A Dark creature with the appearance of a woman with floor-length black hair and a skeletal, green-tinged face. Its screams will kill. Seamus Finnigan is particularly afraid of banshees (PA7). The Bandon Banshee was supposedly defeated by Gilderoy Lockhart (CS6) but was actually defeated by a witch with a hairy chin (see CS16). The singer Celestina Warbeck performs with a backing group of banshees (DP).

A wizard-bred Dark creature of enormous power, this extremely poisonous giant serpent (up to 50 feet in length) is brilliant green in color with long thin saber-like fangs and bulbous yellow eyes (see more below). A basilisk can live for at least 900 years given an adequate food supply, and as it can eat most vertebrates (including humans), this is not difficult to achieve. The male can be distinguished from the female by the scarlet plume on its head, but basilisks are usually magically rather than normally bred.

Basilisk-breeding has been outlawed since medieval times and in the present day falls under the Ban on Experimental Breeding, but this law has rarely been broken even by Dark wizards, since only a Parselmouth can control a basilisk.

"Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it." (CS16)

The phoenix seems immune to the basilisk's deadly gaze (CS16 ff.)

When unleashed by the Heir of Slytherin using Parseltongue, the basilisk that lived in the Chamber of Secrets searched the castle for its prey, Muggle-born students, which it apparently could identify by smelling their blood ("I smell blood..." the creature cried as it wandered the pipes). When its eyes were pecked out by Fawkes, it attacked Harry using its keen sense of smell. Harry killed the basilisk by thrusting a sword through the roof of its mouth. Harry's arm was pierced by one of the basilisk's fangs, the poison of which nearly killed him.

Apart from its specific magical powers and long lifespan, many of the characteristics of the basilisk follow naturally from its being a serpent (see). Like more mundane serpents, the basilisk sheds its skin at intervals, and its varied diet is typical of the larger snakes, which tend to pursue larger and larger prey according to their own size and capabilities. It's quite possible that had Harry both retained his wand and been more experienced in Defence Against the Dark Arts, he might have lost his battle against the basilisk in attempting to use Stunning Spells; although not explicitly stated, the basilisk's skin probably has the same armor characteristics as dragon skin, leaving its eyes and the inside of its mouth as its only vulnerable points.

Horn of this creature is used as a potion ingredient. The name "bicorn" suggests a creature with two horns. The Bicorn is a mythical demonic creature which eats human flesh. occultopedia.com

Another name for the yeti; the Bigfoot variety lives in the Pacific Northwest of the United States (FB).

A magical insect, native to Australia.It is about a half-inch long and vivid blue in color. A Billywig's sting causes giddiness and levitation. For this reason, the Billywig's sting is highly sought after by Australian wizards. Dried Billywig stingers are useful as a potion ingredient.

Another name for the Doxy.

Magical creatures bred by Hagrid prior to the autumn of 1994 [Y14] by crossing manticores with fire-crabs. Blast-Ended Skrewts are some of the most revolting creatures ever seen. [more...]

The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures keeps some albino bloodhounds around to be used against Nogtails (FB).

When roosters were being killed at Hogwarts (1992 - 1993 [Y12-Y13]), Hagrid suspected that the culprit might be a blood-sucking bugbear (CS11).

See also bugbear.

Hagrid's pet Fang is a black boarhound (U.S.: a Great Dane), a large breed of dog used in hunting wild boars.

Like Hagrid, Fang much fiercer than he is. Fang accompanies Hagrid into the Forbidden Forest and also went with Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Draco when they served detention in the Forest. Hagrid told them that Fang is a coward, but this may have been more an oblique comment on Draco's behaviour than the strict truth about Fang. When Harry and Ron followed the spiders into the Forest and encountered Aragog, Fang accompanied with them. When Hagrid resisted arrest late in Harry's fifth year, Fang was injured in attempting to protect Hagrid, but recovered.

A shape shifter that prefers to live in dark, confined spaces, taking the form of the thing most feared by the person it encounters; nobody knows what a boggart looks like in its natural state (although Moody recognized one using his magical eye to spot it as it hid in a corner desk at number twelve, Grimmauld Place. One wonders what it was that Moody actually saw...). A boggart appears to feed on the emotion of fear rather than simply deploying this ability as a defense mechanism, hence its classification as a Dark creature (PA7). Many Muggle children may have encountered boggarts as "the monster under the bed", though this is not stated explicitly in the text.

Lupin taught his third year Defence Against the Dark Arts class to fight this with the Riddikulus spell (PA7), and used a boggart as a substitute for a Dementor in tutoring Harry (PA12), an experience Harry felt the D.A. really needed in order to learn to cast the Patronus Charm under something resembling realistic conditions (OP27). A boggart was one of the obstacles in the Triwizard Tournament maze (GF31), and a boggart was found infesting a writing desk in the drawing room at Grimmauld Place (OP9).

A small (maximum height 8 inches) insect-eating tree-dweller with long sharp fingers (two on each hand), brown eyes, and a general appearance of a flat-faced little stickman made of bark and twigs, which serves well as camouflage in its native habitat.

Found in western England, southern Germany, and Scandinavia, a bowtruckle serves as tree-guardian for its home tree, which is usually a tree whose wood is of wand quality. The twiglike fingers of the bowtruckle appear to be primarily an adaptation like that of a woodpecker's beak, allowing it to more effectively dig out its preferred food of wood lice from its home tree, but they also serve as an effective weapon against the eyes of an opponent. Although ordinarily peaceful, a bowtruckle will attack a human if provoked (which includes perceived assaults upon the bowtruckle's tree as well as the bowtruckle itself). A witch or wizard seeking to take leaves or wood from a bowtruckle-inhabited tree should offer woodlice or fairy eggs to the bowtruckle to placate and distract it (FB, OP13).

See Blood-Sucking Bugbear.

Greenish fungus with eyes. An infestation of Bundimuns can destroy a house, as their secretions rot away the foundations. This same secretion, in diluted form, is used in some magical cleaning solutions (FB).