If you want to hear the three, by far, scariest
things to have ever existed in the Wizarding
World then stick around to the end of this
video.
Welcome to Creepy Things, a series where I
take a look at some of the scariest moments
in non-horror franchises and analyse what
makes them so frightening.
The Harry Potter franchise has always been
known for having some of the most disturbing
creatures, so let’s start by exploring a
few of those.
This will contain spoilers for the Harry Potter
series.
Not everything I discuss is inherently harmful,
but that doesn’t mean fans won’t find
it creepy.
When it comes to thestrals, I find it perfectly
understandable that people would be put off
by them.
Thestrals are bony, skeletal, horses with
huge bat-wings and reptile like faces with
expressionless eyes.
In addition to their sinister appearance,
they only appear to those that have witnessed
and comprehended death.
In this sense, they exist as a metaphor for
grievance.
Someone who has witnessed death may try to
explain their appearance to another, but it
would be impossible to appreciate how creepy
they are without witnessing death and seeing
them for yourself.
This is also the reason that Harry Potter
and Luna Lovegood are able to bond over the
fact that both can see the thestrals, because
both have suffered and they can understand
each other’s pain.
The thestrals at Hogwarts are well trained
and are responsible for transporting the thestral
drawn carriages around campus.
However, thestrals in the wild can be much
more dangerous -- they are described to have
sharp fangs to seize and slash their pray,
they are extremely intelligent, and, as we
see when Luna goes out to feed the thestrals,
they are carnivorous, and attracted to the
smell of blood.
Trolls.
One of the first creatures encountered in
the series.
They can be about 12 feet tall, weigh over
1 ton, and have immense strength.
The characters encounter a troll set loose
into Hogwarts their first year.
The troll was set loose by Professor Quirrell
in an attempt to create a distraction so that
he could steal the Sorcerer's Stone.
Or Philosopher’s Stone, depending on where
you’re from.
The creepiest part about the troll is the
sound it makes.
*roar*
Trolls aren’t capable of intelligent language,
so their cries are really just expressions
of their hunger for human flesh.
That’s right, these things may not be the
smartest, but they actually eat people, so
you can only imagine how scary it is for a
child as young as 11 years old to have to
take one of these on alone.
This incident also took place on Halloween,
so also not knowing if this was some kind
of cruel first-year prank or an actual attack
is also bound to cause anxiety.
One good thing to come out of it was that
the scary incident may have been what brought
Harry, Ron and Hermione together as friends,
but there would be many more far scarier opponents
in the future.
“Not many first year students could take
on a fully grown mountain troll and live to
tell the tale.”
Cerberus.
A cerberus only ever appears during Harry’s
first year.
The one encountered is a giant three-headed
dog with sharp teeth; very aggressive and
very territorial.
The whole point of having this dog is to scare
students away, as the dog was the guard of
the door leading to the Philosopher’s Stone.
The only thing that’s not scary about this
creature is it’s name: Fluffy.
There are two main factors that make Fluffy
creepy, the first is that the students are
not told that he is there to guard a door
-- only that they are forbidden from entering
the room.
Fluffy falls asleep in the presence of music,
so trying to sneak past him is extremely nerve-wracking,
because it’s hard to say when he might wake
up and attack.
“Does it seem a bit quiet to you?”
“The harp, it’s stopped playing!”
*GROWL*
The Tale of the Three Brothers.
The book is a fairy tale that witches and
wizards apparently tell to their young as
a supposed backstory of the Deathly Hallows,
the most powerful tools in the wizard world.
Why any parent would tell this horrifying
tale to their young children who can’t even
read yet, is completely beyond me, but nonetheless,
Ron claims that learning this tale from a
very young age is commonplace.
The story is about three brothers who cheat
death… yes, the grim reaper, and are each
allowed one wish as prize.
The first gets The Elder Wand, the most powerful
wand in existence.
The second gets a resurrection stone to bring
someone back to life.
And the third brother, the wisest of the three
gets the cloak of invisibility to evade death
in the future.
But that’s not the scary part.
The first brother uses the Elder wand to kill
a wizard he didn’t like, but because he
boasted about the power of the wand, someone
came and slit his throat in the night to steal
it.
The second brother is the most disturbing
though, he uses the resurrection stone to
bring back his dead girlfriend.
She, not belonging in the world and living
appears in a cold sad state, which eventually
drives the brother to kill himself.
