DADA-301 Lessons

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you found your midterm to be adequately challenging and enjoyable to some extent. I felt that you all were more than prepared for some real practical experience and you all displayed a level of skill that thoroughly impressed me. Do not get lax, though. Just because you found your way through the creature course easily enough does not mean that all situations that you encounter will be so simple.

Now, as we move into the second part of the term, we will be covering two creatures which have a lot more available information about them. Therefore, these lessons will be longer than your previous lessons and both will be broken up into two parts. Today, we will start with an exploration of the living dead: the vampire.

Vampires - An Overview

First, let us start by saying that vampires are recognized as Non-Wizard Part-Humans. They are sentient beings and therefore have no classification with the Ministry of Magic. This does not make them less dangerous, but simply acknowledges that they are not beasts because they have the cognitive ability to help create and shape the laws of our society.

In daily life, it is difficult to identify a vampire. For the most part, they look like a regular human. Some people, such as former Potions Master Professor Severus Snape, are often confused for vampire due to their demeanor. Professor Snape was not a vampire, but with his dark hair, his dark demeanor, and his pale complexion, it is not difficult to see how that conclusion could have been drawn.

Vampires are generally nocturnal creatures who have an aversion to the sun. This does not mean that they are incapable of going out in the sun - in fact, many vampires have been known to go wandering about during the day. The perception that they die in the sunlight stems from the fact that they lose their supernatural abilities when exposed to sunlight; we will cover what those supernatural abilities are later. They also have a strong aversion to garlic, so it is smart to keep some with you at all times if you are going to be in an area that is known to have a local vampire.

The most prominent feature of a vampire is their two fanged teeth. These fangs are extremely sharp and can cut through many soft materials. The most frequent thing they cut through is human skin when they bite them. This bite will accomplish two purposes. The first purpose it accomplishes is that it provides the vampire its nourishment. The primary component of a vampire’s diet is human blood. If they go too long without it, they will die. In order to extend their life, they can survive on the fresh blood of animals, such as goats or cows, but they highly prefer human blood. Fortunately, vampires do not need to feed daily in order to survive. If properly fed with fresh blood, they can survive at most five days. What’s very surprising is some of the more civilized vampires have learned to survive on stale blood, such as the blood that you find in blood banks, though they must feed on this kind of blood more frequently in order to survive. In fact, many vampires will make agreements with the owners of their local blood bank to have stores of blood left out overnight and one of the doors left open with express permission to enter the facility. This permission is very important as it is not possible for a vampire to enter a residence unless they have been expressly invited in.

The second goal that the bite accomplishes is that it turns the victim into a vampire themselves. No one is quite sure what it is about the bite that changes a human into a vampire, but there are no known cases of a person being bitten and not being changed. Now, some of you may have heard rumors that there are multiple ways of being transformed into a vampire - one example might be drinking the blood of a vampire (yes, vampires do have blood in their veins - they were once human, too), but let me assure you that these rumors are false. The only way to become a vampire is to be bitten by one.

Origin and History of the Vampire
Now, I can already hear your question. If the only way to become a vampire is to be bitten by a vampire, where did the first vampire come from? The history of the first vampire is actually quite fascinating. While the story may be slightly exaggerated, such as the inclusion of the gods and goddesses, the general concept remains true. The origin of the vampire starts, as many stories do, with a young man and a young woman.

The man was an Italian man named Ambrogio who had ventured far and wide. His travels brought him to Greece where he found a temple dedicated to the god Apollo. Within this temple lived the Pythia, who were oracles. In our terminology, the oracles would be the equivalent to seers; they were people who were supposed to know the future. Where our seers see the future through innate ability, the oracles saw the future through communing with the gods, most famously Apollo. Anyway, Ambrogio fell in love with one of Apollo’s maiden’s named Selene. After time, Selene fell in love with him, too and they arranged to return to Italy to be married.

