MINERVA MCGONAGALL, REAL PRAGMATISM IN MAGIC

Today, the Weasleys and The Grandma have met Minerva McGonagall, one of the most popular and beloved teachers of Hogwarts.

Before this meeting, the family has studied Second Conditional, Some/Any/No Compounds and Since/For.

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Minerva McGonagall was the first child, and only daughter, of a Scottish Presbyterian minister and a Hogwarts-educated witch. She grew up in the Highlands of Scotland in the early twentieth century, and only gradually became aware that there was something strange, both about her own abilities, and her parents’ marriage.

Minerva’s father, the Reverend Robert McGonagall, had become captivated by the high-spirited Isobel Ross, who lived in the same village. Like his neighbours, Robert believed that Isobel attended a select ladies' boarding school in England. In fact, when Isobel vanished from her home for months at a time, it was to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that she went.

Aware that her parent, a witch and wizard, would frown on a connection with the serious young Muggle, Isobel kept their burgeoning relationship a secret. By the time she was eighteen, she had fallen in love with Robert. Unfortunately, she had not found the courage to tell him what she was.

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The couple eloped, to the fury of both sets of parents. Now estranged from her family, Isobel could not bring herself to mar the bliss of the honeymoon by telling her smitten new husband that she had graduated top of her class in Charms at Hogwarts, nor that she had been Captain of the school Quidditch team. Isobel and Robert moved into a manse, minister’s house, on the outskirts of Caithness, where the beautiful Isobel proved surprisingly adept at making the most of the minister’s tiny salary.

The birth of the young couple's first child, Minerva, proved both a joy and a crisis. Missing her family, and the magical community she had given up for love, Isobel insisted on naming her newborn daughter after her own grandmother, an immensely talented witch.

The outlandish name raised eyebrows in the community in which she lived, and the Reverend Robert McGonagall found it difficult to explain his wife’s choice to his parishioners. Furthermore, he was alarmed by his wife’s moodiness. Friends assured him that women were often emotional after the birth of a baby, and that Isobel would soon be herself again.

Isobel, however, became more and more withdrawn, often secluding herself with Minerva for days at a time. Isobel later told her daughter that she had displayed small, but unmistakable, signs of magic from her earliest hours. Toys that had been left on upper shelves were found in her cot. The family cat appeared to do her bidding before she could talk. Her father’s bagpipes were occasionally heard to play themselves from distant rooms, a phenomenon that made the infant Minerva chuckle.

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Isobel was torn between pride and fear. She knew that she must confess the truth to Robert before he witnessed something that would alarm him. At last, in response to Robert’s patient questioning, Isobel burst into tears, retrieved her wand from the locked box under her bed and showed him what she was.

Although Minerva was too young to remember that night, its aftermath left her with a bitter understanding of the complications of growing up with magic in a Muggle world. Although Robert McGonagall loved his wife no less upon discovering that she was a witch, he was profoundly shocked by her revelation, and by the fact that she had kept such a secret from him for so long.

What was more, he, who prided himself on being an upright and honest man, was now drawn into a life of secrecy that was quite foreign to his nature. Isobel explained, through her sobs, that she (and their daughter) were bound by the International Statute of Secrecy, and that they must conceal the truth about themselves, or face the fury of the Ministry of Magic. Robert also quailed at the thought of how the locals, in the main, an austere, straight-laced and conventional breed – would feel about having a witch as their minister’s wife.

More information: Pottermore (II)

Love endured, but trust had been broken between her parents, and Minerva, a clever and observant child, saw this with sadness. Two more children, both sons, were born to the McGonagalls, and both, in due course, revealed magical ability. Minerva helped her mother explain to Malcolm and Robert Junior that they must not flaunt their magic, and aided her mother in concealing from their father the accidents and embarrassments their magic sometimes caused.

Minerva was very close to her Muggle father, whom in temperament she resembled more than her mother. She saw with pain how much he struggled with the family’s strange situation.

She sensed, too, how much of a strain it was for her mother to fit in with the all-Muggle village, and how much she missed the freedom of being with her kind, and of exercising her considerable talents. Minerva never forgot how much her mother cried, when the letter of admittance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrived on Minerva's eleventh birthday; she knew that Isobel was sobbing, not only out of pride, but also out of envy.

