TNFG-501 Lessons

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

Welcome
Professor Mitchell could tell her students were nervous as they came in for their last lesson of Fifth Year Transfiguration.  She hoped to ease some of their nerves, as she had a fun day planned.  There was another woman, slim and blonde, seated in the corner of the room, and the students noticed some covered cages next to the blackboard.  The students enrolled in Care of Magical Creatures recognized their human guest as none other than Professor Elizabeth Anne. The Transfiguration professor cleared her throat to get the attention of her class, just as a loud squawk came from one of the cages.

Introduction
I hope you’re all here and ready to learn, as I have a truly exciting lesson planned for today! While we’ve had plenty a critter in the classroom, the ones you will meet today are unlike the mundane friends we encountered in Years Two and Four. You see, today we will be learning about some creatures that have the power to disappear at will. Additionally, we will be taking an exploratory journey into finding out what makes them tick and how this spectacular skill aids them in their survival. Professor Anne has graciously agreed to guest lecture on that last point, and I hope you will all give her the same respect you give me. Without any further ado, let’s get started.

How Do They Do It?
While we’ve discussed a fair amount of theory in regards to invisibility and vanishment at this point, magical creatures tend to have their own brand, so to speak, of power. That is to say, their abilities do not necessarily follow the same rules and restrictions that our spells do. Our spells are, obviously, fallible. Their effectiveness relies on the abilities of the caster, and they can be overpowered, whether by counter or by sheer willpower and a keen eye.  Creatures’ abilities tend to be stronger and more sure in comparison. It makes sense when you think about the fact that we, as wizards, must learn and practice in order to manipulate magic into having the multitude of different effects that we want. Magical creatures, on the other hand, have their magical skill (which is often singular and limited) woven into the very fiber of their being. They are typically born with the ability to effectively utilize their power, whereas it takes us many years to master ours.

Some of the creatures we will discuss today have magic that does generally work in the same way that our spells do - that is, by indirect or direct invisibility - at least as far as we know. There is a lot of research that is still being done into how and why these animals utilize their skills. Some creatures have what can more so be described as a sort of delayed apparition. They will disappear from one spot and reappear in another, but not necessarily right away. This has led to many interesting theories as to what these creatures actually do. Some believe they essentially vanish themselves, then put themselves back together at their target location whenever they feel like. Others think they may teleport themselves to another spot, not accessible by wizard-kind, then teleport back a short time later. Still others believe that these creatures simply have the power to run very fast while they are invisible. Fascinating theories all, though I must say my favorite is the first, if not only for the implications it has in the field of vanishment.

Now that we have a general idea of the types of invisibility magic creatures can have, I will turn it over to Professor Anne to give you some insight into why today’s specimens of study utilize their unique skills.

Why Do They Do It?
Hello everyone! Thank you, Professor Mitchell, for inviting me to come and speak to you all today. As you’ve discussed in class already, there are several different creatures that have the power of invisibility. However, this ability is used differently by the creatures that have it. It is my understanding that you are discussing the Demiguise, the Diricawl, and the yumbo. I am going to go further into their use of invisibility and how it assists them in life.

If you are a Care of Magical Creatures student, you may recall that we covered the Demiguise in Year Five, Lesson Seven. Demiguises are large apes that live in the Far East, known for their silky hair and large eyes. When they become invisible, it’s their hair, not their skin, that enables the body to disappear. This is why individuals try to gather their hair for use in invisibility cloaks. Therefore, Demiguises are rather nervous creatures. I mean, who wouldn’t be if people kept trying to steal your hair? This nervousness is what causes their preference to be invisible for much of the time. If people can’t see them, they can’t poach them. Their invisibility is ultimately a safety mechanism to protect themselves from poaching, though it likely developed initially as a form of camouflage in their environment, which is a conversation for another day. 

Let’s discuss Diricawls next. Diricawls are flightless birds native to Mauritius, an island located in the Indian Ocean. These birds have the ability to disappear and reappear at will, the same as the Demiguise, but their invisibility is better used to avoid themselves. Yes, I said themselves. Diricawls are one of the largest creatures on their native island and therefore have no natural predators, though they tend to get into territorial disputes with each other. Each Diricawl or breeding pair sections off an area for themselves, typically through building and maintaining a nest. If another Diricawl comes through that area, a fight normally ensues. But, if they don’t see the other bird, no fight occurs. Diricawls typically become invisible when they leave their home area so that they don’t draw attention to themselves. This prevents territorial disputes and unnecessary infighting, but also allows them to continue to stay hidden from Muggles, who believe the bird (which they call the dodo) went extinct in the 1600s. 

Finally, let’s look at yumboes. Yumboes are a type of house-elf-like creature native to Senegal, a small country in Africa. They strongly resemble the house-elves you are all very familiar with, with a few cosmetic changes. Yumboes share the ears and height of house-elves, but tend to have more human-like facial features. They typically have silvery hair and a much paler complexion, like someone who is desperately in need of some sun. Like the other two creatures I’ve discussed, they can disappear and reappear at will, however, the invisibility of the Demiguise and Diricawl is different to that of the yumbo because the yumbo fully vanishes, rather than simply becoming invisible. Their vanishment is used as a form of transportation, like that of the apparition utilized by us or house-elves. While this teleportation is used mainly as a form of transportation, it also provides a handy way to escape from uncomfortable situations. 

Uncomfortable situations can come from a variety of contexts and emotions. Yumboes are what some would consider “emotional” individuals. Personally, I consider that being a sentient being, but I digress. Yumboes are very in tune with their emotions, often acting based on the immediate emotion they feel. This has caused them to react in the moment and be seen as spiteful. However, there are times when their feelings appear to be unclear to them, maybe because they haven’t experienced that emotion before or because they are experiencing several at once. This likely causes them to bottle up what they’re feeling, as they are unsure of how to express it in that moment, causing them to be overwhelmed. When this happens, they vanish as a way to escape the situation and presumably to help put themselves at ease. 

With that, I will turn the lesson back to Professor Mitchell and return to keeping my special friend safe and accounted for. If you have any creature questions, you can always find me in my hut by the Forbidden Forest.

Demiguise
Starting off with the Demiguise, you all know that it is the hair of the creature that actually makes it invisible. If you were to come across a shaved Demiguise, you would have absolutely no problems seeing it. Curiously enough, the even more impressive part of this beast’s power is not actually its ability to become invisible, but its ability to become visible. Let me explain. Demiguise hair will make anything it covers invisible, no matter what. Its powers of invisibility do not turn on and off like a Muggle’s light switch, as evidenced by the fact that lost or cut Demiguise hair disappears, even if the Demiguise it came off of was, at the time, visible. However, the Demiguise has the ability to overcome this invisibility in order to make itself visible to others. Similarly, this is how the creatures are able to see each other even when they are invisible. It takes practice to master this skill, as newborn Demiguises remain invisible for their first seven to ten days of life, and even then can only occasionally and for short periods of time make themselves visible throughout adolescence.

Based on this explanation, can you guess what type of invisibility Demiguises possess? Correct! Indirect invisibility! The magic in their fur redirects the mind of the viewer. When the creature would like to be visible, they must project their magic in order to cancel the magic of the fur. Similar to how the Bedazzling Hex can be broken through by someone who is well trained and knows what to look for, skilled Demiguise handlers can also spot invisible Demiguises with enough practice. 

Drawing back to what Professor Anne just discussed with you all, the Demiguise uses its powers as a means to self preservation and defense. It is a means of evasion if the animal is threatened or otherwise in distress. Alabaster here is a prime example. He happens to dislike being in a room with a large number of people and has therefore chosen to leave himself obscured. Though Elizabeth, I might check the hallway, I do believe I saw the door open and close just a moment ago...

Diricawl
The Diricawl is certainly an interesting creature to continue our discussion today. Known by Muggles as the dodo, and thought to have gone extinct many years ago, Diricawls are the masters of evasion. While they look like your average, stout, flightless bird, they are actually quite bright and often utilize their powers to avoid confrontation, as Professor Anne explained.

The Diricawl’s invisibility works by direct invisibility, that is, it changes its appearance to match that of its surroundings. The creature is able to control this ability at will, adjusting the pigments in its typically grey or silver feathers. The feathers themselves, while naturally visible, seem to retain at least a little of the magic from the Diricawl when lost, as they will disappear for a period of time, seemingly at random, before reappearing and remaining visible for good. This is an interesting thing to note and something researchers have spent a long time studying as it can give insight into how the Diricawl’s magic works and how they use it. The current standing theory is that the magic of the Diricawl resides in its body, but it can push the magic out and “charge” its feathers, beak, and outward facing body parts so that, when needed, it merely needs to activate the power and can become invisible almost instantaneously. If the creature manages to over activate the magic, it can occasionally dispel a number of feathers, which is why some describe them as vanishing in “a puff of feathers.”

One interesting thing to note about the Diricawl is that when they disappear, they tend to move very quickly away from the area. It is unknown how they manage to move so quickly while invisible, as they are rather lethargic creatures when they can be seen. Some think that being invisible somehow makes it easier for them to move their bodies, while others believe they simply choose to move at a slower pace when visible since they are in an unthreatening situation. In fact, it was thought for a long time that they were able to completely vanish, as it was so difficult to catch one immediately after it had disappeared since it moved so quickly.

Yumbo
Up next we have the yumbo - an interesting creature not very well known in Europe. In fact, they’re often confused with house-elves by those who are unfamiliar with them, as their appearance is somewhat similar. Their magical abilities, however, are startlingly unique. They are capable of what appears to be a sort of delayed teleportation, as we discussed earlier in the lecture. At this point in time, there aren’t any other creatures that have a talent quite like this. A group of researchers in India claim they have found a magical species of spider with similar abilities, but this has yet to be proven, and they’ve kept their research a closely guarded secret. Why they would publish such a remarkable claim but then withhold all of the details, I do not know, but I am getting off track.

As mentioned, there is much still to be discovered about how the yumbo’s power works, so I’m afraid there’s not much I can give you there. I can, however, provide you with a few studies that have been done in an attempt to answer this intriguing question.

The first is more of a case study than anything, but if any of you had heard of the yumbo before today’s lesson, I would bet it was because of Quidditch. Yumboes are the mascots for the Senegalese national Quidditch team and in 1998, following a confrontation outside the stadium of the 1998 World Cup, the team’s representatives managed to scatter themselves throughout the surrounding area via teleportation, and steal all of the food they could find. Note that they managed to cover about ten square miles between the dozen or so of them that were there in under seven minutes. As you can imagine, the act put a bit of a damper on the post-match partying, and the obliviators had quite the time in the nearby Muggle neighborhood, as its residents were rather startled by the sudden appearance of small elf-like creatures in their kitchens who emptied their refrigerators and then vanished without a trace. Once their culinary heist was through, no one saw hide nor hair of the Senegalese mascots for about two weeks, at which point they were discovered suddenly in the middle of Hong Kong.

The publicity of the events at the World Cup spurred the research of British magizoologist Caylum Bowe in 2001. The goal of his study was to better document the behavior of yumboes, with particular attention to their disappearing and teleporting abilities. To do this, he created a magical map, which he could link to a specific beast or being to track its whereabouts. The charming for this invention alone is quite extraordinary, but his findings using it were just as interesting.

To test his enchantments, and to see how they would handle both invisibility and teleportation, he first linked a friend of his to the map and had him apparate to various places in London. The indicator on the parchment would jump from here to there instantaneously, maintaining connection with the friend. He also applied his charms to a Diricawl to confirm that the map would work even when the linked creature was invisible. All his tests a success, Bowe moved on to his yumbo.

The first order of business was to figure out how to get the creature to actually disappear. It took about a week and a half for Bowe to figure out that the yumbo tended to flee when egged on and made angry (often stealing any food in the surrounding area before doing so). The angrier the yumbo, the longer it would go before turning up and the more food it would steal. Fascinating discoveries both, but neither the main area of interest. The most intriguing part of it all was that the yumbo would outright vanish from Bowe’s map. It would be anywhere from ten minutes to five hours before it would reappear on the other side of town. Now, while notable results, this still didn’t necessarily prove anything. It’s entirely possible that the yumbo merely teleported to an unknown and unplottable location. The map also covered an impressive, though still limited, area about a third of the size of Europe. The yumbo may well have just been able to apparate an impressive difference and transported itself to the other side of the world. 

Historical Context
For today’s historical deep dive, I wanted to talk a little bit more about how the Diricawls’ powers of invisibility have influenced their relationship with Muggles. Said relationship ultimately ended with the Muggles believing the so-called “dodo” to be extinct, as Professor Anne alluded to earlier. But let’s step back a bit to a time before Muggles even knew these birds existed.

Prior to Muggles’ discovery in 1598, Diricawls were already known to wizardkind. They had been discovered a few centuries earlier, but as they did not offer much in comparison to the time and effort it took at the time to reach the island, they were mostly left alone. They were only visited on occasion by researchers or those looking to snag some feathers to sell as quills. Because of this mostly harmless interaction, and the fact that they had no natural predators, the Diricawls were not afraid of the new men who arrived on the island. Due to this apparent fearlessness, the birds earned a reputation among the Muggles for being dumb, unintelligent creatures. Even to this day, they are still depicted in Muggle literature as animals that will chase a piece of fruit over the edge of a cliff. Quite the contrary, Diricawls are rather intelligent creatures.

It took them less than 100 years to learn to tell the difference between wizard and Muggle and to hide themselves from the latter. You see, the Muggles who landed on Mauritius found the dodos to be easy hunting and, as one of the largest animals on the island, a good source of food. They began hunting them in excess, and the other animals that they had brought with them, like cats and dogs, began hunting them too. While not used to having any predators on their island, the Diricawls could still recognize the dangers of the new type of humans and began making themselves invisible anytime a Muggle was near, thus convincing the non-magical world that they had gone extinct by 1662.  Without this power, it is very likely that they would have gone extinct, only going to show how much the survival of magical creatures is reliant on their amazing abilities.

Conclusion
And that is all the time we have for today! Thank you again, Elizabeth, for coming in and speaking with us, it truly was a treat! Students, next week, as you know, is your O.W.L. exam, so be sure to get plenty of rest and fuel in the next few days as you cram the last bits of information inside your heads. I wish you all the best and hope to see you back next year! Ta-ta for now!

Diricawl image credit
Yumbo image credit
Demiguise image credit