A History of Magic- a Journey Through the Hogwarts Curriculum

by Pottermore Publishing

  Seba actually created two collections. The first he sold to the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, for a huge amount of money. The second, created over a decade, was much larger. In 1731, he commissioned artists to draw every single item in precise detail. It was such a massive project that the book wasn’t finished until 30 years after his death, and its catchy title was Accurate description of the very rich thesaurus of the principal and rarest natural objects.

  Though many of the specimens he collected were used for medical research, a lot of the writings that Seba created were not very scientifically accurate. He took a keen interest in the potential of snakes for use in life-saving cures, however – his collection contained many serpents, such as a reticulated python, native to Southeast Asia.

  Voldemort looked away from Harry, and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat’s, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands, and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight, and was circling Harry again, hissing.

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  Voldemort has a physical association with snakes, not least Nagini. But he didn’t always look the way he is described in the Harry Potter stories. J.K. Rowling rewrote the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone thirty times or more as a way of telling herself the story before she came up with the version that was published. An early draft featured a character called ‘Fudge’ – he’s not the Cornelius Fudge we know but a Muggle minister.

  An early draft of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  In this early draft, Hagrid arrives in Fudge’s office and starts telling him about the awful things happening in the magical world – mainly concerning attacks and disappearances – without mentioning You-Know-Who by name. Hagrid warns the Muggle minister not to give out people’s addresses and locations to the strange ‘little red-eyed’ man wandering around. The red eyes remained as Voldemort morphed into his fully-formed incarnation in the published novels. Later on, it transpires that Mr Dursley works in Fudge’s office and is reluctant to take baby Harry home, lest he endangers his own son, ‘Didsbury’. The scene is reminiscent of Cornelius Fudge visiting the Muggle Prime Minister in the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. As J.K. Rowling has said, ‘I often cut ideas and put them into later books. Never waste a good scene!’

  Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death.

  Page torn from a library book in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

  The basilisk is a giant serpent that can kill with a single glance. The most terrifying basilisk lurked in the Chamber of Secrets beneath Hogwarts. Salazar Slytherin’s monster was at the centre of the climax of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, coiling past Harry, so huge that it was hard to tell where its body began or ended.

  Harry was on his feet, ready. The Basilisk’s head was falling, its body coiling around, hitting pillars as it twisted to face him. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous…

  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

  As it happens, a basilisk appears in an Italian manuscript from 1595 called Historia animalium. It contains 245 unique illustrations by someone known as Idonius. Some of the beasts are real, some mythical, such as a jaculus (a flying serpent) or an onocentaur (half man, half donkey). The descriptions of the creatures far pre-date that book, though. Even in the 16th century, one of the main sources on animals was Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist who lived in the 1st century AD, and also Claudius Aelianus, a Roman author and teacher who died in 235 AD. According to Aelianus, the basilisk was only twelve inches long, but its touch, breath and stare were all deadly.

  The existence of creatures like the basilisk became something of a joke over time, because as the stories of a creature that could kill you with a look circulated, they got more and more elaborate. In effect, people just liked to believe in fantastic beasts such as these. And, historically, you didn’t need the sword of Gryffindor to defeat a basilisk – a weasel would do!

  A weasel in your pocket was said to be handy because its scent was believed to be fatal to the basilisk. Pliny and other Ancient Greek and Roman writers would have advised you to drop a weasel down the basilisk’s burrow and when the weasel encountered the basilisk they would fight to the death. Unfortunately they would both be killed – but at least it would solve the basilisk problem. If only Harry had done his homework properly and kept a weasel on him. He had a couple of Weasleys instead, and it all turned out fine…

  How about a basilisk that was part serpent, part chicken? Jacobus Salgado, a Protestant refugee from Spain who was on the run from the Spanish Inquisition in around 1680, had made it to England when he was given a stuffed basilisk from a Dutch sea captain returning from Ethiopia. Short of money, he sold tickets for people to see the curiosity on display and made a pamphlet to sell to people who came to see the amazing beast, which described the basilisk as yellow with a crown-like crest, a serpent’s tail and the body of a cockerel. He claimed that in the time of Alexander the Great there was one of them lying hidden in a wall that killed a great troop of his soldiers just by ‘the poisonous glances of his eyes upon them’. The illustration on the pamphlet’s title page shows two men holding their hands up in front of their faces, desperately trying to shield themselves from the creature’s deadly stare. One unfortunate man has already fallen down dead after catching its eye. There is no mention of needing a weasel to kill it.