As is often the case where the young witch or wizard comes from a family who has struggled with its magical identity, Hogwarts was, for Minerva McGonagall, a place of joyful release and freedom.

Minerva drew unusual attention to herself on her very first evening, when she was revealed to be a Hatstall. After five and a half minutes, the Sorting Hat, which had been vacillating between the houses of Ravenclaw and Gryffindor, placed Minerva in the latter. In later years, this circumstance was a subject of gentle humour between Minerva and her colleague Filius Flitwick, over whom the Sorting Hat suffered the same confusion, but reached the opposite conclusion. The two Heads of house were amused to think that they might, but for those crucial moments in their youths, have exchanged positions.

Minerva was quickly recognised as the most outstanding student of her year, with a particular talent for Transfiguration. As she progressed through the school, she demonstrated that she had inherited both her mother’s talents and her father’s cast-iron moral sense. Minerva's school career overlapped by two years with that of Pomona Sprout, later Head of Hufflepuff House, and the two women enjoyed an excellent relationship both then, and in later years.

By the end of her education at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall had achieved an impressive record: top grades in O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Prefect, Head Girl, and winner of the Transfiguration Today Most Promising Newcomer award. Under the guidance of her inspirational Transfiguration teacher, Albus Dumbledore, she had managed to become an Animagus; her animal form, with its distinctive markings -tabby cat, square spectacles markings around eyes- were duly logged in the Ministry of Magic’s Animagus Registry. 

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Minerva was also, like her mother, a gifted Quidditch player, although a nasty fall in her final year -a foul during the Gryffindor versus Slytherin game which would decide the Cup winner- left her with concussion, several broken ribs and a lifelong desire to see Slytherin crushed on the Quidditch pitch. Though she gave up Quidditch on leaving Hogwarts, the innately competitive Professor McGonagall later took a keen interest in the fortunes of her house team, and retained a keen eye for Quidditch talent.

Upon graduation from Hogwarts, Minerva returned to the manse to enjoy one last summer with her family before setting out for London, where she had been offered a position at the Ministry of Magic -Department of Magical Law Enforcement-. These months were to prove some of the most difficult of Minerva's life, for it was then, aged only eighteen, that she proved herself truly her mother's daughter, by falling head-over-heels in love with a Muggle boy.

It was the first and only time in Minerva McGonagall’s life that she might have been said to lose her head. Dougal McGregor was the handsome, clever and funny son of a local farmer. Though less beautiful than Isobel, Minerva was clever and witty. Dougal and Minerva shared a sense of humour, argued fiercely, and suspected mysterious depths in each other. Before either of them knew it, Dougal was on one knee in a ploughed field, proposing, and Minerva was accepting him.

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She went home, intending to tell her parents of her engagement, yet found herself unable to do so. All that night she lay awake, thinking about her future. Dougal did not know what she, Minerva, truly was, any more than her father had known the truth about Isobel before they had married. Minerva had witnessed at close quarters the kind of marriage she might have if she wed Dougal. It would be the end of all her ambitions; it would mean a wand locked away, and children taught to lie, perhaps even to their own father. She did not fool herself that Dougal McGregor would accompany her to London, while she went to work every day at the Ministry. He was looking forward to inheriting his father’s farm.

Early next morning, Minerva slipped from her parents’ house and went to tell Dougal that she had changed her mind, and could not marry him. Mindful of the fact that if she broke the International Statute of Secrecy she would lose the job at the Ministry for which she was giving him up, she could give him no good reason for her change of heart. She left him devastated, and set out for London three days later.

Though undoubtedly her feelings for the Ministry of Magic were coloured by the fact that she had recently suffered an emotional crisis, Minerva McGonagall did not much enjoy her new home and workplace. Some of her co-workers had an engrained anti-Muggle bias which, given her adoration of her Muggle father, and her continuing love for Dougal McGregor, she deplored. Though a most efficient and gifted employee, and fond of her much older boss, Elphinstone Urquart, Minerva was unhappy in London, and found that she missed Scotland. Finally, after two years at the Ministry, she was offered a prestigious promotion, yet found herself turning it down. She sent an owl to Hogwarts, asking whether she might be considered for a teaching post. The owl returned within hours, offering her a job in the Transfiguration department, under Head of Department, Albus Dumbledore.

