The Warlock's Hairy Heart

• Type: Wizarding Fairy Tale, Cautionary Tale
• Owners: Albus Dumbledore (his personal copy), Hermione Granger (by bequest)
• Maker: Beedle the Bard (Author)

“The Warlock's Hairy Heart” is one of the five stories contained within the classic wizarding children's book, *The Tales of Beedle the Bard*. It is widely regarded as the darkest and most gruesome of Beedle's tales. The story tells of a handsome and wealthy young warlock who, deciding that love is a form of weakness, uses the Dark Arts to prevent himself from ever falling in love. To prove his superiority, he seeks a bride and finds a beautiful and talented witch. At their wedding feast, she confronts him, stating she could not marry him unless she knew he possessed a heart. The warlock then leads her to a dungeon where, inside a crystal casket, lies his own enchanted, still-beating heart. The horrified witch begs him to place it back inside his chest. When he does so, the heart, having grown savage and bestial during its unnatural separation, overpowers him. The warlock, transformed into a beast, rips the witch's heart from her chest and then dies himself. The physical copy of *The Tales of Beedle the Bard* owned by Albus Dumbledore and left to Hermione Granger was described as a small, ancient-looking book with a cover that was stained and peeling in places.

As a written work, the story's primary “property” is its function as a powerful cautionary tale within the wizarding world. It serves as a moral lesson for young witches and wizards about the dangers of suppressing human emotion, particularly love, and the corrupting influence of the Dark Arts. The central magical concept explored is that a human heart, when magically removed from the body and cut off from all feeling, does not remain pure but instead becomes feral and monstrous. The story serves as an allegory for how rejecting one's own humanity in a quest for perceived invulnerability ultimately leads to self-destruction. In his personal annotations on the tale, Albus Dumbledore explained that the story illustrates a fundamental truth that many, including Lord Voldemort, failed to grasp: a heart that has been magically protected from suffering will eventually become inhuman. (TBB)

The tale was written by Beedle the Bard in the fifteenth century and has been a staple of wizarding folklore for centuries. Due to its graphic and disturbing content, it has often been a source of controversy. Some parents have historically tried to have it removed from the curriculum or banned from the Hogwarts Library, believing it would give their children nightmares. Lucius Malfoy's father was noted as one of the figures who campaigned for its removal. (TBB) Despite these objections, the story remained a part of the collection Dumbledore bequeathed to Hermione, indicating he believed its moral lesson was of profound importance.

The title of “The Warlock's Hairy Heart” is first mentioned in *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* when Hermione Granger receives her copy of *The Tales of Beedle the Bard* from Albus Dumbledore's will. Although the story itself is not recounted within the seven core novels, its inclusion is thematically significant. Dumbledore's commentary, detailed in the supplementary book of the same name, draws a direct parallel between the foolish young warlock and Lord Voldemort. He argues that Voldemort went even further than the warlock by mutilating not his heart, but his very soul through the creation of Horcruxes. Both characters, driven by a fear of mortality and a disdain for love, ultimately dehumanised themselves through Dark Magic. (TBB) The tale thus serves as a powerful allegory for Voldemort's downfall and reinforces the series' central theme that love is the most powerful and essential form of magic. Dumbledore's analysis also contains subtle allusions to his own past, particularly his youthful relationship with Gellert Grindelwald and his own temptation by the Dark Arts, suggesting the story served as a personal warning for him as well. (TBB)

• “The Warlock's Hairy Heart” is a complete short story featured in *The Tales of Beedle the Bard*, a real-world companion book written by J.K. Rowling and published in 2008. All information cited with (TBB) comes from this supplementary book.
• The extensive in-universe notes by Albus Dumbledore that accompany the story were also written by J.K. Rowling, providing canonical backstory and thematic context that enriches the main *Harry Potter* series.