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Template:Three other uses Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels by English author J. K. Rowling about a boy named Harry Potter. Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States) in 1997, the books have gained immense popularity and commercial success worldwide, spawning films, video games and assorted merchandise. The six books published to date have collectively sold more than 325 million copies and have been translated into more than 63 languages. The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled to be released on 21 July 2007. Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the US alone.

The story is mostly set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, under the leadership of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and focuses on Harry Potter's fight against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who uses the Dark Arts to kill Harry's parents and attempts to take over the wizarding world.

Due to the success of the novels, Rowling has become the richest writer in literary history. English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.

The first four books have been made into very successful motion pictures by Warner Bros.. The fifth, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, began filming in February 2006, and is scheduled for release on 13 July 2007.

Origins and publishing history

Story

Plot summary

The story opens with the unrestrained celebration of a normally-secretive wizarding world which for many years had been terrorised by Lord Voldemort. The previous night, Voldemort had discovered the refuge of the hidden Potter family, and killed Lily and James Potter. However, when he turned his wand against their infant son, Harry, his killing curse rebounded upon him. His body destroyed, Voldemort became a powerless spirit, seeking refuge in the undisturbed places of the world; Harry, meanwhile, was left with a distinctive lightning bolt scar on his forehead, the only physical sign of Voldemort's curse. Harry's mysterious defeat of Voldemort results in him being dubbed "The Boy Who Lived" by the wizarding world.

The following night, a wizard delivers Harry to what will be his residence for many years afterward. The orphaned Harry is subsequently raised by his cruel, non-magical relatives, the Dursleys who, in attempt to rid him of his magical powers, hide his magical heritage and give him severe punishments after several strange occurrences.

However, as his eleventh birthday approaches, Harry has his first contact with the magical world when he receives letters from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which are taken from him by his Aunt and Uncle before he has a chance to read them. On his eleventh birthday he is informed by Hagrid, the gamekeeper of Hogwarts, that he is in fact a wizard and has been invited to attend Hogwarts. Each book chronicles one year in Harry's life, which is mostly spent at Hogwarts, where he learns to use magic and brew potions. Harry also learns to overcome many magical, social, and emotional obstacles as he struggles through his adolescence, Voldemort's rise to power and the Ministry of Magic's consistent denials of Voldemort's threat for a whole year.

For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book.

Universe

The wizarding world in which Harry finds himself is both utterly separate from and yet intimately connected to our own world. While the fantasy world of Narnia functions as an alternate universe and the Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth as a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists alongside ours with many magical elements that are analogous to things in the non-magical world. Many of its institutions and locations are in towns, such as London, that are recognisable in the primary world. It is a fragmented collection of hidden streets, overlooked and ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles that remain utterly invisible to the non-magical population (known as "Muggles"). Wizard ability is inborn, rather than learned, although one must attend schools such as Hogwarts in order to master and control it. Since one is either born a wizard or not, most wizards are unfamiliar with the Muggle world, which appears odder to them than their world to us. Despite this, the magical world and its many fantastic elements are depicted very matter-of-factly. One of the principal themes in the novels is the juxtaposition of the magical and the mundane; the characters in the stories live normal lives with "normal" problems, for all their magical surroundings.

Recurrent elements

Blood purity: Wizards in general tend to view Muggles with a combination of condescension and suspicion; however, for a few, this attitude has evolved into bigotry. These characters tend to class those around them based on the number of magical ancestors they had, with "pure-blood" wizards (those with an entirely-magical bloodline) at the top of the hierarchy, "half-blood" wizards in the middle (those with both wizard and Muggle ancestry), and "Muggle-borns" (those with no magical ancestors) at the very bottom. Supporters of blood purity believe pure-bloods should control the wizarding world, and don't consider Muggle-borns real wizards. Some have even gone so far as to murder them or demand that they shouldn't be taught magic. Most blood-purity-believers are pure-blood themselves, though it should be noted that Voldemort, one of the most radical supporters of blood purity ever known, is himself half-blood. Also, very few, if any, true "pure-blood" families actually exist as many have intermarried into the Muggle-born population to stop from dying out. Many of these families have covered this up, however. One example of this is the removal of certain members on the Black family tree.Template:HP5

Owls: Owls are perhaps the most visible aspect of the Wizarding world. They appear at the start of the first novel, presaging what is to come, and play a very visible role in every novel following. They act as the principal form of communication among wizards (somewhat like carrier pigeons) and also as familiars. Harry has a snowy owl named Hedwig.Template:HP1