More information: Wizards and Whatnot

The school greeted Minerva McGonagall's return with delight. Minerva threw herself into her work, proving herself a strict but inspirational teacher. If she kept letters from Dougal McGregor locked in a box under her bed, this was, she told herself firmly, better than keeping her wand locked there. Nevertheless, it was a shock to learn from the oblivious Isobel, in the middle of a chatty letter of local news, that Dougal had married the daughter of another farmer.

Dumbledore discovered Minerva in tears in her classroom late that evening, and she confessed the whole story to him. Albus Dumbledore offered both comfort and wisdom, and told Minerva some of his own family history, previously unknown to her. The confidences exchanged that night between two intensely private and reserved characters were to form the basis of a lasting mutual esteem and friendship.

Through all her early years at Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall remained on terms of friendship with her old boss at the Ministry, Elphinstone Urquart. He came to visit her while on holiday to Scotland, and to her great surprise and embarrassment, proposed marriage in Madam Puddifoot’s teashop. Still in love with Dougal McGregor, Minerva turned him down.

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Elphinstone, however, had never ceased to love her, nor to propose every now and then, even though she continued to refuse him. The death of Dougal McGregor, however, although traumatic, seemed to free Minerva. Shortly after Voldemort's first defeat, Elphinstone, now white-haired, proposed again during a summertime stroll around the lake in the Hogwarts grounds. This time Minerva accepted. Elphinstone, now retired, was beside himself with joy, and purchased a small cottage in Hogsmeade for the pair of them, whence Minerva could travel easily to work every day.

Known to successive generations of students as ‘Professor McGonagall’, Minerva –always something of a feminist– announced that she would be keeping her own name upon marriage. Traditionalists sniffed –why was Minerva refusing to accept a pure-blood name, and keeping that of her Muggle father?

The marriage, cut tragically short, though it was destined to be, was a very happy one. Though they had no children of their own, Minerva's nieces and nephews, children of her brothers Malcolm and Robert, were frequent visitors to their home. This was a period of great fulfillment for Minerva.

The accidental death of Elphinstone from a Venomous Tentacula bite, three years into their marriage, was an enormous sorrow to all who knew the couple. Minerva could not bear to remain alone in their cottage, but packed her things after Elphinstone's funeral and returned to her sparse stone-floored bedroom in Hogwarts Castle, accessible through a concealed door in the wall of her first-floor study. Always a very brave and private person, she poured all her energies into her work, and few people –excepting perhaps Albus Dumbledore– ever realised how much she suffered.

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I've always wanted to use that spell...

Minerva McGonagall

BEASTS (IV) - BASILISKS, GIANTS, TROLLS & WEREVOLVES

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have met some magical creatures that live in magic world. Some of them live in Hogwarts, other are its enemies. They are basilisks, giants, trolls and werewolves. The Grandma has offered them another Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example.

 

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The Basilisk is a giant serpent, also known as the King of Serpents. It is a magical beast that is bred by Dark Wizards. Herpo the Foul was the first to breed a Basilisk; he accomplished this by hatching a chicken egg beneath a toad which resulted in the creature known as a Basilisk.

Basilisk breeding was banned in Medieval times. The practise can be hidden when the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures comes to check by simply removing the egg from the toad.

 

Looking a Basilisk directly in the eye will immediately kill the victim, but indirect look will merely render them Petrified. It is also the mortal enemy of spiders, who can intuitively sense them and flee whenever they do.

The Basilisk has a classification as an XXXXX creature, meaning it is a known wizard-killer that cannot be domesticated due to its immense powers. Since the Basilisk is still a serpent, a Parselmouth may place a Basilisk under his or her control.

This depends on the relationship between the Basilisk and the Parselmouth. Tom Riddle was the only one who could command Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk, while Harry Potter had no control over it. Basilisks can live a natural life of at least nine hundred years, though Salazar Slytherin's Basilisk lived for approximately a thousand years.

This is accomplished by using Parseltongue to put the creature into a deep sleep that prevents it from ageing, similar to suspended animation. Their mortal weakness is the crowing of a rooster. Basilisks feed off vertebrate animals, it is unknown how much they eat at one time. The Serpent of Slytherin survived on rats. The male can be distinguished from the female by a single scarlet plume on its head.