Think about the implications of this.
Harry uses the resurrection stone to bring
back himself after he allows Voldemort to
kill him in the forest.
That means it’s possible that if the effects
of taking someone back from death are true,
then Harry will be miserable for his remaining
days, possibly driving his wife and three
kids mad with his condition.
Now that doesn’t look to be the case, based
on his behaviour in the epilogue, but it’s
entirely possible that this will kick in when
his natural lifespan is up, and Ginny’s
final days with Harry will be filled with
misery until Harry seeks his own tragic death.
While we’re on the topic of death, it seems
that death is not always the end in the world
of wizards.
There are many ghosts present in the series,
and most of them are completely friendly and
not really creepy in the slightest.
There are, however, a few exceptions.
*scream*
OK, that one’s not actually a ghost, it’s
a spell set by Mad Eye Moody in order to scare
off Death Eaters from raiding the House of
Black while the order is away.
But there are some creepy ghosts at Hogwarts,
such as Helena Ravenclaw.
In life, Helena was the daughter of Rowena
Ravenclaw, the founder of the Ravenclaw house.
After running away from Hogwarts, Helena’s
mother became extremely ill and sent the Bloody
Baron, who was in love with Helena, to retrieve
her.
Not wanting to go with the Baron, Helena refused,
and in a rage, the Baron killed her, leaving
her bitter and angry at everyone outside of
her own house and earning her the nickname,
The Grey Lady.
In fact, the rest of Hogwarts doesn’t even
believe that Helena’s ghost can speak, because
she’s only been known to talk to Ravenclaws
from time to time.
Her quiet, shy and serene nature makes it
all the more terrifying when you try to confront
her, and witness one of her outbursts.
"I know what he's done.
I know who he is!
He defiled it!
With dark magic!"
The last ghost that I’m going to talk about
is not creepy in a horror sense, but I do
feel that she deserves a mention.
Moaning Myrtle is the ghost of a student who
haunts the second-floor girl’s lavatory
at Hogwarts.
She was the lone student killed in during
the occurences of the 1943 school year in
which the Chamber of Secrets was open the
monster was set free by Tom Riddle.
Myrtle isn’t really a scary ghost per say,
but she is creepy in her own way.
Her reckless emotions and are enough that
nobody ever goes into the bathroom she inhabits,
and she has a strange fascination with death
for someone stuck in the mental state of a
14 year old.
“I was just sitting in the U-Bend thinking
about death.”
Myrtle is more seen as creepy because she
doesn’t really know boundaries, and from
what we can gather, she’s kind of a weird
kid even before death and tends to make the
students uncomfortable.
But Moaning Myrtle is really just trivial
compared to our next moment of horror.
“Tonight.
He who betrayed his friends whose heart rots
with murder shall break free.
Innocent blood shall be spilt, and servant
and master shall be reunited once more.”
Yep, just another day in divinations class
with Professor Trelawney.
But the creepy thing here is not Professor
Trelawney, but rather the array of visions
that happen throughout Voldemort’s rise
to power.
Most of them are visions that appear to Harry
because of his connection with Lord Voldemort.
Imagine how horrifying it must be to know
that at any time you might be yanked out of
the here and now and sucked into a nightmarish
image of the world’s most powerful dark
force, who by the way, wants to kill you.
The visions get more and more creepy as Lord
Voldemort starts to realize that he and Harry
are connected and starts to show him things
on purpose, in order to get into his head.
There is also a pretty scary scene at the
end of Order of the Phoenix, in which Voldemort
takes over Harry’s body entirely in order
to deliver a message to Dumbledore.
“You’ve lost old man.”
"AH!"
One of the things that makes this universe
scary is the fact that powerful creatures
can be found roaming about freely with no
real safe havens.
The muggles have no idea that dangerous magical
creatures could be among them at any time.
There are two example of such creatures made
most prominent in Harry Potter and the Prisoner
of Azkaban, animagus and werewolves.
"Werewolves?"
Both are creatures with human forms and the
ability to transform into beasts.
The main difference, as taught by Professor
Snape when he substitutes teaching Defense
Against the Dark Arts, is that Animagus have
control over their transformations and have
the ability to turn into a wider variety of
animals; whereas werewolves will transform
against their will and will always transform
into a beast similar to a wolf.
Both can be quite creepy in their own ways.