Houses: Like many boarding schools, Hogwarts is divided into four separate houses, named after the four Hogwarts founders, and students are sorted into their respective houses at the start of their first year. They are Gryffindor (which favours courage), Ravenclaw, (which favours cleverness), Hufflepuff, (which favours fairness and loyalty) and Slytherin (which favours ambition). Upon arrival, Harry, along with his friend Ron, and Hermione, who would later be their friend, are sorted into Gryffindor.Template:HP1

Quidditch: A spectator sport in the Wizard world, played up in the air on brooms, Quidditch is similar in style to polo and football. Harry is a great player at Hogwarts and has helped Gryffindor win a number of games. Harry is the Seeker for his team whose role is to try and catch the Golden Snitch.Template:HP1 J.K. Rowling has stated that there will be no Quidditch matches in book 7, unlike all the previous books.

Characters

Structure and genre

A large portion of the narrative takes place in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and focuses on Harry Potter's struggles against the dark wizard Lord Voldemort. At the same time, the series explores the themes of friendship, ambition, choice, prejudice, courage, growing up, love, moral responsibility, and the complexities of death and grieving, and are set against the expansive backdrop of a hidden magical world with its own complex history, diverse inhabitants, awe-inspiring creatures, unique culture, and parallel societies.

The novels are very much in the fantasy genre; however, in many respects they are also a Bildungsroman, a novel of education, set in Hogwarts, a British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic. In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life". They are also, in the words of Stephen King, a "shrewd mystery tale"., and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure; the books leave a number of clues hidden in the narrative, while the characters pursue a number of suspects through various exotic locations, leading to a twist ending that often reverses what the characters had been led to believe. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view; with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Goblet of Fire and Philosopher's Stone and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince), the reader learns the secrets of the story when Harry does. The thoughts and plans of other characters, even central ones like Hermione and Ron, are kept hidden until revealed to Harry.

Themes and motifs

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is the theme of death. She says:

My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it.

The series pits good against evil, and love against death. Voldemort is continually seeking to avoid death and uses methods such as his attempted theft of the philosopher's stone and splitting his soul using horcruxes to achieve such an aim. This contrasts with Lily Potter's sacrifice of her life to save Harry from Voldemort. In the end it is her love for Harry which saves him from death, something that Voldemort does not appear to understand. The word 'Voldemort' itself has, amongst other meanings, connotations to death - in French and Catalan, Vol means Flight, de means of, and mort means death, so we can understand "Voldemort" as "The flight of the death". In Latin, mort also means death.

Prejudice and discrimination also feature prominently throughout the series. As Harry's education in the magical world continues he learns that there are wizards and witches who hate Muggles and view them as inferior because of their lack of magical ability. Furthermore, the magical world uses a system of designations, Muggle-born, half-blood, and pure-blood, to indicate a wizard's heritage. The more prejudiced within the magical community take these designations a step further, viewing them as a system of ranking to illustrate a wizard's worth, pure-bloods being the preferred wizards, and Muggle-borns (alternatively known by the slur "Mudblood") as the most despised. In addition to prejudices held for fellow humans, there is also discrimination against non-humans and even part-humans (commonly known by the offensive epithet, "half-breeds").

Another significant recurring theme is that of choice. In Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore makes perhaps his most famous statement on this issue: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." He confronts the issue again in Goblet of Fire, when he tells Cornelius Fudge that what one grows up to be is far more important than what one is born.

As it has been for many characters throughout the series, what Dumbledore termed the "choice between what is right and what is easy" has been a staple of Harry Potter's career at Hogwarts and his choices are among his character's most distinguishing traits from Voldemort's. Both he and Voldemort were orphans raised in difficult environments, in addition to sharing characteristics including, as Dumbledore points out, Voldemort's "own very rare gift, Parseltongue — resourcefulness, determination" and "a certain disregard for rules". However, Harry, unlike Voldemort, has consciously elected to embrace friendship, kindness, and love, where Voldemort knowingly chose to reject them.

While ideas such as love, prejudice, and choice are, as J.K. Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot", the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers. Friendship and loyalty are perhaps the most "organic" of these, with their main conduit being the relationship between Harry, Ron, and Hermione, which allows these motifs to naturally develop as the three age, their relationship matures, and their accumulated experiences at Hogwarts test their trueness to each other. These ordeals become progressively difficult, keeping in line with the series' increasingly darker tone, and the general nature of adolescence. Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction the author has been purposeful in her refusal to ignore her characters' sexualities and leave Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence".