A basilisk egg is the egg of said creature. They are chicken eggs hatched beneath a toad, thus creating the deadly King of Serpents.

When a live victim looks directly into the Basilisk's eyes, it results in instant death. Although looking at the eyes through camera lens or a ghost's transparent body would dampen the lethal effects, looking through a pair of glasses does not offer the same protection, because glasses still allow one's line of vision to connect directly and clearly with the serpent's eyes.

More information: Wizarding World

Myrtle Warren was such an unfortunate person, as her wearing glasses did not save her from death when she looked directly at the Serpent of Slytherin's eyes.

If the victim is a ghost, then they can look directly into the serpent's eyes without suffering death, as the dead cannot die again; however, they would suffer petrification. Should a camera be reflected onto the serpent's eyes, the lens and film will be melted. A phoenix is immune to the basilisk's gaze, whether directly or not, as the bird is immortal.

If the basilisk's eyes are damaged, thus rendering it blind, it takes away the lethal ability as well.

When a victim looks indirectly at the Basilisk's eyes, such as its reflection, they will merely become petrified, similar to the stare of a Gorgon. This was the case with Hermione Granger, Penelope Clearwater, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Colin Creevey, Nearly-Headless-Nick and Filch's cat, Mrs Norris.

Myrtle Warren was not so fortunate and looked directly into the Basilisk's eyes, which resulted in her immediate death.

A way of surviving a Basilisk's gaze is by seeing it through another object. An example mentioned above was when Colin Creevey saw it through his camera, resulting in his petrification and his camera lens becoming melted. Justin Finch-Fletchley saw the Basilisk through the translucent ghost Nearly-Headless-Nick, and was petrified. The already deceased Sir Nicholas became petrified as well, although he did look at the beast's eyes directly.

Hermione Granger was petrified, while gathering information on the basilisk. She discovered it was the monster in the Chamber of Secrets and that the serpent travelled through the pipes in the school. Hermione was petrified after seeing the basilisks' eyes in a hand mirror.

Petrification seems quite powerful, as the the legendary Albus Dumbledore concluded that the only way to reverse the effect was through the use of the Mandrake Restorative Draught. Spiders are terrified of the Basilisk, described as their enemy and they flee before it. Spiders, such as the Acromantula Aragog, also refuse to even speak of it or mention its name. Rubeus Hagrid asked Aragog many times to name the monster, but Aragog refused to speak of it.

Basilisk venom is an extremely poisonous substance that only has one known antidote: phoenix tears. Basilisk venom is so powerful that it can kill a person within minutes, making the person drowsy and blurry-visioned before they die. 

It has a very long lasting effect which still remains potent even up to five years or more after the snake has died. It can also damage inanimate objects so thoroughly that they are impossible to restore, and thus it is one of the few substances powerful enough to destroy a Horcrux.

When Harry Potter slew the Serpent of Slytherin with the Sword of Gryffindor, the sword became imbued with the basilisk's venom, giving it the ability to destroy a Horcrux. However, the venom is not poisonous simply by touching it. When Ron Weasley extracted a basilisk fang with his bare hands in the Chamber, he did not die.

The Ancient Greek basil(eus) means king, with the suffix -iskos being a diminutive, the whole having the sense of princeling or the like, purportedly for the crown-like white spot on its head.

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 The light slid over a gigantic snake skin,

of a vivid, poisonous green,

lying curled and empty across the tunnel floor.

The creature that had shed it must have been

twenty feet long at least. 

J.K. Rowling

A giant is a very large humanoid magical creature which can potentially grow to approximately twenty five feet tall and appear to be a large human.

Some may appear as large and hairy humanoids, while others resemble humongous-sized people, and some may even have bestial features. Giants generally live in tribes, although as their numbers dwindle, the tribes have merged into larger groups. A Giant tribe is led by the strongest giant, known as the Gurg.

Even without significant magical abilities, Giants are immensely powerful creatures. Gifted with overwhelming raw strength proportionate to their prodigious size, they are difficult to detain by wizards since most spells tend to have little to no effect upon them and may very well be even stronger than dragons, as seen when six ministry wizards came to subdue the half-giant, Rubeus Hagrid. All of the stunning spells they sent at him only seemed to just bounce off.

