Perhaps the most important step in the concealment of magical creatures is the creation of safe habitats. Muggle-Repelling Charms prevent trespassers into the forests where centaurs and unicorns live, and on the lakes and rivers set aside for the use of merpeople. In extreme cases, such as that of the Quintaped, whole areas have been made unplottable.10
Some of these safe areas must be kept under constant wizarding supervision; for example, dragon reservations. While unicorns and merpeople are only too happy to stay within the territories designated for their use, dragons will seek any opportunity to set forth in search of prey beyond the reservation borders. In some cases Muggle-Repelling Charms will not work, as the beast’s own powers will cancel them. Cases in point are the kelpie, whose sole aim in life is to attract humans towards it, and the Pogrebin, which seeks out humans for itself.
Controls on Selling and Breeding
The possibility of a Muggle being alarmed by any of the larger or more dangerous magical beasts has been greatly reduced by the severe penalties now attached to their breeding and the sale of their young and eggs. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures keeps a strict watch on the trade in fantastic beasts. The 1965 Ban on Experimental Breeding has made the creation of new species illegal.
Disillusionment Charms
The wizard on the street also plays a part in the concealment of magical beasts. Those who own a Hippogriff, for example, are bound by law to enchant the beast with a Disillusionment Charm to distort the vision of any Muggle who may see it. Disillusionment Charms should be performed daily, as their effects are apt to wear off.
Memory Charms
When the worst happens and a Muggle sees what he or she is not supposed to see, the Memory Charm is perhaps the most useful repair tool. The Memory Charm may be performed by the owner of the beast in question, but in severe cases of Muggle notice, a team of trained Obliviators may be sent in by the Ministry of Magic.
The Office of Misinformation
The Office of Misinformation will become involved in only the very worst magical-Muggle collisions. Some magical catastrophes or accidents are simply too glaringly obvious to be explained away by Muggles without the help of an outside authority. The Office of Misinformation will in such a case liaise directly with the Muggle prime minister to seek a plausible non-magical explanation for the event. The unstinting efforts of this office in persuading Muggles that all photographic evidence of the Loch Ness kelpie is fake have gone some way to salvaging a situation that at one time looked exceedingly dangerous.
* * *
7 In his 1972 book Muggles Who Notice, Blenheim Stalk asserts that some residents of Ilfracombe escaped the Mass Memory Charm. “To this day, a Muggle bearing the nickname ‘Dodgy Dirk’ holds forth in bars along the south coast on the subject of a ‘dirty great flying lizard’ that punctured his lilo.”
8 For a fascinating examination of this fortunate tendency of Muggles, the reader might like to consult The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why the Muggles Prefer Not to Know, Professor Mordicus Egg (Dust & Mildewe, 1963).
9 The largest department at the Ministry of Magic is the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, to which the remaining six departments are all, in some respect, answerable – with the possible exception of the Department of Mysteries.
10 When an area of land is made unplottable, it is impossible to chart on maps.
WHY MAGIZOOLOGY MATTERS
The measures described above merely hint at the full scope and extent of the work done by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. It remains only to answer that question to which we all, in our hearts, know the answer: Why do we continue, as a community and as individuals, to attempt to protect and conceal magical beasts, even those that are savage and untameable? The answer is, of course: to ensure that future generations of witches and wizards enjoy their strange beauty and powers as we have been privileged to do.
I offer this work as a mere introduction to the wealth of fantastic beasts that inhabit our world. Seventy-five species are described in the following pages, but I do not doubt that some time this year yet another will be discovered, necessitating a fifty-third revised edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. In the meantime I will merely add that it affords me great pleasure to think that generations of young witches and wizards have grown to a fuller knowledge and understanding of the fantastic beasts I love through the pages of this book.
MINISTRY OF MAGIC CLASSIFICATIONS
The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures gives classifications to all known beasts, beings, and spirits. These offer an at-a-glance guide to the perceived dangerousness of a creature. The five categories are as follows:
Ministry of Magic (M.O.M.) Classification
XXXXX
Known wizard killer / impossible/ to train or domesticate
XXXX
Dangerous / requires specialist knowledge / skilled wizard may handle
XXX
Competent wizard should cope
XX
Harmless / may be domesticated
X