  PART 2: CASTING OUT THE EVIL EYE AND DRAWING A MAGIC CIRCLE

  Unfortunately, you needed a specially signed note from one of the teachers to look in any of the restricted books and he knew he’d never get one. These were the books containing powerful Dark Magic never taught at Hogwarts and only read by older students studying advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts.

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  The main thing that paying attention during Defence Against the Dark Arts can offer is protection. In history, defences against dark magic have included amulets, talismans, charms and incantations, just like the kind collected in a rare Ethiopian magical recipe book from 1750.

  This kind of book often belonged to a Däbtära, a highly educated religious figure who performed white magic. The talismans contained in such a book were abstract drawings that represented the Ethiopian tradition of magic, not as a figurative icon for worship, but to protect the client – because a demon would see his or her appearance in the talisman and thus be scared away.

  These weren’t ‘how-to’ books, because the Däbtära were already familiar with the talismans and would never show the books to the client. Typically a person would consult a practitioner, just as a patient today would consult a doctor, and be prescribed herbal medicine and an incantation to invoke the talisman to cure that person.

  Ethiopian magic came under attack in the 15th century from the Christian King, Zara Yaqob, who wanted to stamp out existing magical traditions and get rid of what he saw as superstitions that kept people ignorant of Christianity. In doing so, he showed people that being a Christian was a more effective protection than carrying a talisman – all part of a crusade against the old traditions of folklore.

  To this day, Ethiopia remains a Christian country,
but despite Yaqob’s efforts, Ethiopians still consult Däbtäras. Talismans were also contained in parchment scrolls, which could be held within beautiful casings, sometimes made of leather or silver. Otherwise known as Ketab, these amulet scrolls have been worn by people in the easternmost part of Africa for thousands of years. They are still worn in the northern highlands of Ethiopia, where amulets are believed to bring health, to protect babies and ward off the evil eye. There are often eyes looking everywhere and the predominant colours are black and red, because demons are not supposed to see colours other than black and red.

  Some scrolls can measure up to two metres, and can be stitched into a leather pouch, unable to be opened again lest the talisman doesn’t work. These acted as protection prayers ending with the name of the client, and were not used expressly because people were cursing the client; they were intended for when things went wrong in their own lives. Illness was often attributed to demons, particularly epilepsy, which was known as the illness caused by a demon. Wearing an amulet scroll was a very literal way of defending yourself from dark magic.

  ‘If we’re staying, we should put some protective enchantments around the place,’ she replied, and raising her wand, she began to walk in a wide circle around Harry and Ron, murmuring incantations as she went.

  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  The painting The Magic Circle by the 19th-century British artist John William Waterhouse depicts an enchantress drawing a protective circle around herself with a long, thin wand, outside of which is a strange, barren landscape populated by foreboding creatures. The woman is beautiful, quite the opposite of the haggard and ugly cliché of a witch – a representation often used as a means to humiliate and control women who were perceived as unruly.

  Waterhouse was associated with the Pre-Raphaelites – an artistic movement from the mid-19th century onwards, which harked back to late-medieval art. He often painted mythological, historical and literary subjects, frequently portraying female characters. The Magic Circle, first shown in 1886, was one of his most popular. It was a near-reverential portrait of a type of woman who was often treated with negativity, if not outright misogyny. The subjects of Waterhouse’s paintings are dynamic, engaged and engaging. You might even call him a feminist…

  Harry saw little disturbances in the surrounding air: it was as if Hermione had cast a heat haze upon their clearing.

  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  That doesn’t mean that witches weren’t capable of mischief. On a beach in Cornwall, England, in the 1950s, three witches attempted to conjure up a spirit without a thought for health and safety. The cauldron they were using exploded and the witches fled in terror. It blasted into the air and was recovered where it landed on the rocks. The cauldron is now battered, lopsided and covered in a congealed tar-like substance, and the ropes it hung from are permanently glued to its charred sides. The basic function of cauldrons was once as cooking pots, but by the 1950s they were exclusively used for the brewing of potions.

  These witches weren’t the only ones to struggle with cauldrons, though – just ask Neville Longbottom.

  Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus’s cauldron into a twisted blob and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people’s shoes. Within seconds, the whole class were standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

  ‘Idiot boy!’ snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand.