Also recurring throughout Harry Potter are literary motifs, namely Rowling's frequent use of irony, satire, wordplay, and folklore. From the first page onward her writing has displayed an ingenuity in finding the absolutely right name for people, places, things, spells, etc., a strong grasp of irony. From the multilayered sobriquet "Voldemort" through the onomatopoetic "Grawp" (Hagrid's bestial giant half-brother) through the very knowing pun hidden in the killing spell Avada Kedavra, Rowling creates names that usually contain several meanings.

Criticism and praise

Early in its history, Harry Potter received overwhelmingly positive reviews, which helped the series to quickly grow a large readership. Following the 2003 release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix however, the books received strong criticisms from a number of distinguished authors and academics. A. S. Byatt authored a New York Times editorial calling Rowling's universe a “secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip". Byatt went on to analyse the series' widespread appeal and concluded that this "derivative manipulation of past motifs" is for adult readers driven by a desire to regress to their "own childish desires and hopes" and for younger readers, "the powerful working of the fantasy of escape and empowerment, combined with the fact that the stories are comfortable, funny, just frightening enough". The end result being the levelling "of cultural studies, which are as interested in hype and popularity as they are in literary merit". Likewise, author Fay Weldon took issue with the series saying that it was "not what the poets hoped for, but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose". Literary critic Harold Bloom also attacked the literary worth of Potter, saying “Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing." Moreover, Bloom disagreed with the common notion that Harry Potter has been good for literature by encouraging children to read, contending that "Harry Potter will not lead our children on to Kipling's Just So Stories or his Jungle Book. It will not lead them to Thurber's Thirteen Clocks or Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows or Lewis Carroll's Alice."

Charles Taylor of Salon.com took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point — a teeny one — about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art", he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers; Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the resulting psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also pointed out that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most lighthearted of the six published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spurs the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example. Taylor specifically cites "the devastating scene where Harry encounters a mirror that reveals the heart's truest desire and, looking into it, sees himself happy and smiling with the parents he never knew, a vision that lasts only as long as he looks into the glass, and a metaphor for how fleeting our moments of real happiness are", then asks rhetorically if "this is Byatt's idea of reassurance?" Taylor concludes that Rowling's success among children and adults is "because J.K. Rowling is a master of narrative".

Stephen King agreed with Taylor calling the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable", along with declaring "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humour" to be "remarkable". However, he does write that despite the story being "a good one", he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle", the formulaic beginning of each of the six books published to date. King has also joked that "'s never met an adverb she didn't like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."

Yet another vein of criticism comes from some feminist circles, Christine Schoefer prominent among them, who contend that the novels are patriarchal and chauvinistic. According to Schoefer the series presents a world filled with stereotypes and adherence to "the conventional assumption that men do and should run the world." Schoefer cites Harry's courage in dangerous situations in contrast to Hermione's apparent emotional frailty when confronting the same, along with her need for Harry and Ron's approval. Similarly, she contrasts the female Professor McGonagall and her similar frailty under stress compared to the composed and farsighted Dumbledore. In addition to this is the attachment of fraud to females (Professor Trelawney, Professor Umbridge), immaturity (constantly giggling, naïve and catty school girls), and a general lack of daring, bold heroines.

The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative - "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain" and adds that "several of the Whitbread judges agreed with me".

Controversy

Films

Games

• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Due to be released one week before the film.

Awards and honours

J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series have been the recipients of a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001), three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997-1999), two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001), and the WHSmith book of the year (2006), among others. In 2000 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for Best Novel in the Hugo Awards while in 2001 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award. Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997), a shortlisting for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.

In a recent Yahoo article, Barnes&Noble declared that Deathly Hallows has broken its preorder record, with over 500,000 copies preordered through its site.

Commercial success

The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. The books have sold over 325 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been successful in their own right with the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, ranking number four on the list of all-time highest grossing films and the other three Harry Potter films each ranking in the top 20. The films have in turn spawned five video games and have in conjunction with them led to the licensing of over 400 additional Harry Potter products (including an iPod) that have, as of July 2005, made the Harry Potter brand worth an estimated 4 billion dollars and J.K. Rowling a US dollar billionaire, making her, by some reports, richer than Queen Elizabeth II.

