Vampire

"*Evil creature that roams the night feeding on the blood of living beings. Cannot go out in the daylight.*"
— Description[src]

A **vampire** was a dark magical humanoid being that was famed for biting people on the neck and sucking their blood. They were part of the family of beings known as the Living Dead, along with zombies.

## Contents

* 1Physical appearance and biology
* 2Diet
* 3Vampires in the wizarding world
* 4History
* 5Known vampires
* 6See also
* 7Behind the scenes
* 8Appearances
* 9Notes and references

## Physical appearance and biology

They were usually pale and gaunt, with sharp fangs for puncturing the throats of their victims.

Vampires seemed to be able to live much longer than Muggles. Carmilla Sanguina died aged 196, and Amarillo Lestoat died aged 201. Wizardkind could reach a similar or even older age, as displayed by wizards such as Armando Dippet and Barry Winkle.

## Diet

Vampires had a very strong aversion to garlic and could be kept at bay by its presence. They drank blood, though they were apparently also able to eat other foods such as pasties, and Honeydukes was known for selling lollipops that tasted like blood, presumably for vampires to indulge in. Hermione Granger was noted for believing this, as revealed when she and Ronald Weasley visited Honeydukes in Hogsmeade in 1993.

## Vampires in the wizarding world

As vampires were magical creatures, they therefore lived in and were affiliated with the wizarding world. There existed a Society for the Tolerance of Vampires, which by its given name, must have campaigned for greater acceptance of vampires and their culture in the magical world, given their seemingly malignant reputation. The wizarding world also set guidelines to prevent exterminating vampires outright.

Vampires were studied in first, second, and third-year Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. This was because vampires, along with similar undead creatures such as Inferi, were considered dark creatures due to their presumably highly parasitic and dangerous natures.

## History

During the 1473 Quidditch World Cup, seven hundred fouls were committed, one of which was the release of a hundred vampire bats from beneath the robes of the Transylvanian Captain.

The Muggle author Bram Stoker is well known for his 1897 Gothic horror novel *Dracula*, which features Count Dracula, a fictional character based on the historical vampire Vlad Drakul, the father of Vlad the Impaler.

In a 1913 Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson taught by the then Professor Albus Dumbledore at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an unidentified student had their Boggart assume the form of a vampire as their worst fear. When the student cast the Boggart-Banishing Spell on it, the charm made the vampire-boggart assume the humorous form of a buck-toothed bunny rabbit.

During the 1920s, The New York Ghost ran an article entitled "Love at First Bite: The Unlikely Tale of a Vampire".

One Hallowe'en before 1999 featured a vampire running amok in Great Britain among Muggles, before it was lured away from a Muggle girl with a raw steak.

Professor Quirinus Quirrell claimed to have had an encounter with vampires in the Black Forest during his break from teaching to get some "hands-on" experience with dealing with the Dark Arts. Whether this is true, or merely a cover to hide his encounter with Lord Voldemort in Albania, is unclear. He decorated the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom with gloves of garlic, supposedly in the hopes of warding off a particularly vicious Romanian vampire. Quirrell's story about encountering a vampire is in some aspects true, as Voldemort was in a state between life and death at the time, and admits that he was living parasitically off of the professor. This included forcing Quirrell drink the blood of unicorns from the Forbidden Forest in order to sustain himself.

Gilderoy Lockhart wrote a book titled *Voyages with Vampires* about his supposed encounters with vampires. The book included information on a vampire that, after an encounter with Lockhart, could eat nothing but lettuce. As Lockhart merely took credit for other wizards' accomplishments, this encounter likely happened to someone else.

During the spring of 1994, Professor Remus Lupin assigned his third-year students to write an essay about vampires, with Neville being confused whether vampires have to eat garlic to have it affect them. After Professor Lupin was forced to resign from his position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher when Professor Snape revealed that he was a werewolf, Dean Thomas joked that the class might get a vampire as a teacher next, possibly indicating that vampires and werewolves don't get along in the wizarding world.

During the 1994 Quidditch World Cup, a young wizard claimed he was a Vampire hunter to impress several Veela, also stating that he has killed about ninety or so by that point. Such is illegal, according to Paragraph 12 of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans.

In a *Daily Prophet* article published in the summer of 1995, Rita Skeeter complained that the British Ministry of Magic employees waste time arguing over cauldron thickness when they should be "stamping out vampires". Percy Weasley angrily rejected the criticism and points out that paragraph twelve of the *Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans* clearly forbids such a policy.

In 1995, Rubeus Hagrid had a disagreement with a vampire in a pub in Minsk on his way to parley with the giants.

During his History of Magic O.W.L., Harry suspected that his answer to the question how the Statute of Secrecy was breached in 1749 and what measures were introduced to prevent a recurrence was incomplete. He thought that vampires were involved, but could not remember the details.

Eldred Worple spent time living among vampires, and wrote a Magizoology book, *Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires*. Worple, a friend of Horace Slughorn, took with him a vampire named Sanguini to the Slug Club Christmas party at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in December 1996.

Luna Lovegood believed that Rufus Scrimgeour was a vampire. Xenophilius Lovegood, her father, wrote a very long article about him for *The Quibbler* after he became Minister for Magic, though according to Luna, the Ministry forced him not to publish it. This was possibly done to prevent the defamation of Scrimgeour, but was taken by the Lovegoods as confirmation of their theory.

Vampires were among the various magical creatures that threatened the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy during the Calamity, which mysteriously affected the wizarding world in the 2010s. They appeared as Foundables, and their Confoundable guards had to be overpowered by volunteer wizards and witches of the Statute of Secrecy Task Force.

## Known vampires

Amarillo Lestoat

Blodwyn Bludd

Carmilla Sanguina

Lorcan d'Eath (Part-vampire)

Sanguini

Herbert Varney

Vlad Drakul

* Romanian vampire
* Vampire in Minsk
* Victor Ketsueki (allegedly)

## See also

* Blood
* Part-vampire
* Half-breed
* Living Dead
* Vampire bat
* Zombie

## Behind the scenes

* Some fans had originally speculated that Severus Snape was a vampire for various reasons, such as his pale and gaunt physical appearance, and the fact that his robes are always described as bat-like. However, J. K. Rowling said that this is entirely false.
	+ When playing Gobstones with Rowan Khanna, Jacob's sibling has the option to try to distract them by claiming that Snape is a vampire. They can later claim this when Rita Skeeter asks about secrets.
* After Professor Remus Lupin was forced to resign from his position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher when Professor Snape revealed that he was a werewolf, Dean Thomas joked that the class might get a vampire as a teacher next. This may be a possible allusion to the concept that vampires and werewolves are ancient enemies, as they are often portrayed as fighting and are, therefore, conceptually related.
* According to W.O.M.B.A.T., vampire bites may be incurable; this is consistent with the near impossibility of the curing of a werewolf bite during full moon.
* The breach in the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1749 involving vampires may be inspired by the real-world work of Benedictine monk Antoine Augustin Calmet, who recorded stories about vampires in western Europe. He published a treatise that described how to track them down and destroy them. If so, he may be a wizard in the Harry Potter universe, since only a wizard could create a breach.
* J. K. Rowling did not include vampires more prominently in the *Harry Potter* series because she felt she could add little to the already rich vampire myth and because vampires are from the traditions of Eastern Europe, rather than the British folklore Rowling primarily drew from.
* As little is known of vampires in J. K. Rowling's world, it is unknown if it is possible for a person to be born a vampire or they have to be turned by a bite, much like the Werewolves.