BOOK CLUB, THE HARRY POTTER SERIES BY J. K. ROWLING.
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Tuesdays
is book blog day were we talk about a book or books and pretty much
run with it. Today's blog is on the beloved book/movie series Harry
Potter by J. K. Rowling.
The
central character in the series is Harry
Potter,
a boy who lives in the fictional town of Little Whinging, Surrey
with
his aunt, uncle, and cousin – the Dursleys
–
and discovers, at the age of eleven that he is a wizard,
though he lives in the ordinary world of non-magical people known as
Muggles.
The
wizarding world exists parallel to the Muggle world, albeit hidden
and in secrecy. His magical ability is inborn, and children with such
abilities are invited to attend exclusive magic schools that teach
the necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding
world.[9]
Harry
becomes a student at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
a wizarding academy in Scotland, and it is here where most of the
events in the series take place. As Harry develops through his
adolescence, he learns to overcome the problems that face him:
magical, social, and emotional, including ordinary teenage challenges
such as friendships, infatuation, romantic relationships, schoolwork
and exams, anxiety, depression, stress, and the greater test of
preparing himself for the confrontation that lies ahead in wizarding
Britain's increasingly-violent second wizarding war.[10]
Each
novel chronicles one year in Harry's life
during
the period from 1991 to 1998.
The
books also contain many flashbacks,
which are frequently experienced by Harry viewing the memories of
other characters in a device called a Pensieve.
The
environment Rowling created is intimately connected to reality. The
British magical community of the Harry Potter books is inspired by
1990s British culture, European folklore, classical mythology and
alchemy,
incorporating objects and wildlife such as magic
wands,
magic plants, potions, spells, flying broomsticks,
centaurs
and
other magical creatures, and the Philosopher's
Stone,
beside others invented by Rowling. While the fantasy
land of
Narnia
is
an alternate
universe and
the Lord
of the Rings'
Middle-earth
a
mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists parallel to
the real world and contains magical versions of the ordinary elements
of everyday life, with the action mostly set in Scotland (Hogwarts),
the West Country, Devon, London, and Surrey in south east England.
The
world only accessible to wizards and magical beings comprises a
fragmented collection of overlooked hidden streets, ancient pubs,
lonely country manors, and secluded castles invisible to the Muggle
population.
- Harry
Potter Wiki.
Harry
potter came into my life at a time where I was in the beginnings of a
mental bad place as such it delayed the chaos I was going through but
helped me out in the long run. I must have been thirteen, fourteen
when I came across it although I was vaguely aware of the first
two/three books by that point. I give The Harry Potter Series a 10/10
as a whole.
THE
PHILOSOPHERS STONE
Harry
Potter has been living an ordinary life, constantly abused by his
surly and cold aunt and uncle, Vernon
and Petunia Dursley and
bullied by their spoiled son Dudley since the death of his parents
ten years prior. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday
when he receives a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,
delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus
Hagrid after
previous letters had been destroyed by Harry's Uncle Vernon and his
Aunt Petunia. Hagrid explains Harry's hidden past as the wizard son
of James
and
Lily
Potter,
who were a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered
by the most evil and powerful dark wizard of all time, Lord
Voldemort,
which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his
aunt and uncle. Voldemort was not only unable to kill Harry, but his
powers were also destroyed in the process, forcing him into exile and
sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community.
Hagrid
introduces Harry to the wizarding
world,
bringing him to places such as Diagon
Alley,
a hidden street in London where Harry uncovers a fortune left to him
by his parents at Gringotts
Wizarding Bank,
gets his owl Hedwig, various school supplies, and his wand. There, he
is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and
wizards. A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the
Hogwarts
Express from
King's
Cross railway station's
secret Hogwarts platform, Platform
9
Arriving
at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting
Hat to
Houses
that
best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor,
Slytherin,
Hufflepuff
and
Ravenclaw.
Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known
to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to
being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has
potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor with
Ron and Hermione, while Draco is sorted into Slytherin like his
family before him.
As
classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers his innate talent for
flying on broomsticks despite no prior experience, and is recruited
into his House's team for Quidditch (a competitive wizards' sport
sharing similarities to football,
but played on flying
broomsticks) as
a Seeker. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master,
Severus
Snape,
who is also the Head of Slytherin House who acts with bias in favour
of members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities
to fail Harry and his friends. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into a
duel in the trophy room to get them out of their rooms at night and
secretly tells Filch, the school's caretaker, where they will be.
Hermione unintentionally is forced to come along after her failed
attempts to stop them, and they find Gryffindor student Neville
asleep outside the common area because he had forgotten the password
to get in. After realizing the duel was a set-up to get them in
trouble, they run away. They then discover a huge three-headed dog
standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. The school's
Halloween
celebrations
are interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which
enters the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. However, she is saved
by Harry and Ron and, as a result, Hermione is grateful and the three
become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well
as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to
suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor.
Hermione
forbids the boys from investigating for fear of expulsion, and
instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch
game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to
throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape is jinxing
Harry's broom due to his strange behaviour during the match. After
the excitement of winning the match has died down, Christmas
approaches and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous
source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the
cloak to explore the school at night to investigate what is under the
trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees
his or her deepest desires come true.
A
visit to Hagrid's hut at the foot of the school leads the trio to
find a newspaper report stating there had been an attempted robbery
of a Gringotts vault—the same vault that Hagrid and Harry had
visited when the latter was getting his school supplies. A further
indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept
under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's
Stone,
which grants its user immortality
as
well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold.
Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze
in
the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by
none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be
restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's
headmaster Albus
Dumbledore is
lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron
fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor
themselves.
They
encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills
possessed by one of the three, one of which requires Ron to sacrifice
himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess.
In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the
Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals he had been the
one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his
broom and then letting a troll into the school, while Snape had been
trying to protect Harry instead. Quirrell is helping Voldemort, whose
face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head but is constantly
concealed by his oversized turban, to attain the Philosopher's Stone
so as to restore his body. Quirrell uses Harry to get past the final
obstacle, the Mirror of Erised, by forcing him to stand before the
Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and
surreptitiously deposits it into his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to
seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the
boy's skin and breaks into blisters. Harry's scar suddenly burns with
pain and he passes out.
Three
days later, he awakens in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore
explains his survival against Voldemort is due to his mother's
sacrificing her life in order for him to live. This left a powerful
protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, which caused
Quirrell's hands to burn on contact with Harry due to him being
possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who
sent Harry his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been
left to die by Voldemort, who still lives, and the Stone has now been
destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during
which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive
for the summer, neglecting to tell the Dursleys that the use of
spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus
anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays.
-
The Philosophers stone wiki
TPS
was published on the 26th
of June 1997 by Bloomsbury in the UK then on the 1st
of September 1998 by Scholastic in the US.
THE
CHAMBER OF SECRETS
On
Harry
Potter's
twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt
Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential
client of Vernon's drill-manufacturing company. Harry is not invited,
but is content to spend the evening quietly in his bedroom, although
he is confused why his school friends have not sent cards or
presents. However, while in his room, a house-elf named Dobby warns
him not to return to Hogwarts and admits to intercepting Harry's post
from his friends. Having failed to persuade Harry to voluntarily give
up his place at Hogwarts, Dobby then attempts to get him expelled by
using magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor and
framing it on Harry, who is not allowed to use magic out of school.
Uncle Vernon's business deal falls through, but Harry is given a
second chance from the Ministry of Magic, and allowed to return at
the start of the school year.
In
the meantime, Uncle Vernon punishes Harry, fitting locks to his
bedroom door and bars to the windows. However, Ron Weasley arrives
with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s
enchanted Ford
Anglia.
They rescue Harry, who stays at the Weasley's family home, the
Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other
Weasleys—mother Molly, third eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny
(who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They are then
reunited with Hermione Granger and introduced to Lucius Malfoy,
father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a
conceited autobiographer who has been appointed Defence Against the
Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. When Harry
and Ron approach Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross station, it refuses
to allow them to pass. They decide to fly Arthur’s car to Hogwarts,
where they crash into a sentient willow tree on the grounds.
In
trouble for the crash, Ron is punished by having to clean the school
trophies and Harry by helping the celebrity teacher Professor
Lockhart, whose classes are chaotic, with addressing his fan mail.
Harry learns of some wizards' prejudice about blood status in terms
of “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those with Muggle
(non-magical) parentage. He is alone in hearing an unnerving voice
seemingly coming from the walls of the school itself. During a
deathday party for Gryffindor House's ghost Nearly Headless Nick, he,
Ron, and Hermione run into the school caretaker Argus Filch’s
petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, along with a warning scrawled across one
of the walls: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of
the heir, beware.”
Rumours
fly around the school regarding the Chamber of Secrets' history.
Harry and his friends discover from Cuthbert Binns, the ghostly
professor of History of Magic, that it houses a terrible monster and
was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar
Slytherin,
after a fundamental disagreement with the other founders (Godric
Gryffindor,
Helga
Hufflepuff,
and Rowena
Ravenclaw).
Slytherin believed that students of non-magical parentage should be
refused entry to the school. During a Quidditch game, a Bludger, one
of the balls involved in Quidditch, chases after Harry instead of
zigzagging toward any player it can hit, breaking his arm. In an
attempt to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes all of the bones
from Harry's broken arm, which then requires Skele-Gro and an
overnight stay in the hospital wing to heal. Dobby returns in the
middle of the night to visit Harry in the hospital wing, revealing
that it was he who charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at
King’s Cross, and that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened
before. Another attack occurs, this time to a first-year Gryffindor
named Colin Creevey who idolises Harry, and the school goes into a
state of panic. A duelling class is then set up for the students (led
by Lockhart and Potions master/Head of Slytherin House Severus
Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth',
meaning he has the rare gift to speak to snakes.
This
sparks rumours yet again, as students around the school suspect Harry
of being the Heir of Slytherin (as Slytherin was also a parselmouth).
Circumstantial evidence to support this theory arrives in the form of
another attack, this time on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch
Fletchley and the Gryffindor ghost. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to
suspect that Draco is behind the attacks, given his family history of
remaining well within Slytherin ranks and open hostility toward
Muggle-born students. After talking about their speculations,
Hermione concocts Polyjuice potion, which allows them to become
Draco’s boorish lackeys, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, for an
hour to interrogate him. This comes to nothing, as Draco’s father
only told his son the general facts of the previous opening of the
Chamber and that it occurred fifty years previously. Meanwhile,
Myrtle Warren, an existentially mopey ghost that haunts a bathroom,
unwittingly provides a new clue in the form of a book deposited in
her stall—a diary. The trio discover the diary belonged to Tom
Riddle, a student who knows all too well about the Chamber, having
been witness to a fellow student’s death fifty years ago. The
culprit, Riddle reveals to Harry, was none other than Rubeus Hagrid,
now gamekeeper for Hogwarts School. When Hermione is attacked next,
alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and
Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave the premises.