Animagus have control over their actions,
so clever planning can be used to trick an
unsuspecting victim who thinks they are just
dealing with an animal.
It should be mentioned many Animagus are not
evil, but it is also common for criminals
to take advantage of the ability to escape
the law.
Werewolves can be scary for the opposite reason.
Though they may be perfectly good people in
their human forms, when full moon hits, they
lose control and attempt to bite or kill anyone
they can get their paws on.
Werewolves also have one of the scariest forms.
While they do resemble regular wolves, their
long gangly limbs are a transformation from
what we would naturally expect, causing the
werewolves to look like a terrifying cross
between man and wolf.
Combine that with their sharp carnivorous
teeth, empty glowing eyes, and the fact that
they appear at night and you have some of
the most dangerous creatures the world has
to offer.
We do have more creatures to discuss, but
it’s not just creepy monsters that Harry
and his friends have to deal with.
One of the first creepy places that Harry
visits is Knockturn Alley.
Harry accidentally travels there before his
second year when he mispronounces Diagon Alley
and is taken there instead.
Like Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley is a shopping
center, but the shops are dedicated to the
dark arts.
As you can imagine, this draws in an interesting
crowd of characters -- not the crowd you want
to fall in with before you start your second
year of school.
“Come with us.
We’ll help you find your way back.”
But Knockturn Alley isn’t just a mall for
misfit wizards.
When Harry, Ron and Hermione return to Knockturn
Alley before their 6th year, they eavesdrop
on some kind of ritual going on at a store
called Borgin and Burke’s which appears
to be Draco Malfoy’s initiation as a Death
Eater.
Borgin and Burke’s is also the store where
Tom Riddle got his first job after leaving
Hogwarts.
Other notable locations in Knockturn Alley
include a shop that sells materials related
to raising the dead, a shop that sells bones
and a shop that sells shrunken heads.
The Alley is creepy not only because of it’s
morbid nature, but mostly because of the horrible
people it can attract.
The next item is actually a cursed object
that Harry encounters almost immediately upon
arriving at Knockturn Alley.
I’m referring to the Hand of Glory, a severed
human hand skeleton with the power to immobilise
those who catch it’s gaze and unlock doors.
This is because the hand is said to have belong
to an executed master criminal.
It only makes a small cameo appearance in
the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets, but with that in mind,
Harry is lucky to have ever escaped it’s
grasp.
The chilling thing about these objects are
the rumors of how they are created, with many
myths claiming that an executed criminals
blood is used to animate the hand.
Stick around, because after the break, I’ll
be discussing an even more shocking object
that Harry encounters during his time at Hogwarts.
In order to gain more information about Nicolas
Flamel, the creator of the Philosopher's Stone,
Harry sneaks into the restricted section of
the library, where this happens.
*screams of agony*
The impact of the jump scare is multiplied
by the fact that Harry is sneaking around
and we’re thinking more about not getting
caught than something scaring us.
The agonized face to go along with it in the
film adaptation also adds to the effect.
Later on, towards the end of that first year,
Harry and the gang go to retrieve the stone,
and after getting past the aforementioned
Fluffy, find themselves in another trap.
Devil’s Snare.
This is a plant with magical properties.
It wraps around it’s victim and the level
of it’s constriction is determined by panic
level of the victim.
If the victim relaxes, the snare will relax
it’s grip.
They thrive in dark damp environments, making
it the perfect trap for a dungeon.
Devil’s snare prays on the fear of claustrophobia,
with a critical twist.
As fear intensifies, so does the threat, creating
an endless cycle of increasing danger if one
cannot compose themselves while caught in
the snare.
This is easier said than done, since those
who suffer from the anxiety disorder of claustrophobia
often have symptoms including panic attacks
or fear of suffocation.
Hogwarts is a 10th century gothic-style castle
which in many cases can be creepy in its own
right.
But I’d also like to explore some of the
other creepy locations in the series.
The triwizard maze.
During Harry’s fourth year at Hogwarts,
a interscholastic competition known as the
Tri-Wizard tournament is held, and the final
task is to navigate the triwizard maze, an
enormous hedge maze with 20 foot hedges.
Prior to the contestants entering the maze,
Dumbledore offers them a word of caution.
“You see, people change in the maze.
Oh, find the cup if you can, but be very wary:
you could just lose yourselves along the way.”