The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek, making it the longest work in that language since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.

Cultural impact

Since the publishing of Philosopher's Stone a number of societal trends have been attributed to the series. In 2005, doctors at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford reported that their research of the weekends of Saturday 21 June2003 and Saturday 16 July 2005 (the dates of the two most recent book releases of the series) found that only 36 children needed emergency medical assistance for injuries sustained in accidents, as opposed to other weekends' average of 67. Also, anecdotal evidence suggesting an increase in literacy among children due to Harry Potter was seemingly confirmed in 2006 when the Kids and Family Reading Report (in conjunction with Scholastic) released a survey finding that 51% of Harry Potter readers ages 5-17 said that while they did not read books for fun before they started reading Harry Potter, they now did. The study further reported that according to 65% of children and 76% of parents, they or their children's performance in school improved since they started reading the series.

Notable also is the development of a massive following of fans. So eager were these fans for the latest series release that book stores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been incredibly successful at attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours. Among this large base of fans are a minority of "super-fans", similar to the trekkies of the Star Trek fandom. Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposiums. These events draw people from around the world to attend lectures, discussions and a host of other Potter themed activities.

The Harry Potter books have inspired the "Wizard Rock" movement, where a number of bands were formed whose names, image and song lyrics relate to the Harry Potter world. Examples include Harry and the Potters and The Cruciatus Curse.

Harry Potter has also brought changes in the publishing world, one of the most noted being the reformation of the New York Times Best Seller list. The change came immediately preceding the release of Goblet of Fire in 2000 when publishers complained of the number of slots on the list being held by Harry Potter and other children's books. The Times subsequently created a separate children's list for Harry Potter and other children's literature.

Impact on popular culture

• There are several references to Harry Potter in the animated sitcom The Simpsons, most notably a parody in the The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XII" (part of the Simpsons' Halloween series). In "Trilogy of Error," Ned Flanders reads a book aloud for his children. Ned reads: "And Harry Potter and all of his wizard friends went straight to Hell for practicing witchcraft!" to which his children shout, "Yay!" after Ned throws the book into the fire. Flanders' reactions to, and subsequent burning of the book, is a reference to real-life allegations by the Christian Right that the Harry Potter series promotes witchcraft. J.K. Rowling also voices herself in a cameo appearance in season fifteen episode "The Regina Monologues".

• In the South Park episode 'The Return of the Lord of the Rings to the Two Towers', Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny are shown playing Lord of the Rings when they come across a group of kids playing Harry Potter and decry them as being gay.

• State Line Tack and other sellers of equine goods and novelties have sold t-shirts showing a horse riding a broomstick and wearing a cape, with the words "Hairy Trotter" below the picture.

• In Kirby: Right Back at Ya! (also known as "Kirby of the Stars"), a parody of Rowling is shown as Fumu's (Tiff's) hero, and most of the citizens of Dreamland are entranced with her novel, Pappy Potty and the Fool's Stone.

• In Doctor Who in the recent episode The Shakespeare Code there were multiple references to Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, most notably the use of the spell "Expelliarmus" to banish the witches who were the villains of the episode as well as a comment about the upcoming release of the seventh book.

Future

Template:Future

There are currently three more Harry Potter films yet to be released. The fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, is due to be released in cinemas on July 13, 2007, and the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is due to be released in November 2008.

In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site that "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series." Updates have since followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of July 21 2007.

The book itself had been finished on January 11 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007.”

Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the seventh book was completed some time ago, before writing the third book. According to her, the last word in the book is "scar", but she has since stated that this could change.

In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. She also said she could see the logic in killing off Harry in order to stop other writers from writing books about Harry's life after Hogwarts.

On 28 March, 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.

Regarding the existence of Harry Potter novels beyond the seventh, Rowling has said that she might write an eighth book some day, but it will not continue the life of Harry and his friends. If she does, she intends it to be a sort of encyclopedia of the wizarding world, containing concepts and snippets of information that were not relevant enough to the novels' plots to be included in them. Any future Harry Potter books, she said, would also be written for the UK charity Comic Relief, just as Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them were. She also stated that she would like to write adult mystery novels after she is done with the last Harry Potter book. She has also said that she will not write any sort of prequel to the novels, since by the time the series ends all the necessary back story will have been revealed.

