- "Miss Brown, please take this box of mice - don't be silly, girl, they won't hurt you - and hand one to each student -"
- — Professor McGonagall instructs Lavender Brown to hand out mice for transfiguration.[src]
A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the rodent family. It was used in Transfiguration class as part of the vanishing curriculum.[1]
On 31 July 1991, when Harry Potter met Rubeus Hagrid at the Hut-on-the-Rock, Hagrid mentioned that the pockets of his jacket might have dormice in them when he offered it to Harry as a blanket. Additionally, when Hagrid bent Vernon Dursley's gun and threw it in the corner of the room, Vernon made a noise that was said to be "like a mouse being trodden on."[2]
Mice were a favorite food of owls and Hedwig regularly brought back dead mice after her initial arrival at 4 Privet Drive.[3]
During the 1991 Christmas feast, Harry Potter opened a Christmas cracker containing several white mice. They quickly scurried off after the cracker was opened, and Harry speculated that they would probably be found and eaten by Mrs. Norris.[4] That same year, Professor Minerva McGonagall had her first year students transfigure mice into snuffboxes for their first year exam. Points were given based on the prettiness of the snuffbox, but deducted if it had whiskers.[5]
At around one o'clock on his birthday, 31 July, 1993, Harry Potter scanned the sky for signs of Hedwig, "perhaps soaring back to him with a dead mouse dangling from her beak, expecting praise." Instead, she arrived along with two other owls and bearing a birthday present from Hermione Granger.[6]
In 1994, Molly Weasley accidentally picked up a trick wand created by Fred and George Weasley and it turned into a rubber mouse.[7]
In 1995, Harry mistakenly wrote on an essay that Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, was covered in mice. Hermione Granger corrected the mistake, suggesting that Harry had accidentally misheard Professor Sinistra, as Europa is actually covered in ice.[8]
Known mice
See also
Appearances
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Mentioned and Ice Mice)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Ice Mice (possibly)[9])
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Ice Mice and Honeydukes Mice Pops)
- Pottermore
Notes and references
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 15 - (The Hogwarts High Inquisitor)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 4 - (The Keeper of the Keys)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 6 - (The Journey from Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 12 - (The Mirror of Erised)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 16 - (Through the Trapdoor)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 1 - (Owl Post)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 6 - (Weasley's Wizard Wheezes)
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 14 - (Percy and Padfoot)
- ↑ As students are seen in Honeydukes, breathing cold air after moving their hand up to the mouth.