Fortunately
for Harry and Ron, Hagrid left a set of instructions: to follow the
spiders currently fleeing into the Forbidden Forest. They do this,
only to find the monster that was blamed for the attacks fifty years
before, a massive spider named Aragog, who explains to the duo that
the real monster is one that spiders fear above all others. When
Harry and Ron try to leave, Aragog says they cannot leave because his
sons and daughters have not eaten for a long time and plan to eat the
boys. Before the spiders can grab them, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives
and the boys use the car to escape the forest. Hermione provides the
last set of clues that inform them of the monster’s identity: It is
a basilisk,
(hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare
(although no one is dead because of various devices through which
they indirectly saw the monster) and which spiders (such as Aragog
and his offspring) fear above all others. Harry figures out from
hints Aragog dropped that a student who died during the previous
attacks is Myrtle, and when Ginny is taken by the monster into the
Chamber, they discover that the entrance is in the bathroom they have
been using to make Polyjuice Potion. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter
the Chamber, but the dunderheaded professor (who reveals that he is a
fraud) causes a rockfall while attempting to erase the boys’
memories with Ron’s damaged wand but permanently loses his memory.
Separated
from Ron, Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find an
unconscious Ginny and Tom Riddle who claims
to be a memory preserved in his diary for
the last fifty years. Tom Riddle shows Harry that his full name, Tom
Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram
"I
am Lord Voldemort." Tom Riddle is in fact Voldemort's true name
and it was he who opened the Chamber fifty years before, and framed
Hagrid as Riddle is the true Heir of Slytherin. By possessing Ginny
through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started fifty
years before. Harry's loyalty to Dumbledore in the face of Riddle
summons Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting
Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to remove the Sword
of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature.
Though fatally poisoned by the basilisk, Fawkes' healing tears save
Harry who uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary
and Riddle are destroyed and Ginny is restored.
Harry,
Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with
McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny, whose
possession by Voldemort caused all of the petrification and troubles
over the course of the year, is given a reprieve by Dumbledore. He
reasons that greater wizards have been duped by Voldemort before, and
takes great interest in the qualities of the diary, which Harry gives
to him. Lucius Malfoy bursts in after this meeting, demanding to know
why and how Dumbledore has returned to the school. He is accompanied
by Dobby, revealing that he is enslaved to the Malfoys. The house-elf
also provides Harry with unspoken cues regarding the diary’s
ownership: While it was Tom Riddle’s, it had been in the Malfoys’
possession. While in Diagon Alley over the summer, Lucius, a follower
of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron to ensure
the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets. Harry returns the diary,
devising a scenario involving his own sock that frees Dobby from the
Malfoys’ employment, hence provoking an attack on Harry, only for
Dobby to jump in and save him. The petrified students are cured, the
end-of-year exams are cancelled (much to Hermione’s chagrin),
Hagrid comes back in the middle of the final feast, Lockhart is
discharged from his job as Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher, and
Harry returns to Privet Drive in higher spirits than he last left it.
- The
Chamber of Secrets Wiki
COS was
published on July 2nd of 1998(UK) and 1999 (US) by
Bloomsbury and Scholastic.
THE
PRISONER OF AZKERBAN
Harry
is back at the Dursleys'
for
the summer holidays, where he sees on Muggle television that a
convict named Sirius
Black has
escaped, though with no mention of what facility he has broken out
of. Harry involuntarily inflates Aunt
Marge when
she comes to visit after she insults Harry and his parents. This
leads to his running away and being picked up by the Knight
Bus.
He travels to the Leaky
Cauldron where
he meets Cornelius
Fudge,
the Minister
for Magic,
who asks Harry to stay in Diagon Alley for the remaining three weeks
before the start of the school year at Hogwarts.
While there, he meets his best friends Ron
Weasley and
Hermione
Granger.
The
night before Harry is expected to leave for Hogwarts, he learns from
Arthur
Weasley that
Sirius Black is a convicted murderer in the wizarding world, and he
warns Harry that it is believed Black will attempt to murder Harry
next. On the way to Hogwarts a Dementor
boards
the train, causing Harry to faint. Following the incident, the new
Defence
Against the Dark Arts teacher
Remus
Lupin begins
to teach Harry to repel dementors with magic. Harry, Ron, and
Hermione learn that Dementors will be patrolling the school in an
attempt to catch Black.
Later
on, Lupin's Defence Against the Dark Arts sessions prove far better
than those of Gilderoy
Lockhart (Harry's
useless ex-teacher). They have a fun lesson on Boggarts
and
then learn about more Dark Creatures. When Lupin supposedly falls
ill, the much hated Potions Master Professor
Snape temporarily
takes over teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts and torments the
class, much to their dismay.
At
Hogwarts, Harry has several problems with the Dementors, including an
episode at a Quidditch
match
during which he faints and falls off his broomstick
from
high in the air. His broom is blown away and smashed by the Whomping
Willow.
Working with Harry outside class, Lupin teaches him the Patronus
Charm to
repel Dementors.
On
an unauthorised visit to the village of Hogsmeade
(thanks
to The
Marauder's Map,
given to him by George
Weasley and
Fred
Weasley),
Harry overhears some of his teachers talking with Fudge about Black.
They reveal that Black was a friend of Harry's parents but he
betrayed them and gave Voldemort
access
to their house. They also mention that Black killed
twelve Muggles and
his former friend Peter
Pettigrew.
Ron
and Hermione's friendship later suffers when Ron believes that
Hermione's cat, Crookshanks,
ate his rat, Scabbers.