Series

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (June 26 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (July 2 1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (July 8 1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (July 8 2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (June 21 2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 16, 2005)
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scheduled for July 21, 2007)

Supplementary books

• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001)
• Quidditch Through the Ages (2001)

Dates in Harry Potter

Harry Potter Fans have created a timeline for the Harry Potter series, based on three shreds of information provided by author J. K. Rowling.

In chapter 8 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, during the Halloween celebration in Harry's second year at Hogwarts, Nearly Headless Nick also celebrates with a "500th deathday party". At the party, there is a grey cake in the shape of a tombstone that includes black lettering, stating his death date as 31 October, 1492. Meanwhile in chapter 7 of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, during dinner after the sorting ceremony in Harry's first year, Sir Nick states that he hasn't "eaten for nearly four hundred years". This would mathematically place the time of Harry's sorting event at ca. 1891. It is assumed that this was a simple mathematical error or oversight on the part of Rowling, or a mis-statement on the part of Sir Nicholas, and that he meant "nearly five hundred years" from 1492, or "nearly four hundred years" from 1592. This would place Harry's sorting ceremony at 1991, and Harry's birth year in 1980, since Hogwarts students must be eleven years old to start their first year. The deathday party celebration, commemorating the five-hundredth anniversary of Nick's death, must then take place on 31 October, 1992.

This timeline anchor was later confirmed by Rowling when, in early 2006, Rowling donated a hand-drawn copy of the Black family tree to a charity auction for Book Aid International . That document included the birth year of one of Harry's classmates, Draco Malfoy, as 1980. Since Draco would have begun attending Hogwarts when he was eleven years old, that places his (and Harry's) sorting ceremony on 1 September, 1991.

The Black family tree was similar to one described as a tapestry hanging on a wall at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, in Order of the Phoenix. A number of disowned Black family members had their names and birthdates burned off, so that their details were obscured. There is no direct confirmation of the birth year for Sirius Black, which would anchor him and his classmates, including James Potter, Lily Evans, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and Severus Snape. However, his older cousin Bellatrix Lestrange was shown as born in 1951, and it is mentioned by Sirius that at some point he and Bellatrix were both at Hogwarts at the same time. This implies to a final school year for Bellatrix of 1969-1970, with Sirius and his classmates starting school at least in their first year by this date.

There are three other references commonly used to date the Hogwarts class which included Sirius, James and Lily Potter, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Dating is complicated by the fact that for each school year, the actual birthday may fall in one of two years, depending on the precise day and month; the specific month and day for many characters are not known.

• J. K. Rowling stated in an interview after the publication of Goblet of Fire that Snape was "35 or 36 years old", at the time of the events in the book, which was set in the 1994-1995 school year. . This gives a range of possible birth years for Snape in the 1958 - 1960 time frame. Rowling also posted Snape's birthday as 9 January on her official website "desk calendar" on that day in 2006, but did not provide an age or birth year. Snape's first year at Hogwarts as an eleven-year-old would have been in the 1969 to 1971 time frame.
• J. K. Rowling also posted some biographical information about Sirius Black on her website. She states he was 'around 22' when first imprisoned in Azkaban, following the deaths of a number of Muggles on 1 November 1981. . With a 1-year allowance either way for "around", this gives Sirius Black a birth year in the 1958 - 1960 time frame as well, matching Snape's. Black and his classmates would then also have begun attending school at Hogwarts as eleven-year-olds during the 1969 to 1971 time frame.
• Harry observed a scene in Albus Dumbledore's Pensieve, as related in Order of the Phoenix, where his father James Potter and Severus Snape were sitting their O.W.L. exams at the end of their fifth year. The scene was described by Dumbledore as occurring "more than 20 years ago". That book was set in the 1995-1996 school year during Harry's fifth year. This meant the exams took place in the school year 1975-1976 or earlier, giving a birth year for Snape of 1960 or earlier, and his and his classmates' initial attendance at Hogwarts in the year 1971 or earlier.

Contradictions

There are numerous contradictions in the timeline, Rowling herself has admitted having difficulty with managing mathematics in the FAQ section of her website, so perhaps perfect internal consistency is not to be expected.

Despite the problems, this generally accepted timeline is used by fans for cross-referencing, and the DVD editions of Warner Bros.'s film versions of the Harry Potter series include references to timelines and dates that correspond to this dating system, such as Harry's birthday being established as July 31 1980; and Lord Voldemort's first attempted attack on the infant Harry being 31 October, 1981.

