Ilvermorny School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry

The Hidebehinds Of Mount Greylock

Hidebehinds are nocturnal creatures encountered often in the forests surrounding Ilvermorny. They call the Black Forest home but are usually seen wandering around the school grounds at night. No one knows exactly what they look like up close. They prey on humans at night. Powerful and large, though none who have seen it have survived to tell us. *shudders*
They are Dark and dangerous, and one of the earliest Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons for first years is how to deal with Hidebehinds because they are so abundant in the woods. These lessons include how to avoid the creature, which is much preferred over defending against it. However, students are also taught that certain spells, such as Fire Charms, Stunning Spells, Repelling Jinxes, and Pulsing Spells, are most effective. 

Despite the school's Dispelling Torches giving off a scent of alcohol imperceptible to humans but pungent to Hidebehinds, small groups or lone travelers almost always catch glimpses of the creatures while walking the woods in the dark. At least once a year, a student will return from the woods saying they had to fight off a Hidebehind (or multiple). However, these claims are rarely confirmed. Those who do truly encounter Hidebehinds rarely return unscathed, though there are no incidents of a student's death by disembowelment recorded at Ilvermorny.

One ancient Hidebehind hide is hidden in the Wampus common room. The story says that in 1755, a Wampus student named Elijah Boleyn singlehandedly killed a Hidebehind and brought the hide back to the school as proof. He hid it in the common room so he wouldn't receive detention, but once he left the school, the hide resurfaced and is now hung in a place of pride in a room of the common room to remind Wampus students how powerful they can be if they improve themselves. 

In 2005, a Hidebehind kidnapped another student and took her into the Black Forest. She escaped and it invaded Ilvermorny Castle, with the intent of bringing her back, hiding in the Grand Gallery until a trio of Thunderbird students named James and Melissa Evercreetch, with the assistance of Katherine Black Elk, a witch of Comanche and Apache descent, all worked together to kill it and also protect their classmate. But not without help from The Boy Who Lived himself, Harry Potter. This heroic battle pretty much turned the Evercreetch Twins into instant celebrities overnight.

A hidebehind is so narrow that it can conceal itself behind a ten-inch tree. No matter how fast you move, the hidebehind moves faster; you can whirl around to catch a glimpse of it, but it will always be out of sight behind a tree. They are extremely patient stalkers, capable of fasting for seven years before finding suitable prey.

They're flexible enough to match the trees they're hiding behind, which gives them their name. It can turn invisible and change from the height of a tree to the size of a small rock. They can also disappear at will. Human and grebe intestines are the mainstay of a hidebehind's diet. It uses its hooked claws to disembowel unwary loggers, pouncing from its hiding place with a terrifying laugh. Sometimes the hidebehind's peal of laughter is enough to scare prey to death before they are ripped open. Fortunately, hidebehinds loathe the smell of alcohol, and just one bottle of beer is a guarantee of total safety in hidebehind country. Kearney warns that a hidebehind might disembowel a logger before noticing intestinal alcohol, so ideally a good state of inebriation is required.