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Documents

FlooNetwork.doc

In use for centuries, the Floo Network, while somewhat uncomfortable, has many advantages. Firstly, unlike broomsticks, the Network can be used without fear of breaking the International Statute of Secrecy. Secondly, unlike Apparition, there is little to no danger of serious injury. Thirdly, it can be used to transport children, the elderly and the infirm.
Nearly every witch or wizard home is connected to the Floo Network. While a fireplace may be disconnected by the use of a simple spell, connection requires the permission of the Ministry of Magic, which regulates the Floo service and prevents Muggle fireplaces becoming inadvertently joined up (although temporary connection can be arranged in emergencies).
In addition to domestic fireplaces, there are around a thousand fireplaces across Britain connected to the Floo Network, including those at the Ministry of Magic, and various wizarding shops and inns. The fireplaces of Hogwarts are not generally connected, although there have been occasions when one or more has been tampered with, often without the staff’s knowledge.
Although generally reliable, mistakes can happen. Speaking the name of the destination loudly and clearly upon entering the Floo flames is sometimes difficult, due to ash, heat and panic. The most notorious instance of accidental misdirection happened in 1855 when, after a particularly nasty row with her husband, witch Violet Tillyman leapt into the living room fire and cried, between sobs and hiccups, that she wanted to go to her mother’s house.
Several weeks later, with no clean pots in the house and his socks in urgent need of washing, her husband Albert decided that it was time she came home, and took the Floo Network to his mother-in-law’s. To his surprise, she claimed that Violet had never arrived. Albert, a suspicious man and a bit of a bully, raged, stormed and searched the house, but his mother-in-law appeared to be telling the truth. A poster campaign and a series of articles in The Daily Prophet later, Violet had still not been found. Nobody seemed to know where she was and nobody had seen her come out of any other fireplace. For several months after her disappearance, people were afraid to take the Floo Network, in case it simply vanished them into thin air. However, time passed, memories of Violet faded, and nobody else disappeared, so the wizarding community continued as usual. Albert Tillyman returned grumpily to his house, learned cleaning and darning spells, and never used the Floo Network again for fear of what it had done to his wife.
It was not until twenty years later, after Albert’s death, that Violet Tillyman resurfaced. Due to the incoherent way she had spoken when she had entered the Floo Network, she had not emerged from her mother’s fireplace, but that of Myron Otherhaus, a handsome wizard who lived in Bury St Edmunds. In spite of Violet’s tear-stained, ash-covered and blotchy appearance, it had been love at first sight when she toppled out of his fire, and Myron, Violet and their seven children lived happily ever after.

GreatLake.doc

The grounds of Hogwarts function partly as a nature reserve for magical creatures which have difficulty existing in Muggle-inhabited areas.
The lake is full of creatures that would make a Muggle naturalist swoon with delight – if terror did not seize them first. There are Grindylows (vicious little water demons), merpeople (of a hardy Scottish strain) and a giant squid, which is semi-domesticated and permits students to tickle its tentacles on sunny days, when it basks in the shallows (though it's been rumored to remove first-years' shoes and treat them as a delicacy).
Giant squid genuinely exist, though they are most mysterious creatures. Although their extraordinary bodies have been washed up all over the world, it was not until 2006 that a live giant squid was captured on film by Muggles. I strongly suspect them of having magical powers.

OrderofMerlin.doc

The Order of Merlin (sometimes abbreviated to O.M.) is awarded by the Wizengamot, an organisation that predates the Ministry of Magic and nowadays functions as a combination of court and parliament. The Order comprises a handsome golden medal on a green ribbon (First Class), purple ribbon (Second Class) or white ribbon (Third Class).
The Order of Merlin, commemorating the most famous wizard of his time, has been given since the fifteenth century. Legend says that the green ribbon, on which the First Class Order hangs, is to reflect Merlin’s Hogwarts house.

The First Class Order is awarded ‘for acts of outstanding bravery or distinction’ in magic, the Second Class is awarded for ‘achievement or endeavour beyond the ordinary’ and the Third Class is given to those who ‘have made a contribution to our store of knowledge or entertainment.’

As often happens with such highly coveted awards, Ministry of Magic favourites seem to receive the Order of Merlin, especially the higher classes, more often than one might expect. While nobody argued when Albus Dumbledore received his O.M. (First Class) for defeating the Dark wizard Grindelwald, there was a good deal of muttering in the wizarding community when Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic, awarded himself an O.M. (First Class) for a career that many considered less than distinguished. Other less worthy recipients of the highest class of Order include Arcturus Black, Sirius Black’s grandfather, who was widely believed to have bought it by loaning the Ministry a large amount of gold.

SirCadagan.doc

Before the wizarding community was forced into hiding, it was not unusual for a wizard to live in the Muggle community and hold down what we would now think of as a Muggle job.