Days of the week

Often when dates are given, they are given with a day of the week that does not match with the date as it is in actual history. Just one such example occurs in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Sybill Trelawney refers to October 16 as Friday, despite October 16, 1993 being a Saturday. This is usually explained on the grounds of it being simply poetic licence on the author's part.

There are also contradictions within the books themselves in this area. For example, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, both 1 September and 2 September are given as Mondays, and in all the books, school begins on 1 September without taking into account the change of the day. However it could be possible that students are expected to be back at the school on September the 1st and then start school the next week day. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Buckbeak's trial is set on 20 April, but careful parsing of the text reveals that it could have happened no later than February. Also, since Hagrid was supposedly made gamekeeper after he was expelled 50 years ago from the time of Chamber of Secrets, that would make Mrs Weasley and Mr Weasley more than 50 years old (probably around 65 years old, adding in their ages before that, although given the relatively advanced ages of Dumbledore/McGonagall etc., it is possible that Wizards age slightly slower than Muggles), because Mrs Weasley mentioned Ogg, the gamekeeper before Hagrid (though it is not specifically stated that Hagrid became gamekeeper immediately upon his expulsion , and he would have required training before taking the job, possibly just being an assistant for a while, as Harry thought he might be to Hagrid while thinking he was going to be expelled after flying in his first year).

Historical problems

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Cornelius Fudge uses a male pronoun to refer to the "predecessor" of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. According to the above timeline, this should occur in the summer of 1996, when the Prime Minister was John Major, whose immediate predecessor was a female - Margaret Thatcher. (See the List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom for details).

It is possible that Fudge could be referring to a more distant predecessor, but it's unlikely as Thatcher took office before Fudge supposedly became Minister of Magic. (Although one could imagine a scenario in which Fudge, while in an inferior office, was delegated by the Minister of Magic to meet with the Prime Minister). Additionally, the personality and history of the Prime Minister portrayed appears to more closely match that of Tony Blair than of John Major. An article in the Daily Mail notes that Rowling is close to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (often viewed as a rival to Blair's leadership of the Labour Party), and that she might have been attempting to show Blair's worst side. The rebuttal for this is that the books are fictional and the Prime Ministers themselves are fictional characters, and are not to be interpreted as the actual Prime ministers. Another related problem is that the Muggle Prime Minister is described as having been elected, and (initially) John Major's premiership was not voted on by the public. However, technically he can be said to have been elected Conservative Party leader on November 27, 1990, and in any case, his Conservative Party was elected into government in 1992. Rowling has stated on her website that she considered using a similar scene to this in three of her previous books, including as possible introduction to Philosopher's Stone .

A similar problem involves Nicolas Flamel. Flamel was mentioned as being 665 at the time of the first book, but Nicolas Flamel was a real historical figure and wouldn't have reached that age until 1996. The rebuttal for this is that the date the "real" Nicolas Flamel was born does not correspond with the Nicolas Flamel of Harry Potter. Also, it may simply mark a shift in Rowling's chronology; 1996 was the year in which Rowling was drafting the first book, and it may be that she initially intended the stories to take place in the present time. More problematic is the fact that Flamel's age is read by Hermione in a 'very old book', which means that unless magical books update such figures, it is years out of date, with Flamel's age likewise affected (i.e. if he was 665 when a 'very old book' was published, he could, by 1992, have been years older).

There is at least one slight anachronism in the books. This occurs in a letter that Harry writes in Goblet of Fire, containing a reference to Dudley Dursley owning and destroying a Sony PlayStation. According to the standard timeline, this would have happened in the summer of 1994, but the PlayStation was not released until December 1994 in Japan, or September 1995 in Europe.

See also

• Harry Potter fandom
• Wizarding world
• Chronology of the Harry Potter stories
• Works analogous to Harry Potter
• Harry Potter parodies
• Harry Potter in translation
• List of Harry Potter films cast members
• Harry Potter fan fiction
• Magical objects in Harry Potter

References

1. Dearbáil Jordan (2007). "Time comes for Harry to fly to the rescue". Times UK. Retrieved 2007-04-07.
2. "Global Potter sales top 300m mark". BBC. 2005-10-04. Retrieved 2007-03-10.
3. "Final 'Potter' launch on July 21". CNN. 2007-02-01. Retrieved 2007-02-12.
4. McLaren, Elsa (2007-03-15). "Harry Potter's final adventure to get record print run". The Times. Retrieved 2007-03-27.
5. Watson, Julie and Kellner, Tomas. "J.K. Rowling And The Billion-Dollar Empire". Forbes.com, 26 February 2004. Accessed 19 March 2006.
6. "Confirmed: 'Phoenix' flies on July 13, 2007". HPANA. 2006-04-05. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
7. Accio Quote: Luna commentated last Quidditch match
8. "J. K. Rowling" by Leslie Ellen Jones, NoveList/EBSCO Publishing, 2003, retrieved September 9, 2005
9. ^ ""Wild About Harry"". New York Times. July 23, 2000.
10. "'There would be so much to tell her...'". Retrieved 2007-04-04.
11. ^ Rowling, J.K. (1999). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (US Hardback). p. 333.
12. Rowling, J.K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (US Hardback). p. 708.
13. "Mzimba, Lizo, moderator. Interview with Steve Kloves and J.K. Rowling". Quick Quotes Quill. February 2003.
14. "About the Books: transcript of J.K. Rowling's live interview on Scholastic.com". Scholastic.com. 16 October 2000.
15. "Harry Potter and the Childish Adult". New York Times. July 7, 2003.
16. "Rowling books 'for people with stunted imaginations'". The Guardian. July 11, 2003.
17. Bloom, Harold. "Dumbing down American readers". Boston.com. Retrieved 2006-06-20.
18. "A. S. Byatt and the goblet of bile". Salon.com. July 8, 2003.
19. Fox, Killian (2006-31-12). "HJK Rowling:The mistress of all she surveys". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved 2007-02-10. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
20. Schoeffer, Christine. "Harry Potter's girl trouble". Salon.com. Retrieved 2006-06-20.
21. "Why Harry Potter doesn't cast a spell over me". The Observer. June 25, 2000.
22. "Developers showcase future games". BBC. 2007-03-19. Retrieved 2007-04-11.
23. Arthur, Levine. "Awards". Arthur A. Levine Books. Retrieved 2006-05-21.
24. "Potter book sales top 325 million". USA Today. February 4th, 2007. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
25. "J.K. Rowling Richer than the Queen". BBC. April 27, 2003.
26. "Harry Potter Brand Wizard". Business Week. July 21, 2005.
27. HP in Ancient Greek. Accessed 25 November 2006.
28. Greek Harry Accessed 25 November 2006.
29. "Reading 'cuts childhood injuries'". BBC News. 23 December 2005.
30. "New Study Finds That the Harry Potter Series Has a Positive Impact on Kids' Reading and Their School Work". Scholastic. 2006-25-07. Retrieved 2007-02-10. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
31. "Harry Potter casts spell at checkouts". Times Online. July 18, 2005.
32. "Potter book smashes sales records". BBC. July 18, 2005.
33. "Why 'Harry Potter' did a Harry Houdini". CNN. July 21, 2000.
35. "Order of the Phoenix film due out on November 13, 2007". MuggleNet. March 1, 2006.
36. "Confirmed: HBP movie release date". MuggleNet. 2006-08-04. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
37. "Potter author signs off in style". British Broadcasting Corporation. 2007-02-02.
38. ""Talking With JK Rowling"". Book Links. July 1999.
39. "JKR On Richard & Judy – Transcript". Mugglenet.com. Retrieved 2006-06-29.
40. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Cover Art". Retrieved 2007-04-02.
41. ""The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet interview Joanne Kathleen Rowling: Part One"". Quick Quotes Quill. July 16, 2005.
42. "Edinburgh Book Festival". JK Rowling.com. August 15, 2004.

Further reading

• Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747532699.
• Rowling, J. K. (1998). Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747538492.
• Rowling, J. K. (1999). Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747542155.
• Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Bloomsbury. ISBN 074754624X.
• Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747551006.
• Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747581088.
• Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury. ISBN 1551929767.

External links

Official sites

• J.K. Rowling's personal website
• Official Harry Potter movies website (Warner Bros.)
• Harry Potter on Bloomsbury.com (International publisher)
• Harry Potter on Scholastic.com (US publisher)
• Harry Potter on Raincoast.com (Canadian publisher)

Other resources

• Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter
• The Harry Potter Wiki
• Summaries of all Harry Potter books
• The Leaky Cauldron
• Mugglenet

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• Harry Potter
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