• Wizarding culture Hallowe’en is a holiday celebrated by both the Muggle and wizarding worlds. It falls on the 31st of October every year. Hogwarts celebrations Hallowe’en at Hogwarts is the occasion of seasonal decorations and an evening feast (PS10, CS8, PA8, GF16). Decorations include a thousand live… Read More
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Posted by and in Essays / What's New
As part of our quest for the possible meanings of ‘hallows,’ Lexicon friend Bandersnatch kindly agreed to assemble some information for us. The result is an excellent essay which gives us some context for the new book’s title. Enjoy: The Grail Hallows and Harry Potter… Read More
• Character Harfang Munter was the second Head of the Durmstrang Institute, succeeding founder Nerida Vulchanova. Munter established the school’s tradition of teaching combat and martial magic – and it’s reputation for the Dark Arts (Pm). Read More
• Character Wizard whose letter was published in The Daily Prophet proposing the creation of a new wizarding holiday (DP1)… Read More
• Event After getting the message about the lesson from Luna Harry arrives at his lesson with Dumbledore – having forgotten to do his homework and get the full memory from Slughorn. They watch two memories. In the first, Riddle visits Hepzibah Smith and sees what will become one of his horcruxes days before… Read More
• Event First, Harry and Dumbledore briefly discuss Mundungus and Draco, and Dumbledore discusses Merope Gaunt with Harry again. Together, they then view a memory of Dumbledore’s, in which he visits Tom Riddle’s childhood orphanage to invite him to Hogwarts. Dumbledore learns Riddle’s history and discovers that he has already been using magic, hates… Read More
• Event On the way to Dumbledore’s office, Harry avoids Professor Trelawney, who has been drinking and is interpreting what a set of playing cards indicate about the future. They view Bob Ogden‘s memory of his first visit to the Gaunt house and discuss the circumstances surrounding Voldemort’s… Read More
• Event They discuss Rufus Scrimgeour and view two memories: in the first, Morfin tells Voldemort about his family just before Voldemort kills the Riddles; in the second (which Slughorn has modified), Voldemort asks Slughorn about horcruxes.  Finally, Dumbledore sets Harry homework – to obtain the rest of Slughorn’s memory. (HBP17) It… Read More
• Character Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the hero of the Wizarding world. He grew up with Muggles, and then came to Hogwarts where he faced dangers and terrors beyond his years. He, along with his friends Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom, destroyed Voldemort’s Horcruxes. Read More
• Source Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play written by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne with the blessing and support of J.K. Rowling (July 2016). In the play, Harry and Ginny’s son Albus goes to Hogwarts and befriends Scorpius Malfoy, Draco’s son. Albus and Scorpius steal a Time-Turner and… Read More
• Source Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and last book in the series. The book was published in the US and the UK on 21 July 2007. Resources: Day by day calendar of events in the book Differences between the British and American versions Changes in the… Read More
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Posted by in Essays
© 2000 First Things 99 (January 2000): 35-38. By now most readers in this country are aware of what has come to be called the Harry Potter phenomenon. It’s hard to be unaware. Any bookstore you might care to enter is strewn with giant stacks of the Harry Potter… Read More
• Event Harry and Ron learn that Ginny has been taken into the Chamber and go to offer their knowledge to Professor Lockhart. When they discover he’s trying to take off (and that the things he claimed to have done in his books were actually done by other people), they instead disarm him… Read More
• Source After arriving back at Hogwarts, Harry chats with Hermione about Ron and Draco Malfoy. He learns that apparition lessons are coming, and finds that both Ron and Ginny Weasley seem disenchanted with their relationships. He then has a lesson with Albus Dumbledore, where… Read More
• Source Hermione finds out about Eileen Prince through research in the library and she thinks Eileen may be connected to the Half-Blood Prince. Professor Dumbledore asks Harry to come to his office immediately. On the way there, Harry runs into Professor Trelawney, learning… Read More
• Potions Brewed by Isolt Sayre on Greylock Mountain in order to save her future husband James Steward and the two Boot brothers back to health (Pm). Read More
• Character Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was scholar and author who wrote on many topics, including the occult. He appears on a Chocolate Frog trading card, which reads “celebrated wizard imprisoned by Muggles for his writing, because they thought his books were evil” (FW, PS6, CF). In September 1991, Ron… Read More
• Titles, nicknames, and honorifics Only the “Heir of Slytherin” could open the Chamber of Secrets and control the Basilisk inside (CS9). Read More