At Christmas
Harry
receives a mysterious present, a late-model Firebolt
broom.
Fearing it might be cursed, Hermione reports the gift to Professor
McGonagall,
which leads to more bad feelings between her, Ron and Harry.
Ron,
Hermione, and Harry join the effort to save Hagrid's
hippogriff, Buckbeak,
from being executed for attacking Draco
Malfoy,
after Draco provoked him. Their efforts are unsuccessful, but
Scabbers reappears shortly after they hear Buckbeak being executed.
Ron
chases Scabbers, only to be attacked by a big black dog, which Harry
has seen several times before. The dog drags Ron through a tunnel
under the Whomping Willow into the Shrieking
Shack.
Harry and Hermione follow, and there is a brief stand off when they
find Ron with Sirius Black, who has transformed from the dog. Lupin
enters, and they explain the situation to Harry and his friends:
Lupin is a werewolf,
which led to his friends James
Potter,
Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew becoming animagi.
Lupin explains that Scabbers is Pettigrew in his animal form; he has
been hiding from Black, whom he had framed for betraying Harry's
parents and murdering the twelve Muggles.
Snape
arrives to apprehend Black but Harry, Ron, and Hermione knock him
unconscious with the Expelliarmus charm. Lupin and Black transform
Pettigrew back into human form and prepare to kill him, but they are
stopped by Harry, as he feels his father would not have wanted it. He
convinces them to send Pettigrew to Azkaban instead.
As
they move back toward Hogwarts, Lupin turns into a werewolf and
becomes violent, having missed a dose of his Wolfsbane
potion. Pettigrew escapes again, and Black prevents Lupin from
attacking the others in werewolf form. After trying to escape from
the werewolf Harry and Black reach a lake where the Dementors
approach them. Harry tries to use the Patronus charm but fails while
Black is on the verge of getting the Dementor's kiss when suddenly a
stag of silver appears at the other end of the lake and over a
hundred Dementors are forced to run away. Harry thinks it was his
father who had cast that perfect Patronus charm, but soon he faints.
When
they wake up in the hospital, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are told that
Black has been sentenced to receive the Dementor's kiss, which
removes the soul of the recipient. Dumbledore advises Hermione and
Harry to use Hermione's time-turner,
a device she has been using to double-up on classes; this permits
them to go back in time and save Buckbeak. Harry goes to the other
side of the lake to see his father casting the spell but as he sees
the life being sucked out of Black and his own past self, he moves
ahead and casts the perfect Patronus charm, realising that it was
himself who did it earlier and not his father. Later Harry and
Hermione ride on Buckbeak and reach the top tower where Sirius is
held and help him escape. Harry and Sirius have a moment where Harry
is told that Sirius is his godfather and then Sirius climbs on
Buckbeak who carries Black away to safety.
Harry
and Hermione reach the hospital wing where they find Dumbledore,
telling him that they have completed the task. As they enter, a
confused Ron looks on as Harry and Hermione from the past disappear
in front of him and the present ones enter from the door. Snape lets
slip that Lupin is a werewolf, leading to his resignation. Harry
visits Lupin before he leaves, and as they say goodbye, Lupin is
certain that they will meet again.
Harry,
Ron, and Hermione travel to Kings Cross safely while Harry gets
Sirius' permission to visit Hogsmeade and Ron gets his own owl.
- Prisoner of Azkerban Wiki
POA was
released on July 8th 1999 by Bloomsbury in the UK and July
8th 1999 by scholastic in the US.
THE GOBLET
OF FIRE
The
book opens with Harry seeing Frank
Bryce,
the Muggle grounds-keeper for the Riddle House, being killed by Lord
Voldemort in
a vision, and is awoken by his scar hurting. The Weasleys
then
take Harry and Hermione
Granger to
the Quidditch
World Cup,
using a Portkey,
to watch Ireland versus Bulgaria, with Ireland emerging victorious.
There, Harry meets Cedric
Diggory,
who is attending the match with his father. After the match,
Voldemort's Death
Eaters attack
the site, destroying spectators' tents and wreaking havoc. The Dark
Mark gets
fired into the sky, which leads to a panic since it is the first time
the sign has been seen in 13 years. Winky,
Barty
Crouch Senior's
house elf, is falsely accused of casting the Mark after she is found
holding Harry's wand, which is revealed to have been used to cast the
Mark, as Harry had lost it during the chaos of the Death Eaters'
attack. Hermione, angry at this injustice, forms a society to promote
the rights of house elves known as S.P.E.W. (Society for the
Promotion of Elvish Welfare).
After
the sorting at Hogwarts, Professor
Dumbledore announces
that Alastor
"Mad-Eye" Moody will
be the Defence
Against the Dark Arts teacher
for the year, and also that Hogwarts will host the Triwizard
Tournament, with a prize of one thousand Galleons. However, only
those over 17—the age
of majority in
the wizarding world—will be allowed to enter. It is the first time
in many years that the Triwizard Tournament will be held. Students
from Beauxbatons Academy and the Durmstrang Institute, other
wizarding academies, will travel to Hogwarts, where they will stay
for the year, in hopes of competing. At Halloween, the Goblet of Fire
picks Fleur
Delacour from
Beauxbatons
Academy,
Viktor
Krum (who
is also the Seeker on Bulgaria's Quidditch team) from Durmstrang
Institute,
and Cedric
Diggory from
Hogwarts to compete in the tournament. However, it additionally gives
a fourth name—Harry Potter—leading to suspicion and indignation
from everyone and magically binding Harry to compete. Ron is jealous
that Harry is once again in the limelight and refuses to speak to
Harry.