This is particularly noteworthy, since Sirius Black claimed that nothing less of at least half a dozen wizards casting said enchantments at the same time can stun a full-grown dragon into submission. However, similar to dragons, they may have certain weaker spots on their bodies, such as their eyes, as Olympe Maxime managed to subdue some of Golgomath's subordinates with the Conjunctivitis Curse, which attacks the eyes.

It also seems apparent that, while giants may be resistant to many spells, their skin appears to be no more resistant to non-magical trauma than regular wizards, as evidenced by the fact that Grawp, a full-blooded giant -was subdued and injured by the centaurs' arrows, despite there being no indication that their bows and arrows have any magical properties. The arrows may have been the equivalent of thumb tacs, considering Grawp's size, but they still provoked blood and forced Grawp to step back.

The remaining giants retreated into a remote mountainous region in Northern Europe, and being cramped in such areas resulted in them killing each other for the most trivial matters or sometimes for nothing but sheer violence, reducing their numbers to around eighty in total. Muggle mountaineers who approach the giants' colony would meet their demise at the hands of these fearsome beings, but they were always written off as some kind of climbing accident.

Wizard kind, however, seemed to be satisfied with the giants out of their community as a whole and did not bother to monitor or exterminate them as long as they remained so. Following the return of Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore dispatched two half-giants, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, accompanied by the headmistress of Beauxbatons, Olympe Maxime, to make an alliance with giants and deny their forces to Lord Voldemort when Cornelius Fudge refused to make an official approach on behalf of the Ministry of Magic.

The pair travelled to a tribe north-east of Minsk to try and gain the friendship of the tribe, however, they were not alone in their efforts. Two Death Eaters, including Walden Macnair, had also arrived to try and convince the giants to rejoin Lord Voldemort's forces.

Rubeus Hagrid and Maxime Olympe were doing well and were on good terms with the Gurg called Karkus. The Death Eaters, though, courted the favour of Golgomath and engineered an uprising. Golgomath killed Karkus, took his place as Gurg, and allied the Death Eaters. Rubeus Hagrid and Olympe Maxime were forced to retreat after being attacked by the giants.

During the Battle of Hogwarts, many giants fought on the side of Lord Voldemort against the defenders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They mainly battled Grawp, a small giant who had fled the colony two years earlier, and the hippogriffs and Thestrals. It is not known what happened to them after the battle.

The most likely theories are that the survivors returned to the northern colony, came to be accepted by wizard kind from Albus Dumbledore's attempt to offer them the hand of friendship, or were subsequently executed by Aurors and The Committee for Disposal of Dangerous Creatures for the part they played in the war.

If it is the latter, then the race of giants would be near extinct, with Grawp and two half-giants remaining, but given Kingsley Shacklebolt's loyalty to Albus Dumbledore, as well as the insistence of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and likely eventually others after the Battle of Hogwarts, it is far more likely that wizardkind eventually wanted and managed to make peace and friendship with the surviving giants and let them live in remote habitats.

However, considering their long life cycle and extremely small population size, it is not likely under any circumstances that the giant species would have remained extant for long after the end of the war, unless they were given more space on their own.

More information: Wizarding World I, II & III

 They're not meant ter live together, giants...

they can't help themselves,

they half kill each other every few weeks.

Rubeus Hagrid

Grawp is a giant that was known, despite standing a full sixteen feet tall, for his small stature and short height. He was the son of Fridwulfa and an unnamed giant and, therefore, the maternal half-brother of Rubeus Hagrid.

Around 1931, the giantess Fridwulfa abandoned her human husband Mr Hagrid and their infant child Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant, who was smaller in stature than she wanted. She consequently rejoined her own kind in the mountains, and there she found a new mate.

The two gave birth to the giant Grawp who, despite being a full-blooded giant, was still particularly small, and due to this he, too, was abandoned. He was frequently bullied by the other giants thereafter due to his small size.

Rubeus Hagrid, along with his newly-found friend Olympe Maxime, paid a visit to a tribe of giants, on the orders of headmaster Albus Dumbledore of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in an attempt to bring the giants over as allies of the Order of the Phoenix in the war against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

After three days at the giant camp, Rubeus Hagrid discovered his half-brother Grawp. He later dragged Grawp back to Hogwarts with him due to the bullying he knew Grawp had received, and presumably to protect Grawp from Lord Voldemort's enslavement of the giants. Despite his previous abuse, Grawp continuously attempted to return to the camp, but Hagrid forced him through England against his will.

