The Complete Idiot's Guide to the World of Harry Potter by Tere Stouffer Read Free Book Online Page B

legs”) is the pet of Hermione Granger. Bow-legged, highly intelligent, and a beautiful gingery-orange color, Crookshanks is part cat, part Kneazle, thereby accounting for its intelligence and discernment.
    Note that, although dogs and wizards are hardly ever mentioned together, dogs do exist in the wizarding world. From a slobbering pet boarhound to a three-headed dog to the Grim (a black dog that predicts death), dogs have their place in the wizarding world.
Dragon
    In both Western and Eastern tradition, the dragon is a gigantic, winged, fire-breathing, sharp-eyed, reptilian creature whose love of shiny objects leads it to plunder treasure, especially brilliant jewels and gold.
    In German mythology, the dragon is known as the “firedrake,” and in classic dragon form, it breathes fire, hordes treasure, and kidnaps fair maidens.
    In Ancient China, in particular, but also to some extent in other cultures, the dragon is revered, not feared. In Asian traditions, however, dragons generally do not fly, and they also have the power to change size, even becoming so small as to disappear altogether.
    In the Bible, dragons—often interchangeable with snakes—are linked to the Devil, an enemy of God (as noted in Psalms, Job, Isaiah, and Revelations), and this belief prevailed throughout the Middle East. Perhaps the most well-known dragon is in Chapter 14 of Daniel (a chapter that doesn’t exist in many Bibles; when it does, it’s often subtitled “Bel and the Dragon”), which tells the story of a dragon who is worshipped as a God. Daniel kills this dragon and feeds it to lions.
    The wizarding world abounds with dragons, which are key to the banking industry, as they are particularly useful in protecting valuables. Dragons cannot be Stunned by a single wizard, so they are difficult to get past. Dragon blood is also full of magical qualities, as are other parts of dragons, which are used in potions. Dragon eggs are sometimes sold (illegally; the practice was outlawed in 1709) to wizards who want to try to raise dragons; the fire-breathing baby dragons are soon, however, too much to manage.
    Several dragon species have been identified throughout the wizarding world, including the following:
    • Chinese Fireball: Also called Liondragon, this red dragon originated in the East and does (as its name suggests) produce a ball of fire from its snout.
    • Common Welsh Green: This native of the British Isles blends with the lush, green countryside and is happy living on sheep, not humans.
    • Hebridean Black: Another British dragon, the Hebridean Black is more dangerous than the Common Welsh Green.
    • Hungarian Horntail: This exceedingly dangerous dragon can breathe fire up to 50 feet in distance.
    • Norwegian Ridgeback: Like the Hebridean Black, the Norwegian Ridgeback has a line of sharp ridges down its spine.
    • Swedish Short-Snout: This blue-gray dragon, less aggressive than most, is the source of most dragon-related equipment (gloves, especially) that are needed to protect wizards from intense heat. Dragon skin (used in boots, gloves, and coats) is also just cool.
    Four others—Antipodean Opaleye (with opal-like eyes), Peruvian Vipertooth (with exceedingly poisonous teeth), Romanian Longhorn (with, as you might expect, long horns), and Ukrainian Ironbelly (the largest and heaviest dragon in the world)—are known to exist in the wizarding world, but are not integral to any storylines.
Ghoul
    Ghouls originate in Arabic folklore (called ghuls), where they are demonic shapeshifters who can always be identified by their cloven hooves. Ghouls even have cannibalistic tendencies. In more recent folktales, ghouls have retained both their abilities to change forms and their taste for humans as they change themselves into dogs or other animals, rob graves, and feast on dead bodies.
    In the wizarding world, ghouls may live in wizard attics, but they’re not cannibals—they eat spiders and moths and tend to be thought of as family