Ashwinder

The Ashwinder is a fiery creature whose appearance in a Hogwarts Christmas pantomime turned a theatrical special effect into a dangerous emergency. Enlarged by Professor Silvanus Kettleburn for the production, it erupted in the Great Hall, setting off a chain of destruction that ended the school’s tradition of pantomimes.

Appearance in the Pantomime

The incident occurred during an adaptation of “The Fountain of Fair Fortune,” proposed by Herbology master Professor Herbert Beery as a Christmas entertainment for staff and students. The young Transfiguration teacher Albus Dumbledore was assigned the special effects, including a working fountain and a miniature grassy hill. Professor Kettleburn supplied the play’s gigantic “Worm,” which was in fact an Ashwinder under an Engorgement Charm.

The Ashwinder laid enormous fiery eggs at the foot of the hill. As the curtain rose, it exploded in hot sparks and dust, filling the Great Hall with smoke and fragments of scenery. Its eggs ignited the floorboards, transforming the staged fantasy into a real fire.

The Performance’s Collapse

The Ashwinder’s eruption was one part of a wider disaster. The student actors playing Amata and Asha had been romantically entangled: the actor playing Sir Luckless had transferred his affections from the actor playing Amata to the actor playing Asha just an hour before the performance. When the fire broke out, the two performers turned on each other in a fierce duel, catching Professor Beery in the crossfire. Staff evacuated the Hall as the flames threatened to engulf it; the play’s seekers after fortune never reached the top of the hill.

The night ended with the hospital wing packed. The Great Hall retained the pungent smell of wood smoke for several months, and Professor Beery’s head took even longer to return to its normal proportions. The incident also prolonged consequences for the adults involved: Professor Kettleburn was taken off probation only after the fiasco.

Consequences and Significance

Headmaster Armando Dippet imposed a blanket ban on future pantomimes, establishing a non-theatrical tradition that Hogwarts continued to observe. The Ashwinder’s brief appearance thus became the material cause of an enduring institutional change: a creature brought onstage for comic spectacle helped make the school’s annual performance impossible to revive.

The accompanying account warns against voluntarily introducing an Ashwinder into a wood-panelled room or placing an Engorgement Charm upon it. In the Great Hall, the combination of enlargement, fiery eggs, and combustible surroundings made the creature’s theatrical use catastrophically unsafe.