Rubeus Hagrid kept Grawp in the Forbidden Forest for months, teaching him manners and pieces of English as they went. The other inhabitants of the forest, namely the centaurs, noticed these attempts and tried to warn Rubeus Hagrid that his trial was futile.

At sixteen feet, Grawp was considered short for a giant. He had grey skin, brown-green eyes and hair.

More information: Wizarding World

 Hagrid sat down next to his half-brother and Grawp

patted Hagrid hard on the head,

so that his chair legs sank into the ground.

J.K. Rowling

A troll is a magical beast of prodigious strength and immense stupidity. In fact, they are so synonymous with stupidity that they actually have a wizarding exam failing grade named after them. Trolls are grouped in the taxonomical genus Troglodytarum. Trolls possess rudimentary magic, but it is not known how they apply it.

Troll language is supposedly nothing more than simple grunts that only Trolls seem to be able to interpret, though skilled magical multi-linguists such as Barty Crouch can understand them. Trolls understand only a limited number of Human words, and some smarter ones can be skilfully trained as security trolls.

Professor Quirrell had a gift for communicating with trolls, and then used it to set one loose in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in an effort to steal the Philosopher's Stone.

Mountain trolls have been known to tame and ride Graphorns, or at least try to ride them. Graphorns don't seem to be very keen on the idea.

Trolls originated in Scandinavia, but are now found all across Europe.

Trolls are not recognised as magical beings, but are instead classified as beasts by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures of the British Ministry of Magic, most likely due to their aggressive natures.

Pierre Bonaccord, the first Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, wanted to stop troll-hunting and give them rights, but his appointment to that office was contested by Liechtenstein, since they were having problems with a tribe of very dangerous mountain trolls at the time.

Artemius Lawson was an outspoken advocate for the strict restraint of trolls. He thought it was wrong to allow them to roam free, stating that they were creatures who weighed a ton, but had brains the size of a bogey. The Black family kept an umbrella stand made out of a troll's leg in their front hall.

A Troll was Quirinus Quirrell's contribution to guarding the Philosopher's Stone in the Underground Chambers, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Professor Quirinus Quirrell, to create a diversion so he could go after the Philosopher's Stone, let a mountain troll into the castle on Hallowe'en. It wandered around the corridors until Harry Potter and Ron Weasley locked it in a girls' bathroom, only to realise soon after that Hermione Granger was also in that particular bathroom. With a  combination of using the Levitation Charm and sheer dumb luck, according to Minerva McGonagall, Ron managed to knock it by levitating its club and dropping it on its head, incapacitating it out and saving Hermione.

Trolls participate in wizarding society to some extent; some witches and wizards make a career out of training security trolls. These were evidently a different type of troll than the mountain variety, since they seemed considerably more intelligent and less smelly. Albus Dumbledore hired security trolls to guard the Fat Lady after Sirius Black attacked her.

They spent all their time pacing the corridor in front of the Fat Lady's portrait, giving dirty looks to everyone who happened by and comparing the sizes of their clubs. They left at the end of the year, when Sirius Black was deemed to have left the country.

The wizarding author and celebrity Gilderoy Lockhart wrote about his supposed adventures with Trolls in his book Travels with Trolls, which was a mandatory Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook for his classes in that subject when he was that year's Professor. As Gilderoy Lockhart was in reality a dishonest con artist who fraudulently took the credit of the achievements of far braver wizards and witches, by erasing their memories of their deeds with the Memory Charm, Lockhart in reality had no actual experience with these creatures.

During the Calamity, several Trolls started randomly appearing throughout the Wizarding world guarding various magical Confoundables, with volunteer members of the Statute of Secrecy Task Force having to incapacitate them with spells such as the the Ebublio Jinx and the Knockback Jinx, in order to overpower the Confoundables and return them to their rightful place.

More information: Wizarding World

I went looking for the troll because
I —I thought I could deal with it on my own
—you know, because I've read all about Trolls.

Hermione Granger

A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope, is a human being who, upon the complete rising of the full moon, becomes an uncontrollable, fearsome and deadly werewolf.