This fits in with the themes of maturation
that arise after the triwizard tournament.
The students are growing up into adults and
changing to face the harsh realities of the
real world.
However, as in life, the contestants are not
only finding themselves changing, for better
or for worse, but the world around them is
changing as well.
The maze has the ability to reconfigure itself,
and those who are not able to adapt are sucked
into its grasp and defeated.
In this way, the maze combines the fear of
growing up, gerascophobia, with the fear of
getting lost to create a terrifying trial
for the young wizards.
I think we’ve all been creeped out by the
idea something living with within our walls
at one point or another -- and if not -- I’m
sure everyone’s gotten a chill from an abandoned
location at some point.
These are two reasons why I find The Chamber
of Secrets to be the creepiest location in
Hogwarts.
The Chamber of Secrets is an ancient system
of pipes under the school that house the monster
of slytherin, which of course, I’ll touch
back on and analyse later in this video.
The chamber is so well hidden that even the
teachers and staff cannot find it and do not
believe with full certainty that it exists.
The chamber can be accessed by activating
the correct sink tap while speaking the phrase
“open up” in parseltongue.
After navigating a series of caves filled
with skeletons and sewage pipes, they comes
across the door to the inner chamber.
Another line of snake-speak grants access
to an enormous pathway lined with vicious
looking snake head statues and a statue at
the end of an old man’s face, whom I can
only assume is Salazar Slytherin, the founder
of the house and designer of the chamber.
Salazar was prejudiced against mud-bloods,
or wizards with muggle parents, so knowing
the chamber was some kind of lair for… those
kind of people… adds an additional factor
of unsettling atmosphere.
There are so many reasons the chamber of secrets
is scary.
Primarily, snakes.
If you find snakes creepy, this is not the
place for you.
Isolation is another reason.
When Harry and Ron are down there, nobody
knows where they are, so unlike their previous
adventures, no teacher would be able to bail
them out.
The third reason, is anticipation.
The horror of the contents of the chamber
is built up over the course of their second
year, with creepy messages being left and
scary stories circulating.
Finally, the true contents of the chamber
are unknown.
All Harry knows is that it’s rumored, and
probably does contain a monster, so he’s
always on edge during his visit.
If you think The Chamber of Secrets seems
like an unsafe place for school-children,
you won’t even want to begin to explore
The Forbidden Forest.
Also known as the dark forest, this dangerous
sprawling woodland could be the subject of
it’s very own video -- but in order to keep
things brief, let’s just touch on a few
of the things that can be found here.
Keep in mind, this is directly adjacent to
the school.
There’s no fence, there’s no spell keeping
anything in or out, it’s just considered
off-limits.
The forest is home to acromantulas, thestrals,
unicorns, centaurs, werewolves, hippogriffs
and… after the events of year one -- Fluffy,
but during the events of year one, Lord Voldemort.
Did I mention this is right next to the school?
I would never be able to sleep at night knowing
I was this close to such a dangerous location.
But The Forbidden Forest isn’t the only
dangerous location that’s right next to
the school -- stay tuned to hear about the
other one.
The Great Lake is a relatively small freshwater
lake that houses a couple of the creepiest
creatures in Harry Potter lore.
As if if the close proximity to Hogwarts wasn’t
enough, it’s also linked to the school’s
drain system.
The lake contains a couple species of creepy
sea-creatures.
Merpeople.
I know mermaids and horror are not often associated
with each other, but these mermaids are not
your typical hot girl attached to a fishtail,
they are more like extremely scary fish with
a somewhat humanoid form.
Oh, and did I mention they have sharp teeth
and sharper pitchforks?
And they sound like this.
“Wha!
Only one.”
But the merpeople are really the least of
Harry’s concerns during his underwater trial
in the Tri-Wizard tournament.
At the bottom of the lake, lies a great evil
known as Grindylow.
If merpeople are half man, half fish, then
grindylow more like half demon, half octopus,
and the result is terrifying.
They are typically just under 5 feet tall,
making an encounter with one pretty scary
on it’s own, but these creatures dwell at
the bottom of the lake and attack in swarms.
They are described as sickly green creatures
with horns, and yes, they are actually considered
demons.
They mostly survive on eating fish or algae,
but they are known to eat humans from time
to time.
They supposedly have very strong fingers,
with which they strangle their prey.
But perhaps even more haunting, the grindylow
are depicted in folk tales to grab little
children standing near the edge of the lake
and pull them down to drown them before feasting
on their insides.
Horcruxes.
Like the dark forest -- the horcruxes are
a huge topic to cover.
These objects are cursed with a spell that
puts part of the caster inside of the object,
so that he may not be killed unless the object
is destroyed.
Lord Voldemort has seven of them, which is
a lot considering this process can only be
initiated by killing another wizard.
The objects themselves are not what I consider
creepy (besides the snake, that one’s a
straight nope) but the essences of Voldemort
that are released with the destruction of
each one can be pretty off-putting.
"I've seen your heart and it is mine."
Perhaps the most creepy instance of this,
and one of the creepiest images in the series
overall, is the second to last horcrux, Harry
Potter himself.
Harry must allow Voldemort to kill him in
order to kill the bit of Voldemort that resides
inside of him.
Harry is taken to the afterlife, where we
see this fragment of the dark lord that binds
he and Harry together, finally die off.
*breathing*
Professor Snape.
Well, OK.
Professor Snape isn’t actually that creepy
in the end.
But his mannerisms have been known to intimidate
students, earning him a reputation.
“Neville, what frightens you most of all?”
“Pr..fe...ss…
Sn..”
“Sorry?”
“Professor Snape.”
“Professor Snape, yes.”
As time goes on, however, this fear does become
less laughable due to the ever-decreasing
faith the heroes have in Snape’s loyalty
to Dumbledore, the frightening power he displays
and his duty as a triple agent keeping tabs
on the Death Eaters.
Snape’s harsh nature and particular disdain
for Harry Potter may have stemmed from his
past, being bullied by Harry’s father, and
his unrequited love for Harry’s mother.
Lily’s death could help explain his dislike
for light and hopeless demeanor.
“Turn to page 394.”
Did you know?
The Mirror of Erised is named as such because
Erised is the mirror image of the word desire.
Dumbledore tells Harry that the happiest person
would look in the mirror and see nothing but
their own reflection.
The mirror shows the deepest desire of whoever
gazes into it.
Harry spends many nights revisiting the mirror
to see the image of himself with his parents.
Although this sounds like a happy time of
reflection, the mirror may actually be a great
danger to its user.
“This mirror gives us neither knowledge
or truth.
Men have wasted away in front of it.
Even gone mad.”
To me, this is one of the creepiest objects
in the Wizarding World because of these implications.
Monsters are scary, sure.
But the Mirror of Erised reflects more of
a psychological horror.
The mirror presents the user’s greatest
desire regardless of if the desire is an attainable
goal or a fantasy.
The euphoria produced by looking into the
mirror is so strong that it starts to become
addictive.
It dangles an often unattainable goal before
those who look into, and may cause them to
lose track of what’s real, and what’s
fantasy.
Once this happens, the person is as good as
trapped -- trapped in their own mind without
knowledge or desire to get out.
Perhaps the scariest part though, is that
those with the greatest ambition, are most
vulnerable to it.
The next topic is something unlikely to ever
appear to anyone in the mirror.
Acromantula.
These giant spiders grow over 15 feet long,
possess giant pincers, contain extremely toxic
venom, and like all too many of the species
I’ve discussed, love the taste of human
flesh.
As if that wasn’t already enough, these
creatures are intelligent, and we know at
the very least, that colony leaders are capable
of speech.
Their ability to communicate, however, does
not make them any less savage.
“My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid
on my command.
But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it
wanders so willingly into our midst.
Goodbye, friend of Hagrid.”
“Can we panic now?”
Yes, that would be an appropriate time to
panic.
Even given their former leader’s alliance
with Hagrid, the Acromantula attempt to eat
Hagrid right after Aragog’s death and still
take the more powerful side of Voldemort during
the final battle for Hogwarts.
They don’t even make an exception for their
own kind.
When one dies, the colony eats the corpse
until nothing remains.
I can appreciate resourcefulness, but the
very idea of an acromantula funeral sends
shivers.
I can only imagine how Ron Weasley feels about
all of this.
One year after his first encounter with the
colony in the dark forest, his greatest fear
is revealed during Professor Lupin’s defense
against the dark arts class.
*music*
So the Acromantula encounter is sure to be
one of the scariest moments for Ron, but make
sure to keep watching, because up next is
a creature that even they are terrified of.
