Giant Squid

Giant Squid
Species information
Eye colour	Yellow
Skin colour	Blood red or purple
Native to	Great Lake, Scotland
Mortality	Mortal
Distinction	Enormous with lots of tentacles
Affiliation	Black Lake Magical Creatures Reserve
Ministry of Magic Classification	Beast
Status	Extant

"The bane of ancient mariners and students at Hogwarts - should the latter decide to go for a dip in the lake."

— Chocolate Frog Card

The Giant Squid was a gigantic cephalopod, with eight arms and two long tentacles. They ate crustaceans and toast, and required a nest for safety, or they could become aggressive. Hogwarts Library had books on Giant Squid domestication.

Description

Giant Squids can reach tremendous sizes and are one of the largest living organisms on earth. It is strongly suspected Giant Squids had magical powers. Giant Squids are known to Muggles, although they remain mysterious animals to them. Although their extraordinary bodies have washed up all over the world, Muggles only managed to capture a live Giant Squid on film in 2006. Although the main diet of Giant Squids consisted of crustaceans like shrimp, Giant Squids were also known to highly enjoy eating toast.

Although able to live in both saltwater and freshwater environments, Giant Squids were very particular about their habitats, and finding the right habitat to live in was a right of passage for young Giant Squids. In particular, they needed an underwater nest they could retreat to if they felt threatened. If Giant Squids lacked this underwater nest, they would become incredibly stressed, constantly spraying ink everywhere, and could eventually turn violent and dangerous, although an abundance of food could help alleviate some of the stress temporarily. Very few wizards had ever encountered a scared Giant Squid, though other large animals such as sea serpents could frighten certain Giant Squids. They were also highly territorial creatures, and would almost immediately get aggressive if other creatures or objects such as ships approached their territory.

Several wizards had tried to tame and domesticate Giant Squids, and the practice was common enough that several creature care books were written and published on the subject. Hogwarts Library held copies of these books for students to read through.

History

A semi-domesticated Giant Squid inhabited the Great Lake, on the grounds of Hogwarts Castle. Though the Chocolate Frog Card for Giant Squids described the Hogwarts Giant Squid as "the bane" of students at Hogwarts who wanted to go for a "dip in the lake", it appeared to be harmless, at least to humans, as it failed to attack Viktor Krum when he swam in the lake, allowed students to feed it bread, and rescued Dennis Creevey after he fell into the lake.

The entrance to Apollonia Black's grotto was a wall with a Giant Squid painted on it. Because some love eating toast, Apollonia enchanted the wall to open if they fed a piece to the painting.

At some point during the 1980s or early 1990s, the Magical Creatures Reserve was caring for a Giant Squid. The British Ministry of Magic research wing requested the aid of this creature in recovering a Sunken Relic lost in a shipwreck in the North Sea, which Jacob's sibling agreed to. The entrance to the Sunken Vault was in the form of a statue of a Giant Squid with the door in the beak of the creature. The statue was located in an underwater cave in the Great Lake. Jacob's sibling and their friends encountered it during their break-in at the end of the 1989–1990 school year.

A giant squid lived in the Great Lake

In his sixth year, Ron Weasley once stated that dating Lavender Brown was like going out with a giant squid because the more that he hinted that he wanted to finish the relationship, the tighter she held on.

There existed an artefact that could enable the user to communicate with marine life, including giant squids. During the Calamity in the late 2010s and early 2020s, a Calamity Investigator working for the Statute of Secrecy Task Force discovered this artefact and successfully attempted to use it to communicate with the giant squid in the Great Lake. However, the conversation didn't provide much useful information, as the squid was "obsessed with shrimp" and failed to talk about anything else.

Behind the scenes

A Giant Squid tentacle as seen in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

• True Giant Squids (genus "Architeuthis") are deep-sea-dwelling creatures and can not live in fresh water such as inland lochs in Scotland. It would not be able to stand the sunlight, pressure, lack of salinity of the water, the space or the lack of food. At one point during the books it is fed bread, which it would not be able to digest. Giant Squids also have very tender skin that would break if they were tickled by a stick, as the Weasley twins did. However, it is possible that the Hogwarts Giant Squid is a magical subspecies, similar to, for instance, what Kneazles are to mundane cats, and has different tolerences.

Appearances

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game) (GBC version only)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game) (Appears on a Famous Wizard Card)
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Mentioned only)
• Harry Potter Trading Card Game
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
• Pottermore
• Harry Potter (website)
• Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
• Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
• Harry Potter: Magic Awakened
• Hogwarts Legacy
• The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac