• Source We are reminded of Harry’s previous adventures and told of his summer holidays, he receives birthday cards and presents from his friends, and Harry learns what Ron and Hermione did during the summer. Read More
• Source They go back through the tunnel towards the castle, Sirius Black invites Harry to live with him, Remus Lupin becomes a werewolf when the moon comes out and Black transforms into a dog to prevent him from attacking Harry, Ron and Hermione,… Read More
• Source Harry and Hermione safely return to the Hospital Wing, where Professor Snape arrives to blame them for Sirius Black’s escape but cannot prove it. Professor Lupin resigns, returning the invisibility cloak and Marauder’s Map to Harry. Term ends, Harry, Ron and… Read More
• Source Aunt Marge comes to visit and her taunting drives Harry to inflate her. He gathers his belongings and leaves Privet Drive without having his Hogsmeade permission slip signed.  … Read More
• Source Harry tries to decide what to do, the Knight Bus arrives, and he asks to be taken to London. En route Harry learns about Sirius Black. He is met by Cornelius Fudge at Diagon Alley and installed in a room at the Leaky… Read More
• Character Professor Phoebus Penrose’s committee produced a report entitled “A Study into Muggle Suspicions About Magic” (DP1). Professor Penrose contends in that report that Muggles notice much more of what happens in the wizarding community than is generally believed. For example, entries into the Annual International Wizard Gardening Competition’s Contorting Cereals… Read More
• Character Percival Dumbledore was the father of Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana Dumbledore.  When Ariana was attacked by three muggle boys, Percival went after them in “a savage and well-publicized attack.” (DH2)  He was convicted and sent to Azkaban in 1891, where he would later die. (DH2)  Neither Percival… Read More
• Character Aunt Petunia is Lily (Evans) Potter’s older sister, and the wife of Vernon Dursley.  The Dursleys live at number four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. She is a tall, very thin blond with a long neck and an angular face. Estrangement and bitterness Petunia and Lily grew up in… Read More
• Event Dumbledore left a letter on the Dursley’s doorstep with baby Harry. In it he explained that her sister Lily had died, and if she accepted Harry into her home, she would seal the magical bond of blood between them. Her nephew would be safe on Privet Drive until he turned… Read More
• Food and drinks A special dessert made by Harry’s Aunt Petunia Dursley, described as “a masterpiece of a pudding, the mountain of cream and sugared violets” (CS2).  … Read More
• Character Phineas Black was the son of Phineas Nigellus Black, born circa early 1880s. He was removed from the Black Family Tree tapestry which hung in Grimmauld Place for supporting Muggle rights (BFT). Read More
• Spells A spell which causes the target to instantly grow a pig’s tail. Hagrid gave eleven-year-old Dudley Dursley a pig’s tail in the Hut-on-the-Rock (PS4). Read More
• Character Carlotta Pinkstone was an activist famous for campaigning to lift the Statute of Secrecy, revealing the wizarding world to Muggles. She has been imprisoned multiple times for defying the Statute. JKR’s Wizard of the Month for November 2005. Read More
• Character The platform guard at King’s Cross station was a Muggle who was unaware of Hogwarts and unable to give Harry any useful information when he tried to find out how to get to the Hogwarts Express. After the Dursleys leave Harry near the clearly marked Platforms 9 and 10, he… Read More
• Source Essay: Number Four, Privet Drive Rowling discusses the terms ‘privet’ and ‘whinging,’ the number four, and the similarity between the house in the books and her childhood home in Winterbourne. Read More
• Source Essay: Vernon & Petunia Dursley Rowling writes about the backstory of Harry’s aunt and uncle. Read More
• Source Essay: Wizard Clothing Rowling writes about standard Wizarding clothing, which she notes harkens back to another era, and about the laws and other factors which affect how well witches and wizards manage to fit in with Muggle clothing. Read More
• Source Pottermore was a website by J. K. Rowling intended to become the permanent online home for Harry Potter. The site opened for a limited beta release in September of 2011 and for the general public in April of 2012. The website as originally conceived was to… Read More
• Place Though located in Great Hangleton, this ‘dark and dingy’ police station also serves Little Hangleton, and was the place Frank Bryce was taken for questioning after the Riddles were found dead. Frank was later released, of course, when the coroner could find no cause of death for the family members… Read More
• Ministry of Magic A “small, dirty oil painting” of the first Minister for Magic, Ulick Gamp, with his frog-like face and silver wig (HBP1). The portrait hangs in the office of the Muggle Prime Minister at number 10 Downing Street in London, and serves as a liason between the two worlds during… Read More
• Place   Aside from train stations, this funny-looking London icon, now known as the London Telecom Tower, is the only real-life Muggle building specifically mentioned in the books. Harry and Ron probably didn’t have any idea what the building was when they flew over in the flying Ford Anglia (CS5), though… 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
• Character Lily Potter is the mother of Harry Potter, who shared with Harry the most striking aspect of her appearance, her brilliant green, almond-shaped eyes (OP28). Lily was born to a Muggle family and grew up with her sister, Petunia, not far from Spinner’s End in the town of Cokeworth… Read More
• Event There was no way that Hermione and Ron were going to let Harry go Horcrux hunting alone. So they had to prepare. Hermione started to research, as she does, spells and potions that she thought they would need. One of those spells helped her create her purple beaded bag with… Read More
• Source In the spring of 2008, J K Rowling wrote an 800-word short short story to be auctioned off for charity. The story has come to be known as the Harry Potter Prequel, since the story tells of an adventure shared by James Potter and Sirius Black as they… Read More
• Titles, nicknames, and honorifics The head of the executive branch of government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (NSOED). The Prime Minister’s official residence is number ten, Downing Street in London. Read More
• Place Though its location is unknown, this private hospital is where the Dursleys took Dudley to have his tail removed. We do know that the hospital was in London, because this was the excuse Vernon gave for being willing to take Harry to King’s Cross Station to begin his first year… Read More
• Streets, alleys, and lanes Privet Drive is a “perfectly ordinary” Muggle street in Little Whinging, Surrey, lined with boring, boxy houses. It is also, at number four, home to the Dursley family, as well as – for many years, at least – Harry Potter (PS2). A neighboring house is number… Read More
• Source The Dursleys, of 4 Privet Drive, live a perfectly normal life together until one grey Tuesday in November of 1981. On his way to work that day, Vernon Dursley notices a stern-looking cat watching his house. He also sees people in the streets, dressed in cloaks and whispering… Read More
• Source We are given glances at what Harry’s life has been like for the past ten years. The Dursleys celebrate Dudley’s eleventh birthday with a trip to the zoo. The day goes awry when Harry inadvertently performs magic and releases a boa constrictor from its enclosure. Read More
• Source Dudley gets his new uniform and a letter arrives for Harry which Uncle Vernon destroys, prompting a veritable deluge of letters over the next few days. Uncle Vernon then attempts to outrun the delivery of the letters and eventually takes his family to an abandoned hut on… Read More