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  PART 3: MYTHICAL MONSTERS

  For Harry, Defence Against the Dark Arts was the most important subject at Hogwarts. It kept him alive and helped him greatly in his crusade against the Death Eaters and Dark Magic. Years before his arrival at Hogwarts, when he was just a baby, he faced its greatest practitioner, Lord Voldemort – and lived!

  ‘It’s – it’s true?’ faltered Professor McGonagall. ‘After all he’s done… all the people he’s killed… he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding… of all the things to stop him… but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?’

  ‘We can only guess,’ said Dumbledore. ‘We may never know.’

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  Harry lived, but his parents died in the confrontation. As she drafted Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling drew her own vision of the moment when we first meet Harry Potter, as a baby, fresh from his encounter with the Dark Lord, being delivered to Number Four, Privet Drive.

  Drawing of Harry Potter, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid by J.K. Rowling

  The sketch depicts a dark night with only the moon and stars to light the scene, after Dumbledore has extinguished all the streetlights with his Deluminator. Hagrid stoops to show the baby to Dumbledore and McGonagall. All we can see of Harry is the crown of his head wrapped in a white blanket, shining as brightly as the moon up above. The drawing is full of atmosphere and emotion, as it captures this pivotal moment in the stories: the very beginning of Harry’s story.

  It’s tied to an exact moment – a paragraph where the three of them are standing looking at Harry, and McGonagall has just expressed concern about him being left with the Dursleys: ‘These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous – a legend – I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future – there will be books written about Harry – every child in our world will know his name!’

  Of course, Dumbledore knew how Harry survived. He knew that the greatest defence against Dark Magic was love.

  One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs Dursley’s scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley… He couldn’t know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: ‘To Harry Potter – the boy who lived!’

  Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

  From Red Caps they moved on to Kappas, creepy water-dwellers that looked like scaly monkeys, with webbed hands itching to strangle unwitting waders in their ponds.

  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

  If you happen to come upon a peaceful river in Japan: beware! A demon, or kappa, may be ready to drag you into the watery depths. The kappa takes its name from the Japanese for ‘river’ (which is kawa) and ‘child’ (which is wappa) – both conjoined to make ‘kappa’.

  J.K. Rowling based her description of kappas on existing Japanese folklore; they look a bit like monkeys, but with fish scales instead of fur, and with webbed hands and feet (for ease of travel through water). Some say they have fangs, others that they have a beak. There are differences in opinion about their character, too. Some stories see kappas as innocent but mischievous creatures. Others tell of demons that kidnap children, eat human flesh and drown unsuspecting victims. But what everyone agrees on is that kappas have a saucer-shaped space in the top of their heads filled with water – and they love cucumbers.

  In 1855, Akamatsu Sotan, doctor and local historian, published Tonegawa Zushi, which is a history of the Tone River in the Kanto region of Japan. The book explored the folklore and traditions of the people who lived along the river and included an illustration of a kappa: it is shown in black and white, with a bowl in the middle of its head and wild hair that looks like a chimney sweeper’s brush. And, according to Sotan, kappas would move along the Tone River every year, causing chaos and havoc wherever they went.

  Kappas were also depicted as netsuke – a small decorative clasp used on Japanese robes. Both decorative and protective, it was probably a bit of fun as well: having a kappa on your side could prove useful.

  There are ways to defend
yourself against kappas. You need to remember that they’re dangerous but also incredibly polite, and that the bowl in their head is full of water, which they need in order to survive. If you ever encounter one and it looks like it wants to kidnap you and drag you away to its watery lair… bow to it! It will bow back in obedience, the water will spill out and it will die.

  Should you ever want to bathe in a Japanese river, people believe to this day that kappas can be placated by writing your name, or that of your family, onto cucumbers and tossing them into the water. The cucumber is the kappa’s favourite meal and should provide a necessary distraction for you to enjoy your swim in peace!

  Then, as he strode down a long, straight path, he saw movement once again, and his beam of wand-light hit an extraordinary creature, one which he had only seen in picture form, in his Monster Book of Monsters.

  It was a sphinx.

  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

  The world’s most famous sphinx lives in Egypt, carved out of solid rock around 4,500 years ago. It has the head of a man and the body of a lion. But sphinxes aren’t just Egyptian: in Greek mythology, a sphinx has the body of a lion and the head of a woman – plus the wings of a bird. The sphinx is legendarily treacherous and murderous. Some think the word ‘sphinx’ has its roots in the Greek for ‘to strangle’ – which is what Greek sphinxes did to their victims.