Hagrid
reveals
to Harry that the first task involves dragons, and since Fleur and
Krum's headmasters are also aware of this, and will surely tell them
in advance, Harry informs Cedric as well. At the task, Harry has to
pass a Hungarian
Horntail to
retrieve a golden egg that contains a hint to the next task, which he
does by summoning his Firebolt
broomstick with
the Accio spell, and finishes the task tied for first with Krum. Ron
and Harry subsequently reconcile, Ron now understanding the full
danger of the tournament. When Harry opens the egg, though, it merely
shrieks loudly. Hermione then takes Harry and Ron to the school
kitchens, where house elves work. There, they meet a distraught
Winky, who is struggling to get over the loss of her sacking. They
also meet Harry's old friend Dobby, who has been employed at Hogwarts
to work in the kitchens; he is the only known house elf to appreciate
his freedom, despite his hard working nature.
Meanwhile,
gossipy reporter Rita
Skeeter is
writing scandalous articles of half-truths and outright fabrications
in The
Daily Prophet about
those at Hogwarts, including Hermione, Harry, Hagrid, and Madame
Maxime of
Beauxbatons.
With
the Yule Ball approaching, Harry must find a partner, but when he
finally approaches his crush Cho
Chang,
Cedric has beaten him to her, so Harry and Ron ask Parvati
and
Padma
Patil.
Ron is shocked and jealous to see that Hermione is attending with
Krum. Cedric gives Harry a tip on the egg, telling him to take it to
the prefects' bathroom, but Harry refuses to listen, jealous over
Cho.
Finally
acting on the tip, Harry takes the egg to the prefects' bathroom,
where Moaning
Myrtle tells
him to listen to the egg underwater; there the words become
understandable. Harry learns that the task is to recover something he
will "sorely miss." On the way back to Gryffindor tower he
falls into a trick staircase and drops the egg, causing it to open
and shriek loudly. Filch hears this and thinks it's Peeves, the
poltergeist that frequently annoys Filch. Snape later comes and
reports[who?]
that someone has broken in his potion ingredient cupboard. Professor
Moody comes and, with his "mad-eye," he sees Harry through
his invisibility cloak and tells him that he will cover up the egg
incident, though he later takes the Mauraders's Map from Harry. Harry
then starts looking for spells to help him breathe where the objects
will be taken: The Black Lake. By the morning of the task, Harry
still hasn't found a solution, but Dobby gives him some Gillyweed
to
give Harry gills.
Harry completes the task by rescuing Ron from under the lake. Harry
then takes a risk by also rescuing Fleur's younger sister, Gabrielle,
after Fleur was unable to. After the judges confer, he earns enough
points to tie him with Cedric for the lead.
One
month before the final task, Harry and Krum are talking when they
encounter Crouch, who appears to have gone insane, but manages to
tell Harry to get Dumbledore.
Leaving Krum with Crouch, Harry fetches Dumbledore but returns to
find Krum stunned and Crouch gone. Harry returns to preparing for the
final task, a hedge maze. Inside the maze, Harry is forced to
incapacitate Krum, who has been bewitched, to save Cedric. Working
together, the two reach the cup. They agree to touch it at the same
time, and doing so, discover that it is a Portkey
that
transports them to a graveyard. There, Peter
Pettigrew kills
Cedric using Voldemort's wand and uses Harry's blood (along with his
own hand and Tom Riddle Sr.'s bone) to resurrect Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort
summons his Death Eaters, berating them for thinking he was dead,
before he reveals that he has a single "faithful servant"
concealed at Hogwarts, who has been working to ensure that Harry
would make it to the graveyard, and then challenges Harry to a duel.
However, when he and Harry fire curses at each other, their wands
connect due to their identical cores, made of feathers from the same
phoenix. Voldemort's wand releases the most recent spells it
performed, resulting in imprints of his last victims appearing in the
graveyard, including Harry's parents, who provide a distraction so
that Harry can escape back to Hogwarts using the Portkey, taking
Cedric's body with him.
When
he returns, Moody takes him to his office, and reveals himself to be
Voldemort's 'faithful servant'; he was the one who put Harry's name
into the Goblet of Fire under a different school, and has been
guiding him through the tournament from behind the scenes to ensure
that he would grab the Portkey first. Before Moody can kill Harry,
Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape intervene. They learn that Moody is
in fact Barty Crouch Jr., Mr. Crouch's son, disguised by Polyjuice
Potion. Crouch had sentenced Crouch Jr. to life imprisonment in
Azkaban over alleged ties to the Death Eaters but smuggled him out as
a last favour to his dying wife. Crouch Jr. was the one who set off
the Dark Mark at the Quidditch World Cup, doing it to scare the Death
Eaters he felt had abandoned Voldemort. Eventually, Voldemort had
gotten in contact with Crouch Jr. and had him impersonate Moody as
part of his plan. Crouch Jr. also admits to killing Crouch Sr., to
prevent him telling Dumbledore about Voldemort. The real Moody is
found inside Crouch Jr.'s enchanted trunk and rescued. Harry is then
declared the winner of the Triwizard Tournament and given his
winnings.
Many
people, including Fudge,
do not believe Harry and Dumbledore about Voldemort's return, and as
Fudge has the Dementor's Kiss performed, Crouch Jr. is unable to give
testimony. Hermione discovers Rita Skeeter is an unregistered
Animagus, who can take the form of a beetle, and blackmails her to
force her to stop writing her libellous stories. Not wanting his
tournament winnings, Harry gives them to Fred and George to start
their joke shop and returns home with the Dursleys.
- The Goblet of Fire Wiki
Goblet of
fire was released on July 8th by both Bloomsbury and
Scholastic.
THE ORDER
OF THE PHEONIX
During
the summer holidays with his aunt Petunia
and
uncle Vernon,
15-year-old Harry
Potter and
his cousin Dudley
are
attacked by Dementors.
After openly using magic to save Dudley and himself, Harry is almost
expelled from Hogwarts, but the decision is later reversed after a
hearing at the Ministry of Magic. Harry is whisked off by a group of
wizards including Mad-Eye Moody, Professor Lupin, and several new
faces, including Nymphadora Tonks, a bubbly young witch who is a
Metamorphmagus (a wizard who can change their appearance without a
potion or spell), and Kingsley Shacklebolt, a senior Auror, to Number
12, Grimmauld Place,
the childhood home of his godfather, Sirius
Black.
The building also serves as the headquarters of the order
of the Phoenix,
of which Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Sirius are also members. Ron
Weasley and
Hermione
Granger explain
that the Order of the Phoenix is a secret organisation led by
Hogwarts headmaster Albus
Dumbledore,
dedicated to fighting Lord
Voldemort and
his followers, the Death
Eaters.
From the members of the Order, Harry and the others learn that
Voldemort is seeking an object that he did not have prior to his
first defeat, and assume this object to be a weapon of some sort.
Harry learns that the Ministry of Magic, led by Cornelius
Fudge,
is refusing to acknowledge Voldemort's return because of the panic
and chaos that doing so would cause, and has been running a smear
campaign against him and Dumbledore.
At
Hogwarts, Harry learns that Dolores
Umbridge,
a senior employee in the Ministry of Magic, will be the new Defence
Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Umbridge and Harry clash, as she, like Fudge, refuses to believe that
Voldemort has returned. She punishes Harry for his rebellious
outbursts by having him write "I must not tell lies" with a
cursed quill that carves the phrase into his forearm. She also
refuses to teach her students how to perform defensive spells,
prompting Harry, Ron and Hermione to form their own Defence Against
the Dark Arts group (with students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and
Hufflepuff), which they call Dumbledore's
Army.
Many students sign up, including Neville
Longbottom,
Fred
and George Weasley,
Ginny
Weasley and
Luna
Lovegood.
The next day, however, they see on the notice board that Umbridge has
banned all clubs that have not been approved by her. Struggling to
find a place to practise, Dobby the house elf tells him about the
Room
of Requirement and
its uses. The club meet there to learn and practise defensive spells
under Harry's instruction.
Meanwhile,
Rubeus Hagrid has not yet returned from the secret mission given to
him by Dumbledore at the end of the previous book, and is absent for
the first part of the school year. Upon his return, Harry, Ron, and
Hermione learn that his mission, which was mostly unsuccessful, was
to seek out the last giants to stop them from joining Lord Voldemort.
Professor Umbridge has been steadily amassing more and more power and
influence at the school, and as she begins regularly inspecting
Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures lessons, it is clear that she
intends to get rid of him.
One
night, Harry has a vision through the eyes of Voldemort's snake
Nagini,
possessed by Voldemort, attacking Ron's father Arthur
Weasley.
Harry informs Professor
McGonagall and
Dumbledore, and Mr. Weasley is rescued. Dumbledore arranges for Harry
to take Occlumency
lessons
with Professor
Snape to
protect his mind against further invasions by Voldemort.
Umbridge
finally sacks Professor Trelawney, the Divination teacher; however,
she is outraged when Professor Dumbledore undermines her power by
allowing Trelawney to continue living at the school, and hires
Firenze, a centaur, to take her place, in spite of Umbridge's
prejudice against part-humans. Soon after, Umbridge is given a
tip-off about Dumbledore's Army by Marietta Edgecombe, who in doing
so unwittingly activates a curse set by Hermione which disfigures her
face. Despite Dobby's warning, the gang are caught and get into
trouble with Fudge. When Dumbledore takes responsibility for the
illegal organisation, he is forced to leave the school and go into
hiding. Dolores Umbridge becomes headmistress, and Fred and George
cause pandemonium around the school in revenge.
During
one Occlumency lesson, Snape is called away. Harry, left alone, looks
into Dumbledore's Pensieve, which Snape has borrowed, and sees a
memory of Snape's time as a student at Hogwarts. Harry is shocked to
witness his father, James
Potter,
and Sirius bullying and humiliating Snape. Snape catches Harry and,
enraged, refuses to continue the lessons. Distraught at this
revelation of his father's character, Harry talks to Sirius and Lupin
by using Floo powder through the fireplace in Umbridge's own office
and learns more about his parents and their background. After helping
Harry break into Umbridge's office, Fred and George then leave
Hogwarts to start a joke-shop in Diagon Alley.
Suspecting
that he will be next teacher to be sacked by Umbridge, Hagrid
confesses to Harry, Ron and Hermione that he has brought his giant
half-brother, Grawp, to Hogwarts, and hidden him in the Forbidden
Forest, with the intention of eventually introducing him to human
society. Hagrid asks the three of them to look after Grawp if he
himself must leave the school. Sure enough, Umbridge leads a party of
Aurors to attack Hagrid in his house one night. Hagrid overpowers
them and flees the school. McGonagall, trying to disrupt the
violence, is badly injured and is put in St. Mungo's Hospital.
On
the last day of O.W.L. tests, Harry has a vision of Sirius being
tortured by Voldemort in the Department of Mysteries. Harry uses
Umbridge's office fireplace to contact the Order of the Phoenix's
headquarters and check whether the vision was genuine. Kreacher the
house-elf informs him that Sirius is indeed at the Ministry, just
before Umbridge catches Harry and his friends. Umbridge summons Snape
to provide Veritaserum to question Harry, but Snape claims to have no
further stocks of the potion left. Remembering that Snape is also a
member of the Order of the Phoenix, Harry gives him a cryptic warning
about Sirius' fate, but Snape claims to have not understood it.
Umbridge
decides to use the illegal Cruciatus
Curse on
Harry to interrogate him on Sirius' whereabouts. She also reveals
that she herself ordered the Dementor attack on Harry, intending to
have him either silenced or discredited. Hermione intervenes and in
order to create a distraction, convinces Umbridge that they are
hiding a weapon of Dumbledore's in the Forbidden
Forest.
Harry and Hermione lead her into an area of the forest inhabited by
centaurs, where Umbridge provokes them into taking her captive. The
centaurs are furious upon learning that Hermione used them to do her
bidding and turn on the pair, but Grawp arrives and clashes with the
centaurs, allowing Harry and Hermione to escape.
Luna,
Ron, Ginny, and Neville join them in the forest and all six fly to
the Ministry on thestrals,
expecting to find and rescue Sirius. Once in the Department of
Mysteries, Harry realises that his vision was falsely planted by
Voldemort; however, he finds a glass sphere that bears his and the
Voldemort's names. Death
Eaters led
by Lucius
Malfoy attack
in order to capture the sphere, which is a recording of a prophecy
concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort. The prophecy is revealed to be
the object Voldemort has been trying to obtain for the whole year,
because Voldemort believes he missed something when he first heard
the prophecy. Lucius explains that only the subjects of the
prophecies, in this case, Harry or Voldemort, can safely remove them
from the shelves. During a heated fight, Neville accidentally kicks
and smashes the prophecy. Harry and his friends, soon joined by
members of the Order, enter a battle with the Death Eaters, during
which Bellatrix
Lestrange kills
Sirius. Voldemort himself arrives to kill Harry, but Dumbledore shows
up and calmly engages in a ferocious duel with Voldemort, eventually
reaching to a stalemate. Unable to kill Dumbledore, Voldemort tries
to possess Harry in an attempt to get Dumbledore to kill Harry. Harry
fights off the possession, and Voldemort escapes just as Cornelius
Fudge appears, finally faced with first-hand evidence that Voldemort
has truly returned.
In
his office, Dumbledore explains that Snape had understood Harry's
cryptic warning, and had subsequently contacted Sirius and confirmed
that he was still at Grimmauld Place. After Harry failed to return
from the Forbidden Forest, Snape deduced where he had gone and
alerted the Order of the Phoenix, enabling them to save Harry and his
friends. It is revealed that during the Christmas holidays, Kreacher
had interpreted a command of Sirius' as an order to leave the house,
and went to Narcissa Malfoy, the wife of Lucius, and told them about
Harry and Sirius' close relationship. Voldemort used Kreacher's
information to lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries by planting
the vision that Sirius was in danger there.
Owning
Harry a full explanation, Dumbledore reveals the full contents of the
prophecy made by Sybil Trelawney herself:
- The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches
- Born to those who have trice defied him
- Born as the seventh month dies
- And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal
- But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not
- And either must die at the hand of the other
- For neither can live while the other survives
- The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord
- Will be born as the seventh month dies
Voldemort
learned of the first part of the prophecy and subsequently tried to
murder Harry in the belief that he could prevent it from coming true,
unaware that he would grant Harry great power and mark him as an
equal by doing so. Dumbledore tells Harry that he must stay with the
Dursleys for one last summer because by taking Harry into her home,
his Aunt Petunia, Lily's older sister, seals the protection that
Harry's mother afforded him when she died; as long as he is there, he
is safe from Voldemort and his followers.
Harry
comes to terms with the responsibility of the prophecy, but mourns
for the loss of his godfather. Harry then finds an old hand-held
mirror in his dormitory that was a gift from Sirius. He realises that
Sirius would not want him to be depressed on the matter, and resolves
to continue fighting Voldemort.
- Order of
the Phoenix wiki
Order of
the Phoenix was released by both Bloomsbury and Scholastic on June
21st 2003.
THE
HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
Dumbledore
picks
Harry up from his aunt and uncle's house, intending to escort him to
the Burrow, home of Harry's best friend Ron and his large family. On
the way, they make a detour to the temporary home of Horace
Slughorn,
former Potions
teacher
at Hogwarts,
and Harry unwittingly helps persuade Slughorn to return to teach.
Harry and Dumbledore then proceed to the Burrow, where Hermione has
already arrived.
Severus
Snape,
a member of the Order
of the Phoenix,
meets with Narcissa
Malfoy,
Draco's
mother, and her sister Bellatrix
Lestrange,
Lord
Voldemort's
faithful supporter. Narcissa expresses her extreme concern that her
son might not survive a dangerous mission, given to him by Lord
Voldemort.
Bellatrix feels Snape will be of no help until he surprises her by
making an Unbreakable
Vow with
Narcissa, swearing on his life that he will protect and assist Draco
in his mission.
The
next morning, Harry, Ron, and Hermione get their Ordinary
Wizarding Level (O.W.L.)
test results, along with lists of school supplies. Later, Harry, Ron
Weasley and
Hermione
Granger follow
Draco to Dark
Arts supplier
Borgin
and Burkes in
Knockturn
Alley.
Harry is instantly suspicious of Draco, who he believes to be a Death
Eater.
