Curriculum Confusion?

[Steve Vander Ark]

No: HPFGUIDX 24528

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Mindy, a.k.a. CLH" <mindyatime at j...> 
wrote:
> Oddly enough, the DADA teachers seem to be teaching a lot about 
creatures
> -- grindlylows, pixies, and such. Doesnt that rather belong to the
> Magical Creatures dept.?

Dark creatures are not animals. They are actually another form of 
magical being. Fantastic Beasts refers to many of them as "demons," 
not in a religious sense, but because it describes a key aspect of 
them all: they exist to actively do harm and damage. This harm is 
different from the harm that, say, a manticore would do, since the 
manticore would be attacking someone to eat them. In other words, it 
is a predator and that's what predators do to survive.

Dark Creatures, on the other hand, aren't animals. They don't have 
life cycles in the same sense that normal animals have. They attack 
for the sake of hurting someone, not simply to eat. The red caps are 
a great example. They bludgeon unususpecting travellers so that they 
can use their blood to stain their cloth caps red. It doesn't give 
them food, it doesn't allow them to reproduce, they do it purely out 
of nastiness. One way of thinking about it is to say that they are a 
physical embodiment of an evil, harmful intent. And if you think 
about the essence of magic being intent, Dark Creatures are the 
physical embodiment of Dark Magic.

The lines do get blurry, surely. But even werewolves fit this 
description. MOst of the time they aren't Dark Creatures, but when 
they are, they attack people with the intention of passing the 
disease on to others or kill them.

As for the pixies, they AREN'T dark creatures. That's why Seamus 
snickered when Lockhart showed up with them. And he couldn't even 
handle THEM!

Stev Vander Ark
The HArry Potter Lexicon
http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon