Missed Opportunities in the Wizarding World: Beings and Spirits
August 21, 2019—Over the course of a decade, JK Rowling delivered to us a famous story about a Boy Who Lived in 1,084,170 words. In case you missed that, the Harry Potter series includes well over a million words.
So I want to be clear at the outset of this 4-post blog series that I am not criticizing JKR for storytelling stinginess, and I am quite satisfied with how she chose to use those million+ words.
But as much as was included, much was left out. We all have unanswered questions. We’re all intrigued by aspects of her fictional world that could have been explored more. But there’s only so much a book series can relate.
So allow me to imagine that JK Rowling had had another million words to tell us her stories. How could the series have been shaped differently? What topics could have been developed more deeply? I present a few humble thoughts on how she could have used those extra million words.
Also, all posts will entirely disregard Cursed Child. You have been warned.
The Harry Potter series chronicles a war fought between witches and wizards. But that same war affected every creature in the British Wizarding World. Goblins were displaced, House-Elves were experimented on, and centaurs were herded, yet very few of these groups contributed to the war effort in an ongoing, meaningful way. Why not?
Creatures in the Harry Potter world are sorted into three categories: Beasts, Beings, and Spirits. I’ll be looking at how certain Spirits and Beings (creatures and with sufficient intelligence to understand the laws of the magical community and to bear part of the responsibility in shaping those laws) could have played larger roles in the Wizarding World during Harry Potter’s childhood.
(As side notes, both centaurs and merpeople have chosen to be classified as Beasts, even though by definition they should be Beings. Werewolves, on the other hand, are Beings most of the time but Beasts during a full moon. The reasons behind these anomalies are expounded upon in the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander, actually written by JK Rowling.)
Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix attempt to build alliances with two groups of which we are aware: giants and werewolves. Hagrid and Olympe Maxime, both half-giants themselves, are sent to the giants as emissaries during Order of the Phoenix, and Remus Lupin spends much of both wars among his fellow werewolves trying to persuade them to join Dumbledore’s side of the fight.
Both of these attempts seem to be more countermeasures against Voldemort’s similar efforts than actual offensive maneuvers, and both seem to have been doomed to failure from the start. Several groups who could have made more promising allies were never explored.
House-Elves
This is the big one. House-Elves are absolutely the most under-utilized Beings in the entire Wizarding World. While the full extent of their abilities is never revealed, one thing is perfectly clear: They can Apparate (or some equivalent) through even the strongest of enchantments meant to keep witches and wizards out.
For example, Hogwarts’s Elves (and even Dobby when he was still a Malfoy Elf) can pop around the castle. Kreacher teleported from Voldemort’s cave to return to Regulus’s side. Dobby came to the cellar of Malfoy Manor when Harry called for aid. All of these locations are heavily and successfully spelled to keep witches and wizards from Apparating in or out.
Other abilities are hinted at, as in Chamber of Secrets when Dobby was able to interfere with Harry’s Owl Post, close Platform 9 ¾, and enchant the Hogwarts Bludger. In each of these examples, a Wizarding enchantment designed to resist outside interference is overcome by a House-Elf.
Moreover, House-Elves are part of the day-to-day lives of human magic users. They are not a separate society, like some of the others on this list, so it’s odd that they’re often forgotten as resources, both by people who use them as slave labor and by those who treat them with respect as individuals.
It’s outright stated, several times throughout the series, that Voldemort and his followers underestimate House-Elves. But neither side seems to truly appreciate their capabilities, their personalities, and their opinions. They would have made powerful allies (or slaves in the case of the less scrupulous) in war and in life, but they are almost universally overlooked.
Goblins
It’s not a secret that goblins don’t like humans, but the two groups are clearly willing to work together to some extent, since goblins, you know, run the entire financial system. For that to work, there has to be a significant level of cooperation with witches and wizards.
It’s also made evident that goblins have access to magical abilities that witches and wizards do not possess. Goblin-made armor is imbued with unique properties, and witches and wizards fear goblins to the extent that a robbery attempt on Gringotts is considered insane.
Yet at no point is the idea of a formal alliance with the goblins mentioned. Instead, they lose control of Gringotts and wind up either doing Voldemort’s bidding (as when they tried to apprehend Harry, Ron, and Hermione once they entered Gringotts in disguise) or going on the run (as with Griphook and Gornuk).
It seems that an early attempt to gain the goblins’ support could have yielded great gains in the long run. They certainly had powers and resources that would have benefitted either side of the war (if either side had bothered to make allies of them), and the wizards certainly had negotiating power. During two brief conversations with Harry, during which he asked for help with robbing Gringotts, Griphook mentioned two things that goblins wanted from wizards: the right to carry wands as an ideal and the conveniently on-hand Sword of Gryffindor as a specific object. Presumably, a larger conversation involving other interested parties would uncover far more items of interest to the species.
Centaurs
Much like goblins, centaurs do not seem to have any real love for wizard-kind and instead prefer to stay out of their affairs. But they are not so isolationist as they like to appear. They were friendly with Hagrid and had great respect for Albus Dumbledore, saluting him at his funeral. And in the end, they joined the Battle of Hogwarts, even after all seemed lost.
With that in mind, I think there could have been room earlier on for Dumbledore or Harry to solicit their assistance, as Diviners if not as warriors. As with the goblins, the humans had some negotiating power (having control of the land on which the centaurs lived), and it’s likely that an accord could have been reached that wouldn’t have affronted the centaurs’ delicate sensibilities too grievously.
I think, of all the creatures mentioned in this post, centaurs saw the most growth as a species in the Harry Potter series. They were stubborn, sometimes cruel, and rather prejudiced — throwing out Firenze for mingling with and supporting humans. But when it really counted, at the critical moment in the history of Wizarding Britain, they came through. They finally put a higher ideal, a more important goal, above their pride. It’s a rather beautiful moment, even if it ranks somewhere around an 11th-level subplot.
Ghosts
As a group, ghosts seem happy to form meaningful relationships with humans and to aid their friends in their endeavors. They also have the rather useful quality of being almost impossible to harm. And they can move with complete silence and invisibility. (When Harry and Ron pretend to be the Bloody Baron while under the Invisibility Cloak, Peeves the Poltergeist believes them, so presumably an invisible ghost was not a far-fetched idea.)
So why weren’t ghosts used by either side of the war as spies, or lookouts, or messengers? This could have changed the landscape of Voldemort-occupied Britain. Stay tuned for more on this in an upcoming Dwelling on Dreams podcast episode.
Of course, these are only a few in a long list of creatures that could have drastically changed the Wizarding wars if they had been used to their fullest potential. If the wars had truly been fought among all the Wizarding World’s occupants, rather than just the humans, they might have been longer or shorter, more or less vicious, more or less chaotic—we cannot know. But certainly, the conflicts would have looked very different, and it’s something I would have liked to have seen.
Every post in this series will be accompanied by a pet theory of Taylor’s related to the post’s subject matter.
Theory: The Room of Requirement is a House-Elf invention.
The Room of Requirement is one of the most impressive and enchanting examples of magic in Hogwarts Castle. It is confusing, then, that the only people who seem to know about it (before the DA made it famous in Harry’s fifth year) are the House-Elves. Even Dumbledore once stumbled upon it but couldn’t find or explain it later.
Not only that, but its existence seems to be common knowledge among the House-Elves. Dobby and Winky, both of them newcomers to Hogwarts, already know about it and use it on a regular basis.
I submit that the Room of Requirement was designed and invented by the first House-Elves of Hogwarts, who wanted to leave a legacy at the school and passed the knowledge of its existence along to their descendants.