Earlier on in this video, I mentioned that
the Chamber of Secrets is home to the monster
of Slytherin -- which Harry assumed was Aragog.
What he eventually found upon entering the
chamber was that something even more nightmarish
was within the walls of the castle all along.
The monster is the Basilisk, a massive 50
foot serpent monster with the power to kill
anyone who it makes direct eye contact with
it, or petrify those who make indirect eye
contact.
It’s fangs are so venomous, that they are
one of the only known materials powerful enough
to destroy a horcrux.
The basilisk is intelligent, cunning and like
other serpents, has the ability to speak to
those wizards who understand Parseltongue.
It’s voice, makes your skin crawl.
“Blood.
I smell blood.
Let me rip you.
Let me kill you.
Kill…
Kill.
KILL!”
Salazar Slytherin, who left Hogwarts shortly
after co-founding it due to a disagreement
over the acceptance of mudbloods, created
the chamber deep under the school before departing.
It was so well hidden that teachers began
to accept the idea that it was just a myth.
“Well naturally the school has been searched
many times.
No such chamber has been found.”
When Tom Riddle discovered the chamber as
a Hogwarts student, he was able to the control
the Basilisk, because he was the last remaining
heir of Slytherin.
He turned it against the school, hurting many,
and killing one student, Myrtle Warren, who
would later be known as Moaning Myrtle.
Since it was Riddle who committed this crime,
he was able to create the first horcrux, using
his dairy, which preserved his state at the
time until the next time the Chamber was opened:
Harry Potter’s second year, when Harry Ron
and Hermione decide to investigate.
“And it will be dangerous.
Very dangerous.”
The Basilisk is one of the scariest monsters
in the Wizarding World even without the influence
of a dark lord controlling it.
Snakes are already creepy creatures to begin
with, turning it into a giant 50 foot monster
is no exception.
Tom Riddle’s diary takes control of Ginny
Weasley to write foreboding warning on the
walls across Hogwarts and eventually taking
her prisoner to feed off her life force.
Feeding off an eleven year old’s life force
will always be creepy in my mind.
When Harry and Ron get closer to rescuing
her, the discover the giant molted snake skin.
That’s not a pleasant thought either.
Harry manages to blind the beast, but that
just makes it even more terrifying somehow,
because it uses sound to continue to track
Harry.
But the scariest part in my opinion, is when
Hermione discovers the method by the which
the Basilisk gets around the school.
“Pipes?
It’s using the plumbing?”
What makes this so very unsettling is that
his actually happens in real life.
If you have plumbing in your home, you are
at risk of snakes using that to get into your
house and attack you while you’re using
the bathroom.
This could happen at any time.
When the snake has a deadly magical stare,
that fear is doubled or tripled, which is
why I believe that Harry’s second year had
to be one of the scariest throughout his time
at Hogwarts.
I’ve already made several references to
Voldemort’s followers, the Death Eaters,
a group pure-blood supremacists who have sworn
their allegiance to the dark lord.
Like the Basilisk, it is their similarities
to real world prejudice groups that make them
creepy, along with their familiarity with
the dark arts.
Despite everything that happens in the first
three years of Harry’s time at Hogwarts,
things are relatively under control compared
to the chaos that would later be set at the
Quidditch World Cup in 1994 and everything
that took place after.
The dark pointed robes and torches send a
clear message that this group is back, and
the fact that an entire fanbase of wizards
are scared off or killed by the Death Eaters
is a testament to how feared they actually
are.
In the Voldemort revival ritual, the Death
Eaters take on a cult like form and use dark
magic of which Harry has never seen the likes.
Like many of the real world groups they are
based on, they use fear as a tactic to claim
and retain their power.
One of the most frightening scenes in the
entire series takes place during year 5 at
the Department of Mysteries.
The Death Eaters use their attire, in addition
to a voice modulation spell, to ramp up the
fear of the unknown that exist within all
of us.
“Where’s Sirius?”
“You know you really should learn to tell
the difference.
Between dreams.
And reality.”
We another fear tactic they use is the disruption
of order.
Order gives us comfort and security, so by
creating chaos, the Death Eaters instill fear
in massive amounts of people at one time.
Here’s one moment I found particularly disturbing,
where the Death Eaters create chaos at Bill
Weasley's wedding.
“The ministry has fallen.
The Minister of Magic is dead.
They are coming.