This condition is caused by infection with lycanthropy, also known as werewolfry. Werewolves appear in the form of a wolf but, there are distinctions between them and regular wolves.

A mixture of powdered silver and dittany applied to a fresh bite will seal the wound and allow the victim to live on as a werewolf, although tragic tales are told of knowing victims begging for death rather than becoming werewolves. The Wolfsbane Potion, invented by Damocles, allows the werewolf to keep their human mind during transformation.

A werewolf cannot choose whether or not to transform and will no longer remember who they are and would kill even their best friend given the opportunity once transformed. Despite this, they are able to recall everything they have experienced throughout their transformation upon reverting to their human form.

Lycanthropy is a magical illness known to be spread by contact between saliva and blood; thus, when a transformed werewolf bites a human, the bitten will become a werewolf themselves. Most Muggles, however, will die from the extent of their injuries in the instance of a werewolf attack as noted by Professor Marlowe Forfang, though some do survive to become werewolves themselves.

If a werewolf is in human form and bites the victim, they will merely gain lupine tendencies such as a fondness for rare meat. Any bite or scratch obtained from a werewolf, whether in human or animal form, will leave permanent scars. However, the fresh wound can be sealed with a mixture of powdered silver and dittany.

The only known human born to at least one werewolf parent, untransformed at time of conception, was Teddy Lupin, son of werewolf Remus and human metamorphmagus Tonks.

Teddy did not inherit his father's condition, however it is unknown if it definitively cannot be passed on in this manner or if Teddy did not inherit the condition from pure chance as other than Teddy, there was no documentation of a werewolf having a child in human form. In Teddy's case it was his father who was a werewolf, not his mother, therefore it is unknown if a pregnant female werewolf's transformations would affect the ability to carry the pregnancy to term.

If two werewolves mate at the full moon, in their animal forms, something very strange happens. The result of their mating, which has only ever occurred twice throughout history, has been a pack of wolf cubs -actual wolf cubs- who grow to become very beautiful wolves and can only be distinguished from true wolves by their near-human intelligence.

Thus, rumours of werewolves living in the Forbidden Forest in the grounds at Hogwarts Castle are actually about a pack of lupine werewolf offspring that was released into the woods with the kind permission of Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of the School, and has lived there ever since. Teachers have never tried to dispel these rumours because they felt that keeping students out of the forest was highly desirable.

More information: Wizarding World I, II & III

The monthly transformation of a werewolf is extremely painful if untreated and is usually preceded and succeeded by a few days of pallor and ill health. The werewolf may display irritation towards friends. While in his or her wolfish form, the werewolf loses entirely its human sense of right or wrong. However, it is incorrect to state, as some authorities have, notably Professor Emerett Picardy in his book Lupine Lawlessness: Why Lycanthropes Don’t Deserve to Live, that they suffer from a permanent loss of moral sense.

While human, the werewolf may be as good or kind as the next person. Alternatively, they may be dangerous even while human, as in the case of Fenrir Greyback, who attempts to bite and maim as a man and keeps his nails sharpened into claw-like points for the purpose. Though werewolves usually only infect their victims through biting, they sometimes take it too far and kill their victims.

Without any humans nearby to attack, or other animals to occupy it, the werewolf will attack itself out of frustration. This leaves many werewolves such as Remus Lupin with self-inflicted scars and premature ageing from the difficult transformations.

Werewolves can be easily distinguished from regular wolves by their shorter snout, more human-like eyes, the tufted tail, and their mindless hunting of humans whilst in wolf form. At all other times, they appear as normal humans, although they will age prematurely, and will gain a pallor as the moon approaches and then wanes.

The real difference between a wolf and a werewolf is in behaviour. Genuine wolves are not very aggressive, and the vast number of folk tales representing them as mindless predators are now believed by wizarding authorities to refer to werewolves, not true wolves. A wolf is unlikely to attack a human except under exceptional circumstances. The werewolf, however, targets humans almost exclusively and poses very little danger to any other creature.

More information: Screen Rant

You have only ever seen me amongst the Order,

or under Dumbledore's protection at Hogwarts!

You don't know how most of the wizarding world

sees creatures like me!

When they know of my affliction,

they can barely talk to me!

Werewolf Remus Lupin