• Essay
Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays / Pottermore
Introduction In the book, these cards are collected and traded by students and referred to as Chocolate Frog Cards. However, “real” versions of these cards exist, created by Rowling herself, providing a fascinating look into the vast scope of Wizarding history. After the release of the fourth book, the… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
Where did the name Hogwarts come from? Rowling answered that question in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald: A friend from London recently asked me if I remembered when we first saw Hogwarts. I had no idea what she was talking about until she recalled the day we went… Read More
• Podcast Episode
Posted by and in Canon discussion / Lexicon Podcast / Website news
Steve and Nick finally got a chance to sit down and talk about Cursed Child, some good, some not so good, and found it is very hard to steer away from the Time Travel rabbit hole.  So much stuff to talk about and we debate a few big issues on the story. SPOILER WARNING: Don't listen to this episode if you haven't read Cursed Child yet because we are not holding back on this episode. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Website news
If you’ve come to the Lexicon to research the characters, places, and events in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, you may have to wait a bit. We are creating many new entries and adding information to existing entries, but we aren’t filling in the main characters or events just yet. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Website news / What's New
The Lexicon has been Transfigured! I am beyond excited to finally open the doors and bring all of you into the new, modern Harry Potter Lexicon. This project has been a four-year process, starting with long planning meetings over coffee back in 2012. About two years ago our team designed and… Read More
• Podcast Episode
Posted by and in Canon discussion / Lexicon Podcast
Steve introduces a new series with this episode to coincide with the new version of the Harry Potter Lexicon website, and also introduces a new co-host, Nick Moline. They discuss the new website, for which Nick is the programmer, and then delve into the mysterious Marauder's Map, answering the age-old fan question of why <insert name here> didn't see <insert another name here> on the map? Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
I decided to do a little bit of research and go in-depth into currency in the wizarding world. As we all know, wizard money is made up of gold galleons, silver sickles, and bronze knuts. In the first book, when Harry is getting money out of his vault for the… Read More
• Essay
Posted by in Essays
It could be argued that Andromeda Tonks is only a tertiary character in the Harry Potter novels; she only appears in one scene in the final book. Still, I have always found Andromeda Tonks to be an amazingly interesting character. Perhaps, it is this lack of information that causes me… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
I know it’s a few days past April Fool’s Day, but don’t let that stop you from reading this wonderful piece by Bron Suchecki on the Monetary Metals website. Judging by the comments,  a number of readers of that website for serious investors made it quite far into the article before realizing… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Fandom News / Pottermore
It’s weird how excited I am about this. I mean, I don’t get all worked up about Potter polls or simulated Hogwarts classes or any of that. I’m just get excited about canon, okay? And online sorting hats aren’t canon, even if they’re on Pottermore. Except, ever since I was… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Website news / What's New
It’s almost here. As many of you know, two years ago, Nick Moline and I started working on a complete update and overhaul of the venerable Lexicon website. Our goal was to find a way to bring all the content of the Lexicon into a content management system to allow… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion / Characters / Website news / What's New
We're in the process of creating a whole new Harry Potter Lexicon, as many of you know. There are currently 27 editors working on the project, all fans who are eager to share their knowledge of canon with the fan community. This truly is a fan project, and an international one. We have editors of all ages and from all over the world: Thailand, France, United States, Spain, Argentina, and more. As part of that process, I've been going through the Harry Potter timeline. I originally created this timeline in 2001 after the two schoolbooks came out and when Electronic Arts added a hundred new characters to the Harry Potter universe with dates of when they lived. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Pottermore
The folks over at Pottermore have waved their wands once more and produced a few more beautiful scenes from J.K. Rowling's version of the Potterverse. While we can hardly say that Pottermore is now complete -- they'll need to add a lot more scenes for that to happen -- at least we can be glad that we now have moments that span the entire series of novels. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
Today I received an interesting question in email from Katty Geltmeyer, a great fan friend of the Lexicon: "In PA, Lupin told Harry, Ron, and Hermione that he found out they were in the Shrieking Shack by using the marauders Map. But Harry and Hermione traveled back in time and were lurking around the Willow. How is it possible that Lupin didn't see the extra Harry and Hermione on the map?" Here's my opinion, based on canon. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Pottermore / Rants
