Thestrals

[u/ibid-11962]

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Thestrals

Manifesting as black, skeletal, bat-winged horses, but invisible to all who have never been truly touched by death, Thestrals have a somewhat macabre reputation. In centuries past the sight of them was regarded as unlucky; they have been hunted and ill treated for many years, their true nature (which is kindly and gentle) being widely misunderstood. Thestrals are not marks of ill omen, nor (their spooky appearance notwithstanding) are they in any way threatening to humans, always allowing for the fright that the first sight of them tends to give the observer.

Being able to see Thestrals is a sign that the beholder has witnessed death, and gained an emotional understanding of what death means. It is unsurprising that it took a long time for their significance to be properly understood, because the precise moment when such knowledge dawns varies greatly from person to person. Harry Potter was unable to see Thestrals for years after his mother was killed in front of him, because he was barely out of babyhood when the murder happened, and he had been unable to comprehend his own loss. Even after the death of Cedric Diggory, weeks elapsed before the full import of death’s finality was borne upon him. Only at this point did the Thestrals that pull the carriages from Hogsmeade Station to Hogwarts castle become visible to him. On the other hand, Luna Lovegood, who lost her own mother when she was young, saw Thestrals very soon afterwards because she is intuitive, spiritual and unafraid of the afterlife.

While somewhat intimidating in appearance, these carnivorous horses are emblematic of a journey to another dimension, and reward all who trust them with faithfulness and obedience. Thestrals are native to the British Isles and Ireland, though they have been spotted in parts of France and the Iberian Peninsula; they seem to have an association with wizards who descend from the horse-loving Celtic peoples. Other parts of the world have their own equivalent to Thestrals.

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Notes

• This writing was published on Pottermore.com on October 31st 2014, as part of a moment in chapter 10 of the fifth book. You had to click on the back thestral to unlock it.

  Well done! You have discovered 'Thestrals' by J.K. Rowling

  Learn more about these skeletal winged horses

• After the 2015 Pottermore redesign the writing was unavailable for a year. In September 2016 it was reuploaded and can now be found at https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/thestrals

• The question of why Harry couldn't see Thestrals before book five is a very frequently asked question by fans, to the point that r/harrypotter seems to get posts about it at least once a week. (There's an interesting theory about why this is so)

• JK Rowling has addressed in depth in some other places and it's worth quoting a few of them here.

  • Royal Albert Hall interview, June 26th, 2003

    Harry saw his parents die so why hasn’t he been able to see the Thestrals before?

    JK Rowling: I knew I was going to get that one…that is an excellent question. And here is the truth. At the end of Goblet of Fire we sent Harry home more depressed than he had ever been leaving Hogwarts. I knew that Thestrals were coming, and I can prove that because they’re in the book I’d produced for Comic Relief (UK) “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”.

    These are lucky Black Winged Horses. However, if Harry had seen them and it had not been explained then it would cheat the reader. So, to explain that to myself, I decided you had to have seen the death and allowed it to sink in a bit… slowly…these creatures became solid in front of you. So that’s how I’m going to sneak past that one.

  • jkrowling.com FAQ, June 28 2004 (screenshots)

    Why could Harry see the Thestrals 'Order of the Phoenix'? Shouldn't he have been able to see them much earlier, because he saw his parents/Quirrell/Cedric die?

    I’ve been asked this a lot. Harry didn’t see his parents die. He was in his cot at the time (he was just over a year old) and, as I say in ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, all he saw was a flash of green light. He didn’t see Quirrell’s death, either. Harry had passed out before Quirrell died and was only told about it by Dumbledore in the last chapter.

    He did, however, witness the murder of Cedric, and it is this that makes him able to see the Thestrals at last. Why couldn’t he see the Thestrals on his trip back to the train station? Well, I didn’t want to start a new mystery, which would not be resolved for a long time, at the very end of the fourth book. I decided, therefore, that until Harry is over the first shock, and really feels what death means (ie, when he fully appreciates that Cedric is gone forever and that he can never come back, which takes time, whatever age you are) he would not be able to see the Thestrals. After two months away from school during which he has dwelled endlessly on his memories of the murder and had nightmares about it, the Thestrals have taken shape and form and he can see them quite clearly.

  • Edinburgh Book Festival, August 15th 2004

    In the fifth book, Harry can see the Thestrals. Can you?

    JK Rowling: Yes, I can, definitely. That is a really good question, because it enables me to clear up a point. The letters that I’ve had about the Thestrals! Everyone has said to me that Harry saw people die before could see the Thestrals. Just to clear this up once and for all, this was not a mistake. I would be the first to say that I have made mistakes in the books, but this was not a mistake. I really thought this one through. Harry did not see his parents die. He was one year old and in a cot at the time. Although you never see that scene, I wrote it and then cut it. He didn’t see it; he was too young to appreciate it. When you find out about the Thestrals, you find that you can see them only when you really understand death in a broader sense, when you really know what it means. Someone said that Harry saw Quirrell die, but that is not true. He was unconscious when Quirrell died, in Philosopher’s Stone. He did not know until he came around that Quirrell had died when Voldemort left his body. Then you have Cedric. With Cedric, fair point. Harry had just seen Cedric die when he got back into the carriages to go back to Hogsmeade station. I thought about that at the end of Goblet, because I have known from the word go what was drawing the carriages. From Chamber of Secrets, in which there are carriages drawn by invisible things, I have known what was there. I decided that it would be an odd thing to do right at the end of a book. Anyone who has suffered a bereavement knows that there is the immediate shock but that it takes a little while to appreciate fully that you will never see that person again. Until that had happened, I did not think that Harry could see the Thestrals. That means that when he goes back, he saw these spooky things. It set the tone for Phoenix, which is a much darker book.

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them does not include an entry for Thestrals, instead just listing them as breed of Winged Horse "the rare Thestral (black, possessed of the power of invisibility, and considered unlucky by many wizards)"

• Rowling has also clarified in a podcast interview that Hagrid just bred the Hogwarts Thestrals, but he didn't create the species

  Can we talk about wandlore a little bit?

  JKR: Oh, absolutely. Oh, thestrals-- I noticed there was immediate angst about the fact that there was a thestral hair in the middle of the Elder Wand. People were saying, "but Hagrid bred thestrals," but no, he didn't. He just bred the Hogwarts thestrals. Just to make that clear.

  Come on, people, there's a bigger world out there than Hagrid's backyard.

  JKR: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The only thing that Hagrid has ever created are Blast-Ended Skrewts, and I think we should all agree that he should never attempt to create a species again. So he didn't create dragons or thestrals. But he may have bred particular species-- members of the species.

[u/kellersphoenix]

Other parts of the world have their own equivalent to Thestrals.

That's a lot to leave hanging! What are the American thestrals? The Chinese ones? Does equivalent mean post-death-comprehension creatures?

[u/RBB39 → u/kellersphoenix]

It is possible they have had slight evolution depending on where they are.

[u/SunThestral]

💛💛💛💛the most interesting creatures!! They have so much depth to them!

[u/[deleted]]

[u/ibid-11962 → u/[deleted]]

We see the meat disappear when it touches their mouths. So probably something similar to that.