Bestiary

• Type: Compendium of Magical Creatures, Textbook
• Authors: Notable authors include Newt Scamander and Edwardus Lima.
• Notable Examples: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Monster Book of Monsters

A bestiary in the wizarding world is a type of book or compendium dedicated to the study and classification of Magical Creatures, a field known as Magizoology. These texts serve as essential guides for witches and wizards, providing detailed information about the various magical fauna found across the globe. The primary purpose of a bestiary is educational and for safety. They are standard textbooks at schools like Hogwarts, particularly for the Care of Magical Creatures class. Bestiaries typically contain entries on individual creatures, detailing their appearance, habits, diet, habitat, and breeding patterns. Crucially, they also include a classification rating from the Ministry of Magic's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which indicates a creature's level of danger. This system ranges from 'X' (Boring) to 'XXXXX' (Known wizard killer / impossible to train or domesticate) (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them companion book). Beyond academic use, bestiaries are invaluable reference tools for the entire wizarding community, helping individuals identify and understand how to interact with, repel, or avoid potentially dangerous creatures.

While many bestiaries likely exist, two are prominently featured in the series:

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: Authored by the famous Magizoologist Newt Scamander, this book is the definitive bestiary of the wizarding world. First published in 1927 by Obscurus Books, it became a bestseller and a required Hogwarts textbook for first-year students. It provides a comprehensive list of creatures from Acroromantula to Yeti and established the standard Ministry of Magic classification system.
• The Monster Book of Monsters: A particularly aggressive bestiary that was assigned by Rubeus Hagrid for his third-year Care of Magical Creatures class. The book itself is enchanted to be vicious, snapping and biting at anyone who tries to open it improperly. To subdue it, one must stroke its spine, at which point it falls open placidly. The book contains information on dangerous creatures like the Manticore and the Fire Crab. Its author is Edwardus Lima (Pottermore).
• Unnamed Bestiary on Dark Magic Creatures: In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Hermione Granger found information about the Basilisk on a page she ripped from a “very old” library book. While the book's title is not mentioned, its contents—detailing the King of Serpents, its method of killing, and its mortal enemy, the rooster—confirm it was a form of bestiary focused on extremely dangerous, dark creatures, likely from the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library.

Knowledge from bestiaries plays a critical, often life-saving, role throughout the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the information Hermione Granger discovered about the Basilisk was indispensable. It allowed Harry Potter and Ron Weasley to identify the creature in the Chamber of Secrets and understand its primary weapon, the murderous stare, leading them to realise its victims were only petrified because they had seen its reflection. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Monster Book of Monsters serves as a perfect introduction to Rubeus Hagrid's unique and often perilous teaching style. The struggle of the third-year students to simply open their textbook provided both a challenge and a humorous insight into Hagrid's love for creatures that the rest of the wizarding world considers monstrous. The required presence of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on the first-year equipment list establishes from the beginning that understanding the natural world—both magical and mundane—is a fundamental part of a wizarding education.

In 2001, J.K. Rowling wrote and published a real-world version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them under the pseudonym Newt Scamander. The book was created for the British charity Comic Relief and contains humorous, handwritten annotations from Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. This companion book's success later became the foundation for the Fantastic Beasts film series, which serves as a prequel to the main *Harry Potter* story. In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Monster Book of Monsters is depicted as even more animated and aggressive, skittering around the room and tearing at its bindings when provoked. (film)