Apollo was angered by this fact. He did not like having his maidens stolen, particularly maidens whom he had taken a liking to. He descended from the heavens and laid a curse on Ambrogio so that exposure to the sun would burn Ambrogio’s skin. Devastated, Ambrogio fled to a cave and found his way into the Underworld and made a deal with the god Hades. If he could steal Artemis’ silver hunting bow, Hades would offer Selene and Ambrogio shelter in the Underworld. Ambrogio agreed and used a bow and arrow to slay a swan. With a feather and the blood of the swan, he left a note for his love explaining the situation and offered the body of the swan to Artemis. Ambrogio did this for forty-four days, slaying a total of ten swans.

On the forty-fifth day, Abrogio went to slay the eleventh swan, but missed. He wept and begged Artemis for her favor. She did and gave him her own silver bow and an arrow to use. Ambrogio, bow in hand, fled to the Underworld to complete his deal with Hades. Artemis realized what was happening and was furious, so she placed her own curse on him so that silver would burn his skin. He was forced to drop the bow and begged Artemis for her forgiveness. She took pity on him and gave him fangs and superhuman speed to hunt with. She also agreed that he would be immortal as long as he and Selene left Apollo’s temple and worshipped Artemis forevermore. The only contingency was that Ambrogio could never touch Selene again, since Artemis was the maiden goddess.

Ambrogio agreed; anything was better than being away from Selene. The couple fled Greece and lived on an island where they stayed in their cave by day and worshipped the goddess Artemis by night. Due to his immortality, Ambrogio never aged, though Selene did. Near the end of Selene’s life, Artemis gave Ambrogio permission to touch Selene once in order to bite her neck and make her immortal like him. Selene begged Ambrogio to do so, and so he did. Selene was transformed into the goddess of moonlight and watched over her children, the future generations of vampires.

Ambrogio never lost any of his curses - his soul was still trapped in the Underworld (death), and his skin still burned with exposure to sun and silver, but he lived the rest of his life as a creature of the night. Not much is known about Ambrogio after this story. What little is known traces the remaining history of the Italian vampire clan. After his venture with Selene, Ambrogio returned to Italy and formed the first vampire clan. This clan grew and grew, but as happens in large groups, there were lots of internal fights. A miniature civil war broke out and the clan split up. Some parts left for other countries while others remained in Italy, which was the cause for several future Clan Wars.

It is through this story that we understand the development of vampires. Though it is unclear what actually happened, since the story includes gods and goddess (for a more in-depth discussion about them, you should contact our Mythology Professor, Professor Morgan), but we know for sure that the first vampire originated in Italy, traveled to Greece, and returned home to Italy, bringing vampirism with him. Remember students, every story, even myths, have grains of truth in them if you look hard enough.

The Spread of Vampirism
When the members of the original vampire clan in Italy dispersed and began claiming their territory around the world, there were several major effects. The largest one, and the one that made the most impact on society, was the increased attacks on Muggles. Muggles, unaware of the development in our society (understandable, since many magical people were unaware of the new development, too), were far less protected against a vampire attack. This was, primarily, due to the lack of magical defense. Muggles, obviously, could not draw a wand and quickly retaliate against an aggressive vampire.

Once knowledge about vampires and their supernatural powers became common knowledge - knowledge that we will be covering later - some Muggles actually saw the appeal of being bitten and would seek out their local vampires in order to be changed. Due to their supernatural abilities, global magical governments were forced to step in and attempt to cover up the public mess that vampirism was causing. However, several incidents slipped through the cracks and became widespread pandemics. Once such incident was recorded in the United States and became known as the Great New England Vampire Panic.

This event occurred around 1830 in Griswold, Connecticut though the remains were not discovered until around 1990. What the archaeologists found was that, around five years after the death of the individual, someone had dug it up, smashed the coffin, decapitated it, and placed two of the rib bones in an “X” shape over the chest - imagine that the skull and crossed bones look like the pirate flag, the Jolly Roger, but in a grave. This made for a curious question - why did people feel the need to do this?