• Character More commonly known as “The Grey Lady,” the Ravenclaw ghost. Harry and Ron first encounter this tall ghost as she glided past in the corridor while out looking for the Mirror of Erised (PS12). Harry eventually discovers that The Grey Lady is Helena, the daughter of Hogwarts founder Rowena… Read More
• Event Helena, the daughter of Hogwarts founder Rowena Ravenclaw, stole her mother’s diadem and ran off to Albania. Her mother became deathly ill soon after and sent Helena’s estranged fiance, a baron, to find her and bring her back (DH31). Read More
• Character Resourceful, principled and brilliant, Hermione Jean Granger is easily the brightest witch of her generation. She, along with Ron Weasley, is one of Harry Potter’s closest friends. She is also Muggle-born (her parents were dentists – PS12), and so is a living, breathing example of the fallacy of pureblood… Read More
• Event Herpo the Foul, who is perhaps the original evil wizard in history, is the first to create a Horcrux successfully. He created only one horcrux; Voldemort was the first to split his soul multiple times. Read More
• Character Hesphaestus Gore was one of the earliest Aurors. He served as the seventh Minister for Magic from 1752 to 1770 and put down the bloody goblin rebellion which started in 1752. He was unsympathetic to the werewolves who had joined the goblins, a stance which many feel caused further attacks… Read More
• Historical events • Hogwarts Over a thousand years ago, the four greatest witches and wizards of the age shared a dream, to create a school where young people of the wizarding world could study and be trained in the magical arts they needed to become skilled, fully-trained wizards. These four great wizards each founded… Read More
• Books and Literature One of the most famous wizarding books, a standard reference published in 1947 by Little Red Books. Read More
• Hogwarts academics Consists of lectures on various aspects of magical history. It is extremely boring, but this is due to the teacher, Professor Binns’, teaching style, not the material itself, which seems to emphasize vicious goblin riots, goblin rebellions, and giant wars. Read More
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Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays
The Wizards’ Council The Wizards’ Council was the predecessor to the Ministry of Magic (FBx). Barberus Bragge was the Chief of the Council in 1269. Burdock Muldoon was Chief of the Wizards’ Council in the fourteenth century (FB, QA). He was followed in office by Elfrida Clagg, who is generally regarded as being more enlightened than her predecessors… Read More
• Art and Culture The Hobgoblins was a wizarding musical group whose lead singer, Stubby Boardman, retired in 1980 after an incident involving a turnip (OP10). Read More
• Creature A hog is a type of wild pig and is the animal for which both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are named. An uncastrated male of this species is often called a boar. Read More
• Schools Hogwarts Castle is a wondrous, magical building with many towers and turrets. It is home to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If Muggles approach the castle, all they will see is a mouldering ruin with a sign warning them to keep out, that it’s unsafe (SN). Hogwarts is built… Read More
• Event Growing distrust on the part of Muggles for wizards and witches compels the four greatest witches and wizards of the age – Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin – to found Hogwarts. Ravenclaw is said to have dreamed of a warty hog leading her to a particular cliff… Read More
• Event As reported in the 1883 Daily Prophet article “Bring Back Our Baskets“, this change by the Department of Magical Games and Sports is made to ensure fairness and consistency (QA6). The change does make the game more fair but was not appreciated by some fans, who relished the… Read More
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Posted by in Website news
A few days ago, Entertainment Weekly posted “A definitive timeline of every Harry Potter Horcrux.” I sure wish they’d research these things better before publishing them. Because they’re a mainstream magazine and because they’ve clearly been given a certain level a special access to the Fantastic Beasts team, fans… Read More
• Wandmaking Used as wand cores by wandmaker James Steward and his wife Isolt Sayre of Ilvermorny Wizarding School for their adopted sons, Chadwick and Webster Boot (Pm). Read More
• Character Hortensia Milliphutt was Minister for Magic from 1841 to 1849. She introduced much more legislation than other Ministers for Magic, but some of it was pointless, such as a proposed law on “hat pointiness,” and she fell out of favor (Pm). Read More
• Magical effects House-elves have a very powerful magic all their own, magic which requires none of the types of focusing tools (wands or words) that Wizard magic requires. Dobby used his magic to enchant a Bludger, to close the magic portal that leads to platform nine-and-three-quarters, to interfere with Owl Post and… Read More
• Character Helga Hufflepuff was the founder of Hufflepuff House and one of the co-founders of Hogwarts, described as one of “the four greatest witches and wizards of the age” (along with the other three founders) (CS9). She was much more accepting than the other founders, advocating for accepting… Read More