Dragon

"Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing on their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks."

- The dragons used in the Triwizard Tournament

Dragons are giant winged, fire-breathing reptiles. Widely regarded as terrifying yet awe-inspiring, they can be found all over the world and are frequently referred to in Asian and medieval European folklore.

Able to fly and breathe fire through their nostrils, they are one of the most dangerous and hardest to conceal creatures in the wizarding world. The Ministry of Magic classifies them as XXXXX, known wizard killers that are impossible to train or domesticate. Despite how dangerous they are, there are people who are trained to work with them, called dragon keepers, or dragonologists. A wizard who trades and sells dragon eggs (which is an illegal activity) is referred to as a dragon dealer.

Early life
"Your dragon requires a lot of care during these first few months."

- Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit



Dragon mothers breathe fire on their eggs to keep them warm. The dragon's first fire breaths, usually accompanied by thick grey smoke, appear when the dragon is around six months old. However, the ability to fly is normally developed later, at around twelve months, and the dragon will not be fully mature until it is two years old and ready to live on its own. Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit states that you are to feed a baby dragon a bucket of brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour.

Social behaviour
Not much is known about dragon behaviour, however it seems that, at least with the Chinese Fireball, females are generally larger and dominant over males. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them states that sometimes females oust males from their territories, at least with the Antipodean Opaleye.

Dragons are generally highly aggressive towards anything, even wizards, and will sometimes attack humans without provocation, such as in the case of the Ilfracombe Incident.

Known breeds
"There was a silvery blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground, a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might, a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air, and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to to them."

- Physical descriptions of different breeds

There is no officially sanctioned breeding of dragons, as dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks' Convention of 1709. However, they have been known to interbreed, producing rare hybrids. Below is a list of the ten known pure-bred breeds of dragons according to the fifty-second edition of :

The existence of these two dragons are only shown on a page of notes concerning the book Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit that is available on J.K. Rowling's Official Site. The scan of the page is available here.

Dragons in the wizarding world
"It's hard to stop Muggles noticing us if we're keeping dragons in the back garden — anyway you can't tame dragons, it's dangerous."

- Ron Weasley regarding dragons and their nature



The motto of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is Draco dormiens numquam titillandus; Latin for Never tickle a sleeping dragon. The Hogwarts gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, loved and adored dragons, briefly owning a Norwegian Ridgeback named Norbert, who turned out to be a female and was subsequently renamed Norberta. In 1993, the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, suggested placing dragons to guard the school, after being compelled to remove the Dementors, something that Professor Dumbledore thought Hagrid would be very happy with.



Many useful materials come from dragons, but they are hard to obtain (see Uses below). It takes over a dozen wizards just to stun a dragon. Muggles believe that dragons are a mere myth, but have been known on occasion to glimpse these beasts. To prevent them from being seen by Muggles, and to protect them from poaching, dragons are kept on dragon reserves around the world, most of which are far from human habitation. Dragons cannot be domesticated, despite individuals trying to do so. However, it is possible to condition them via torture to make them somewhat subservient, as Gringotts Wizarding Bank had done to the one guarding the lower vaults, who had been trained to expect pain upon hearing a certain noise. The selling of dragon products is closely regulated by the Ministry of Magic, and only dragon species that are over-breeding are killed to make these items. Those who study dragons are known as dragonologist.

Uses


Dragons were used in the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament of 1994, in which the champions had to retrieve a golden egg from a nesting mother. The varieties used were: the Hungarian Horntail, the Chinese Fireball, the Swedish Short-Snout, and a Welsh Green. Ron Weasley's brother Charlie worked with dragons in Romania at the time, and helped transport the dragons used in the Tournament. Dragons are also used to guard certain vaults at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, and one was used by Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger to escape the bank following their break-in in 1998.

Though they cannot be domesticated, there is one known instance of a dragon being used as a mount. In May 1998, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger rode on the back of a dragon, though they had trouble maintaining a grip on their steed, and could not control its flight. During the 1993–1994 school year, before playing in the Quidditch final against Slytherin, Harry dreamed that the Slytherin team were flying on dragons instead of broomsticks. When he awoke he realised that they would not be allowed to ride dragons.

The dragon model, like the model in the First Task of Triwizard Tournament of 1994, was used in a roast chestnuts sale, near Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, in Diagon Alley to hold the chestnut in place.

Books

 * Men who Love Dragons Too Much

Spells that affect dragons
While dragon skin can resist most spells, such as the Stunning Spell, some spells can affect dragons if aimed at the right spot, or if cast by several people at once.

Behind the scenes

 * Draco Malfoy's first name, Draco, is Latin for dragon.
 * There is a wizarding disease called dragon pox.
 * In, Fred and George Weasley have a firework dragon chase Professor Umbridge through the Great Hall.
 * One of the many forms Fiendfyre can take is a dragon.
 * Charles Weasley is a dragon keeper in Romania.
 * Most of the dragons in the films seem to be based on wyverns rather than traditional dragons; most noticeably, their wings don't sprout from their back, but are rather the modified forelegs of the dragon (as in real life bats and flying reptiles or pterosaurs).
 * The Catalonian Fireball appears to be an early draft on the Chinese Fireball because these were notes for Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit on . The same for the Portuguese Long-Snout which seems to be an early draft for the Romanian Longhorn and the Swedish Short-Snout.
 * According to Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, in 1932, there was a dragon attack at a muggle beach that a family of wizards on holiday defeated. It earned them the Order of Merlin, First Class. It is known as the Ilfracombe Incident.
 * In the credits of, it says "No Dragons were harmed in the making of this movie". This probably refers to the scene in the movie where the Hungarian Horntail falls off the bridge.
 * Madam Rosmerta owns a silk dressing gown embroidered with dragons, which she was wearing on the night in June 1997 when Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore apparated back from the Crystal Cave.
 * In rare cases, a Patronus may take the form of a dragon, according to Pottermore.

Appearances

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Notes and references
דרקון Dragon Дракон Lohikäärme Smok