Research proved that, around 1830, there were a series of deaths by an unknown cause. A relative would die and within a few days, or as much as a few weeks, other members of the family became pale and sickly, losing their vitality. The members of the community had not forgotten the horrors of the Salem Witch Trials and immediately jumped to the conclusion that unholy explanations must be the cause. The automatic assumption was that family members who had died were not truly dead, but instead were among the “living dead” and were rising from their graves to feast on their living relatives. Thus began, in effect, a second witch hunt, but this time for vampires.

Members of the Griswold community became vigilant. If a family had a relative who died of mysterious or unknown circumstances, followed by the death of several family members who became pale and gaunt, that family was assumed to be under attack by a vampire. By day, when the vampire would be at its weakest, the people joined together and went to the cemetery equipped with holy water, crucifixes, fire, and sharp “weapons” such as spades.

Once they arrived at the grave, usually in an unmarked family plot, their work began. They dug up the body, sprinkled it with holy water, decapitated the body, and then burned the remains. All of this, they were sure, would stop the vampire from rising from its grave and continuing its assault on its former family. Once this was done with the first body, they moved to the next member of the family - they wanted to ensure that there were no other potential vampires among them.

Not surprisingly, what actually occurred was not far from the truth. There was a series of vampire attacks in Griswold, Connecticut in the 1830s. It was a clan of vampires who had taken root in the United States and had made a comfortable living. This clan had started off peaceful enough, but as time went on, they became more aggressive; they had watched witches and wizards - people who in many cases had been family members for these people - die at the hands of persecution through the Salem Witch Trials. They never forgave and they never forgot. They took their revenge hundreds of years after those trials, once they had amassed enough vampires to launch a full scale assault, one of which was described above (another was in a nearby community, Jewett City, approximately 20 years later). These malevolent vampires cared about nothing more than causing others hurt in the same way they had been hurt.

It was at this point that MACUSA had to step in. The Aurors and Obliviators arrived in Griswold and set a trap for the vampires. The Aurors dealt with the vampires, using a combination of spells and non-magical tricks that eventually led to the deaths of each vampire. Not all of the clan had attacked immediately that night and those who saw the deaths of their fellows fled. The Aurors pursued, but the vampires were lost in the woods, their inhuman speed allowing them to escape. While the Aurors chased the vampires, the Obliviators worked tirelessly to modify the memories of the entire town - a feat that was easier since the community at that time was not as large.

Official records indicate that the cause of death for the “vampires” in Griswold was actually a disease called tuberculosis. Tuberculosis, otherwise known as TB, was an unknown disease at that time that caused very similar symptoms to the appearance and behavior of a vampire. Yet the people of Griswold always had a sense of their encounter with the supernatural. None of them were enthralled with the rise of vampire stories - in fact, most became unexplainably terrified. Many spent years seeing Muggle psychiatrists trying to understand this underlying fear of the undead, yet no one could explain it. Only the magical community knew that it was small remnants of the erased memories coming through. This is why it’s called the Great New England Vampire Panic - they still ‘feel’ that vampires were related to the incident, even if they don’t remember them.

Around the world, these types of attacks became more and more common. Eventually, global magical governments came together and attempted to parlay with the vampires, ultimately coming to a mutually agreeable compromise, part of which included the incorporation of vampires as beings and being allowed to participate in major governmental decisions around the world (with exceptions of locations where the majority of vampires were malevolent and wanted to harm as many people as possible).

And that, my dear students, put us just at about out of time for today. While I certainly could continue and attempt to squeeze in everything else, it would feel extremely rushed and would not do the content justice. We will continue our discussion of vampires next lesson where we will focus on what they can do and how to protect yourself against them (and what to do if one becomes too malevolent). For today’s assignment,  you just have a quiz to complete. Until next time!

Class dismissed!

Original lesson written by Professor Jericho Penrose

Image Source(s)
Vampire: http://wallpapersexpert.com/vampires-wallpapers/3873934.html
Griswold Building: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Essex_CT_Griswold_Inn_04_(9365849358).jpg
Griswold Cemetery: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jewett-city-vampires