the following, please.

Dolores Umbridge