It is widely believed in wizarding circles that Sir Cadogan was one of the famous Knights of the Round Table, albeit a little-known one, and that he achieved this position through his friendship with Merlin. He has certainly been excised from all Muggle volumes of King Arthur’s story, but wizarding versions of the tales include Sir Cadogan alongside Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedivere and Sir Percivale. These tales reveal him to be hot-headed and peppery, and brave to the point of foolhardiness, but a good man in a corner.

Sir Cadogan’s most famous encounter was with the Wyvern of Wye, a dragonish creature that was terrorising the West Country. At their first encounter, the beast ate Sir Cadogan’s handsome steed, bit his wand in half and melted his sword and visor. Unable to see through the steam rising from his melting helmet, Sir Cadogan barely escaped with his life. However, rather than running away, he staggered into a nearby meadow, grabbed a small, fat pony grazing there, leapt upon it and galloped back towards the wyvern with nothing but his broken wand in his hand, prepared to meet a valiant death. The creature lowered its fearsome head to swallow Sir Cadogan and the pony whole, but the splintered and misfiring wand pierced its tongue, igniting the gassy fumes rising from its stomach and causing the wyvern to explode.

Elderly witches and wizards still use the saying ‘I’ll take Cadogan’s pony’ to mean, ‘I’ll salvage the best I can from a tricky situation.’

Sir Cadogan’s portrait, which hangs on the seventh floor of Hogwarts Castle, shows him with the pony he rode forever more (which, understandably perhaps, never much liked him) and accurately depicts his hot temper, his dashing overcoat and shoes, his love of a foolhardy challenge and his determination to beat the enemy, come what may.

Werewolves.doc

There are werewolves worldwide and they have traditionally been pariahs in the wizarding communities from which they often spring; witches and wizards who are frequently involved in hunting or studying such creatures are exposed to a higher risk of attack than the average Muggle. In the late nineteenth century the great English authority on werewolves, Professor Marlowe Forfang, undertook the first comprehensive study of their habits. He found that nearly all those he managed to study and question had been wizards before being bitten. He also learned from the werewolves that Muggles ‘taste’ different to wizards and that they are much more likely to die of their wounds, whereas witches and wizards survive to become werewolves.
The Ministry of Magic’s policies on werewolves have always been muddled and inefficient. A Werewolf Code of Conduct was developed in 1637, which werewolves were supposed to sign, promising not to attack anyone but to lock themselves up securely every month. Unsurprisingly, nobody signed the Code, as nobody was prepared to walk into the Ministry and admit to being a werewolf, a problem from which the later Werewolf Registry also suffered. For years, this Werewolf Registry, on which every werewolf was supposed to enter their name and personal details, has remained incomplete and unreliable, because so many of the newly-bitten sought to conceal their condition and escape the inevitable shame and exile. Werewolves have been shunted between the Beast and Being divisions of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for years, because nobody could make up their minds whether a werewolf should be classified as human or bestial. At one point, the Werewolf Registry and Werewolf Capture Unit were both in the Beast Division, while at the same time an office for Werewolf Support Services was established in the Being Division. Nobody ever presented themselves for Support Services, for the same reasons that very few ever signed the Registry, and it was eventually closed down.

To become a werewolf, it is necessary to be bitten by a werewolf in their wolfish form at the time of the full moon. When the werewolf’s saliva mingles with the victim’s blood, contamination will occur.

The many Muggle myths and legends surrounding werewolves are, in the main, false, although some contain nuggets of truth. Silver bullets do not kill werewolves, but a mixture of powdered silver and dittany applied to a fresh bite will ‘seal’ the wound and prevent the victim bleeding to death (although tragic tales are told of victims who beg to be allowed to die rather than to live on as werewolves).

In the second half of the twentieth century, several potions were devised to soften the effects of lycanthropy. The most successful was the Wolfsbane Potion.

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. 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.

If attacked by a werewolf that is still in human form, the victim may develop certain mild, wolfish characteristics such as a fondness for rare meat, but otherwise should not be troubled by long-term ill effects. However, any bite or scratch given by a werewolf will leave lasting scars, whether or not he or she was in a wolf’s form at the time of the attack.

While in its animal form, the werewolf is almost indistinguishable in appearance from the true wolf, although the snout may be slightly shorter and the pupils smaller (in both cases more ‘human’) and the tail tufted rather than full and bushy. The real difference 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.

Werewolves generally reproduce by attacking non-werewolves. The stigma surrounding werewolves has been so extreme for centuries that very few have married and had children. However, where werewolves have married human partners, there has been no sign of their lycanthropy being passed to their offspring.

One curious feature of the condition is that if two werewolves meet and mate at the full moon (a highly unlikely contingency which is known to have occurred only twice) the result of the mating will be wolf cubs which resemble true wolves in everything except their abnormally high intelligence. They are not more aggressive than normal wolves and do not single out humans for attack. Such a litter was once set free, under conditions of extreme secrecy, in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, with the kind permission of Albus Dumbledore. The cubs grew into beautiful and unusually intelligent wolves and some of them live there still, which has given rise to the stories about ‘werewolves’ in the Forest – stories none of the teachers, or the gamekeeper, has done much to dispel because keeping students out of the Forest is, in their view, highly desirable.