Thestrals

Thestrals are huge winged horses that are only visible to people who have witnessed death.

Description

They have white shining eyes, dragonish faces and necks, and skeletal black bodies, and are carnivorous and so attracted to the smell of blood. They have no flesh; their skin clings directly to their bones (OP10). Despite their menacing appearance, they are generally friendly animals (OP21, OP34).

Thestrals at Hogwarts

The only herd of domesticated Thestrals in Britain lives in the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, tended to by Hagrid (OP21). They are well trained, for example, not to attack the many owls flying around the castle (OP17). The herd started with a male and five females; they have lived in the Forbidden Forest for years, and it is believed that the original members of the herd came to Hogwarts as means of transportation for some students before the introduction of the Hogwarts Express (PmP). A number of Thestrals have been born since, beginning with one named Tenebrus, who is a special favorite of Hagrid’s (OP21). They are used to pull the school carriages from the train station up to the school (OP21, OP10).

Other Thestral facts

Few of the students in Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class could see the Thestrals during Harry’s fifth year (only Harry, Neville, and an unnamed “stringy” Slytherin boy who may be Theodore Nott). People used to think they were bad omens, that seeing them meant bad luck, but this is just superstition (OP21).

Thestrals have an amazing sense of direction and move magically fast through the air. Dumbledore used them to travel if he didn’t care to Apparate (which probably explains how he got to the Ministry in PS16) (OP21).

Harry and a group of students flew Thestrals from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic in an attempt to rescue Sirius (OP34). Thestrals were also ridden by Kingsley, Hermione, Bill, and Fleur in the Battle of the Seven Potters (DH4).

In 2017 when Albus Potter went to Hogwarts for the first time, his brother James tells him to watch out for the Thestrals, thoroughly scaring his brother. Harry reassures him that Thestrals are gentle creatures (DH/e).

Luna Lovegood is also able to see Thestrals, since she saw her mother die at the age of nine (OP38). Everyone who cannot see them assumes that the Hogwarts carriages magically pull themselves.

The Elder Wand contains a Thestral tail hair, a highly unusual wand core (Pm).

In 1927 Auror Rudolph Spielman brought a Thestral-drawn black carriage resembling a hearse to MACUSA in New York City to transport prisoner Gellert Grindelwald back to Europe, but he was able to escape, ironically with the Elder Wand – containing a Thestral tail hair.