I received an email from Pottermore Insider informing me that there are new Bertie Bots Beans scattered through Pottermore. I jumped on that and spent a pleasant three minutes finding them. Three minutes. If that. And it occurred to me at the end of my short search why I find Pottermore delightful and wonderful and, well, a little boring. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Theories / What's New
For many years, fans spent most of their time online trying to figure out the mysteries in the Harry Potter books. In fact, the Lexicon was born out of those discussions back in 1998, when the group Harry Potter for Grown Ups was a hotbed of theorizing and hypothesizing. Back then, there was no Read More
• Article
Posted by in Characters / Pottermore
Pottermore is a gold mine of interesting canon facts. Some of these are brand new but other facts just relate events and characters we've encountered before. Some other facts are clearly included to answer fan questions or explain perceived mistakes in canon. Here are a few particularly fun tidbits of canon information that make connections to elsewhere in canon: Read More
• Article
Posted by in Pottermore
Pottermore has updated their map for summer with things like a few beach chairs by the seaside and some wildflowers. I also noticed, however, that there appears to be a Quintaped on a little island off the coast. Has that always been there? As soon as I noticed it, I automatically clicked on… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Pottermore / Rants
So hey, I'll bet you noticed that Rowling wrote a New Short Story and posted it on Pottermore. It would be hard not to notice, since it's been talked about all over, even in the Muggle news. I rushed online to read it the moment I found out. And it's pretty cool! Good old Rita Skeeter, still at it. (I can't help but wonder if she has come clean to the Ministry about being an unregistered Animagus). But it's not really a story, Read More
• Article
Posted by in Fandom News
The “new short story” … which really isn’t a short story and really doesn’t tell us much that’s new, but whatever. PEOPLE.com is jumping on the media blitz bandwagon and giving their picks for casting the movie version, which you’ll find here: Fantasy Cast J.K. Rowling’s New Story http://bit.ly/1tkqIEJ This… Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
Most of the differences between the US and UK editions are very minor, simply changes to phrasing or terms to make the text easier to understand for American readers. However, a few differences are a little bigger than that. In a couple of cases, one version gives a nugget of canon information that the other misses entirely. Since canon facts are what the Lexicon is all about, we've been tracking these differences over the years. Here are a few interesting ones: Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
Way back in the late 90s, the Harry Potter books came out in Britain first, long before the US editions. In fact, it took a whole year for Philosopher's Stone to be Transfigured into Sorcerer's Stone. During that year, the editors at Scholastic changed a lot more than the title. They replaced a lot of British terms which they assumed would confuse American readers. In some cases, I guess they were probably right. Many Americans would have no idea what a "bobble hat" or a "packet of crisps" was, and in the U.S. a "jumper" Read More
• Article
Posted by in Rants
Quidditch is awesome! Quidditch is exciting! Quidditch is the best sport in the world! Those Bludgers flying around, trying to smash into people! The Keepers hanging from their brooms to block a 10-point shot! The Seeker making a spectacular diving catch of the Golden Snitch and scoring 150 points! Wait, what? The Seeker scores 150 points in one go? Compared to only ten points for a goal? That's crazy. It doesn't make sense. I've read the argument any number of times: the number of points gained from a Snitch capture is WAY too large for the game to be fair. Your Chasers can play their hearts out for hours, scoring Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
In her writing on Pottermore, Rowling has revealed a lot of new information about the wizarding world and the characters in it. Here are a few interesting tidbits: 1 – Hufflepuff has produced fewer Dark Wizards than any other house. 2 – The name ‘Ollivander’ is believed to mean ‘he… Read More
• Article
Posted by in The Films / Theories
Most long-term Lexicon readers will be familiar with the infamous Missing 24 Hours problem. It was a very popular topic of discussion way back in the day. This mystery first came to light in 2001 when I was writing the original Harry Potter timeline (subsequently copied by Warner Bros. and Scholastic, which I consider to be high praise indeed!). Read More
• Article
Posted by in Canon discussion
There's not much information in the canon about witches and wizards in the United States. Rowling mentions a couple of American Quidditch teams in Quidditch Through the Ages, including one in my home state of Texas, as well as the American broom game called Quodpot, and we all remember the cryptic mention of the Salem Witches' Institute in Goblet of Fire. However, buried in a news report from the currently-ongoing Quidditch World Cup in Patagonia was a very interesting little nugget Read More
• Article
Posted by in The Films
Many of us fans like to complain about the Harry Potter films. Oh, we do so lovingly (for the most part), but we still complain. We wish that this or that scene had been included. We can't understand why they changed that particular thing when they could have just as well followed the book. We point out how they completely MISSED THE POINT OF BOOK THREE!!! Deep breath. I'm okay. But there are some moments in the films where they totally nailed it. There are moments where they managed to capture whole swaths of the story in one lovely visual. There are times when the actors just captured the characters so perfectly that we can't imagine the scene any other way, even if we know that it was different in the books. Here are four of examples of what I'm talking about: Read More