They are coming.”
Of course, it would be impossible to open
a discussion about the Death Eaters without
also mentioning the Dark Lord himself.
Lord Voldemort.
Tom Riddle is a true psychopath even from
an early age.
Flashback scenes to his childhood reveal his
cold, evil persona and his ruthless thirst
for power.
Like his forefather Salazar Slytherin before,
he sets out to purge those who he does not
consider pure-bloods.
His lack of empathy is truly chilling, and
his rise to power is so forceful that most
wizards are too afraid to even mutter his
true name.
If not for his encounter with Lily Potter,
it is possible he may have never been stopped.
But this important night drastically weakened
Voldemort, forcing him to take on a new persona,
hiding the in the shadows, and committing
vile acts to stay alive, like slurping the
cursed blood of the unicorn just for pure
life energy.
*growl*
"AHH!"
The transformation and revival had adverse
effects on Voldemort.
With each atrocity he committed using the
dark arts, he became more serpent-like, losing
his hair, flattening his nose, transforming
his voice and making him somewhat of a human
monster.
With each passing year after his revival,
he becomes more and more powerful, and more
and more disturbing.
It does seem like a lot of his power comes
from fear though.
His reputation becomes so great that many
of his opponents have psychologically already
lost.
The Minister of Magic himself, refuses to
admit that Voldemort is back even when all
the evidence is there because he is in such
great denial.
One of the only factors that eventually lead
to his defeat is the fact Harry starts a movement
to get Hogwarts students to call Voldemort
by his real name.
Without this tide being turned over the course
of Harry’s education, it’s hard to imagine
the Hogwarts students standing any chance
during the final battle.
Voldemort's greatest asset is really fear
itself.
However, there are three more creatures that
I’ve determined to be even more terrifying
than Lord Voldemort, so be sure to keep watching
to find out what makes them so scary.
Before getting the final three, let’s go
over a couple of honorable mentions.
Tom Riddle’s graveyard.
Classic spooky graveyard.
Gotta love it.
The animatronics in the Weasley twins’ shop.
Absolutely nightmare fuel.
Getting possessed by a cursed necklace.
*screaming*
And also this one painting in Prisoner of
Azkaban and then just the fact that Luna Lovegood
keeps raw meat in her purse...?
OK.
Final three.
The creepiest things I’ve found in the Harry
Potter Franchise.
Boggarts.
This shape-shifting species takes the form
of of its opponent’s greatest fear.
That means Boggarts can take the shape of
everything I just mentioned so far in this
video and everything I will mention.
In this regard, they are even scarier than
Lord Voldemort, because if someone has something
they fear more than the Dark Lord, Boggarts
can take that shape as well.
There is really no need to analyse this one.
Whatever your fear is, they will find, and
they will become it.
I also find it kind of eerie that nobody has
actually seen the true form of a Boggart,
because once you’ve seen one, it’s shape
has already been shifted.
Even a Boggart looking in a mirror would theoretically
become its own worst fear.
I suppose someone could plant a camera, but
as far as I know, nobody has.
But I can only imagine that default form is
extremely disturbing.
There are only a couple reasons why boggarts
aren’t the number one scariest thing.
First, you can outnumber them, assuming your
partner doesn’t have the same fear that
you have, only one would be affected.
Second, the size of the boggart is limited
to the size of the room they are in.
And third, assuming that you know that you
are up against the boggart and not the real
thing, you can use a Riddikulus charm to vastly
weaken it.
“Riddikulus!”
We’ve already talked about dark wizards
like the Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort and
there’s only one type of wizard that is
more horrifying than a dark wizard.
A dark wizard that has risen from the dead.
Dark wizards have a spell used to reanimate
the corpses of the dead.
You may recall that there was a shop dedicated
to necromancy in Knockturn Alley.
However, the appearances of the Inferi are
much more alarming than what comes to mind
when I think of a zombie.
Many of them are in a deep state of decay,
revealing bone structures, but also containing
some old traces of skin, hair and flesh.
To explain why we find these and similar morbid
creatures scary, I’ll refer to something
known as the Uncanny Valley theory, an idea
that the human brain is trained to recognize
and process other human faces, but when there
are alterations, we find them disturbing,
because we know that it’s wrong.
The cloudy white eyes also suggest that the
corpse is not cognisant.
Remember when trolls were the scariest thing
Harry had to worry about?
Oh what can change in 6 short years.
I was also going to include Harry’s encounter
the year after with Bathilda Bagshot at Godric’s
Hollow, but upon further investigation, that
doesn’t count, because the corpse wasn’t
animated using a spell, but it’s the same
idea.
[Clip]
At this point, you probably already know the
scariest creature in all of the Wizarding
World.
Let’s give this some context.
When Harry encounters the boggart in Professor
Lupin’s defense against against the dark
art class, his biggest fear isn’t Voldemort,
the man who killed his parents who he’s
been hearing about for the better part of
the last three years now.
No, Harry’s biggest fear is a Dementor,
a creature he only once encountered very recently
and briefly on the train, but had such a terrifying
experience with -- it surpassed even his battle
with the Voldemort controlled Professor Quirrell
and his life-threatening experiences with
the Basilisk or Acromantula.
Unlike every other student in the class, Harry
is not even given the opportunity to face
his fear before Professor Lupin steps in to
save him.
The Dementors are floating black-cloaked wraith-like
creatures.
Their almost featureless faces are not often
seen, and contain only large hole with which
the suck the soul out their victim, an experience
said be worse than death.
The Dementors are first dispatched from their
post guarding Azkaban in order to find and
capture the escapee, Sirius Black.
They surround Hogwarts during Harry, Ron and
Hermione’s third year.
Harry first encounters one on the train, where
for some unknown reason, it attempts to suck
out his soul.
Upon arriving at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore
offers this warning.
“A word of caution.
Dementors are vicious creatures.
They will not distinguish between the one
they hunt and the one who gets in their way…
Therefore I must warn each and every one of
you to give them no reason to harm you.”
But the Dementor appearances become more frequent
throughout the school year.
Their very presence causes the plant life
around them to immediately shrivel and die.
They exude a radius of cold lifelessness,
enough to freeze nearby water that they pass
by.
A Quidditch match nearly ends in disaster
when Harry is once again targeted by several
Dementors while chasing the snitch up in the
clouds during a storm.
There is only one known spell that can repel
them, and it’s very difficult to pull off,
but Harry is able to perform a Patronus charm
to ward off a spiraling swarm of them and
save Sirus at the end of the year.
Harry claims that the Dementors force you
to relive your worst nightmares, in his case,
the final cries of his parents being murdered
by Voldemort.
Up to that point, Harry already considers
the Dementors to be the scariest encounter
of his life -- and that’s while they’re
technically still on his side trying to find
Sirius Black.
But things get even scarier for Harry when
he is ambushed by two Dementors in the muggle
world before his fifth year -- a place where
he is supposed to be relatively safe from
magical beings.
Not long after, the allegiance of the Dementors
was thrown even more into question after a
mass breakout from Azkaban.
It would not be long before Harry’s worst
enemy joined Voldemort and the Death Eaters
in the battle.
I think another reason the Dementors are as
unsettling as they are, besides having the
most sinister appearance of any other species,
is the fact that they serve as guards.
Everyone has broken the rules at some point
as a kid and been punished for it, so everyone
can relate to this fear of getting caught
by these dark authority figures, even if they
know that they haven’t done anything wrong.
When the punisher is 10 foot reaper like creature
who suck the light and happiness out of the
air, sense your fear and feast on your soul…
well there isn’t anything that could conceivably
be worse than that.
It’s scary to think that many believe the
Dementors are too severe a punishment for
prisoners in Azkaban, some of the worst criminals
in the world.
If they can’t handle the torture of a dementor,
it’s hard to believe that anyone could.
One of the most chilling aspects, that once
a Dementor has sucked your soul, you may go
on living as an empty shell… never experiencing
happiness again…
Dementors are Rowling’s manifestation of
a deep, unrecoverable depression....
Unlike Voldemort… they will never go away.
Thank you for sticking to the end of this
video.
Let me know in the comments if there are any
creepy things in the Wizarding World that
I failed to mention, and be sure to give me
your ideas on what non-horror franchise I
could cover in the next episode of creepy
things.
My name is CZ and if you love horror you’re
in the right place.
On this channel I videos on a variety of horror
topics like Things You Missed in horror movies
and Al Dente Creepypasta, where I write and
narrate my own scary stories.
Dumbledore would like to remind you to subscribe
to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring
that deathbell for notifications and I’ll
see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.