On
the Hogwarts Express, Harry discusses his suspicions of Draco’s
allegiance with Lord Voldemort, however Ron and Hermione are doubtful
with the lack of evidence. Harry dons his invisibility cloak and
hides in the same carriage that Malfoy is seated in. He overhears
Draco bragging to his friends about the mission Lord Voldemort has
tasked him. However, Malfoy is suspicious that someone else is in the
carriage and discovers Harry Potter was listening to his
conversation. He petrifies him and breaks his nose out of rage. Harry
cannot get off the carriage, and is worried the Hogwarts Express will
depart before he can move again. To his relief however, Nymphadora
Tonks finds
Harry and escorts him back to the castle during the opening feast.
The
students return to school, where Dumbledore
announces
that Snape will be teaching Defence
Against the Dark Arts.
In the meantime, Horace Slughorn will resume his previous post as
Potions master. Harry now excels in Potions, thanks to having
received a used Potions textbook that once belonged to someone named
"The Half-Blood Prince," a mysterious former student who
wrote numerous tips and spells in his Potions textbook, which
sometimes directly contradict the written text. Harry uses this
information to achieve superb results. During a class contest, The
Half-Blood Prince's tips help Harry win a bottle of Felix Felicis,
more commonly known as "Liquid Luck." Though Harry's
success pleases Slughorn, his newfound brilliance in potions angers
Hermione, who feels he is not truly earning his grades and also does
not trust the Half-Blood Prince.
Believing
that Harry needs to learn Voldemort's past to gain advantage in a
foretold battle, Dumbledore schedules regular meetings with Harry in
his office. Amidst these lessons, Ron starts dating a girl named
Lavender Brown, who is also a sixth year Gryffindor student, and Ron
and Hermione start yet another quarrel. Also during this time,
Dumbledore and Harry use Dumbledore's Pensieve
to
look at the memories of those who have had direct contact with
Voldemort. Harry learns about Voldemort's
family and
his foe's evolution into a murderer, obsessed not only with power,
but with gaining eternal life. Dumbledore shows Harry a memory
involving Slughorn conversing with the young Tom Riddle at Hogwarts,
which has clearly been tampered with. He sets Harry the task of
convincing Slughorn to give him the true memory so that Dumbledore
can confirm his suspicions about Voldemort's rise to power and
near-invincibility. This is proven vital in the defeat of Voldemort.
After
being sent an invitation to the funeral for Aragog the Spider, Harry
uses an hour's dose of Felix Felicis and succeeds in retrieving
Slughorn's unedited memory while at the funeral. In it, Slughorn
tells Riddle about the process of splitting one's soul and hiding it
in several objects called Horcruxes.
Only by committing a murder can a wizard turn an object into a
Horcrux; Voldemort has created six of them, making himself virtually
immortal by placing a piece of his soul in each one, and keeping the
seventh and last one within his body. Dumbledore explains that in
order to destroy Voldemort, all the Horcruxes must first be
destroyed. Two Horcruxes, Riddle's diary from Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and
a ring belonging to Voldemort's grandfather Marvolo Gaunt, have
already been destroyed; but four others remain.
As
Harry learns more about his great enemy, the love lives of the main
characters start to become more active. Ron and Hermione grow closer
together, but after learning from his sister Ginny,
that Hermione had previously kissed Viktor Krum, Ron is angered and
shuns her. Harry's attempts to repair things between the two fail,
resulting in Ron going out with Lavender
Brown and
making Hermione jealous. After Ron is nearly killed in an attempt on
Dumbledore's life, he and Hermione reconcile. Ron and Lavender break
up when Lavender sees the two of them walking out of the boys
dormitories together. Harry develops deep feelings for Ginny, but is
reluctant to pursue her for most of the year because of his
friendship with Ron. Following a wild Gryffindor Quidditch
victory,
Harry and Ginny finally strike up a relationship, with Ron's
reluctant consent.
Near
the end of the year, Harry and Dumbledore journey to a remote cave
far from Hogwarts to retrieve a suspected Horcrux, Slytherin's
locket.
Dumbledore expertly finds a secret passageway to a large, pitch black
underground lake, which Harry and Dumbledore cross in a small boat to
an island in the centre. The locket is at the bottom of a basin on
the island, and can only be reached by drinking the potion above it.
Harry aids Dumbledore, who drinks the potion, causing him to
experience vivid hallucinations and torturous pain. Though Dumbledore
is severely weakened after finishing the potion, together the two
manage to fight off Voldemort's Inferi
that
have been hiding in the lake. They take the locket and return to
Hogwarts, to find that the Dark
Mark has
been placed over the highest school tower in their absence. Harry and
Dumbledore ascend to the tower where they are ambushed by Draco
Malfoy, accompanied by Death Eaters that he helped get inside
Hogwarts. Dumbledore freezes Harry under his Invisibility Cloak with
a body-bind spell, to keep him hidden. Draco disarms Dumbledore of
his wand and then threatens to kill him, which turns out to have been
his mission from Voldemort all along. Draco is unable to go through
with it and when Snape arrives, he casts the spell to kill Dumbledore
instead. Harry ignores the battle raging in Hogwarts to pursue
Dumbledore's killer. Snape successfully fights Harry off, and he
reveals that he is in fact the Half-Blood Prince before he, Draco,
and the rest of the Death Eaters escape.
After
Dumbledore's funeral, Harry decides to break up with Ginny, saying it
is too dangerous for her to let their relationship to continue. Harry
finds out that the locket is not the real Horcrux, containing only a
note from someone named "R.
A. B.".
Harry is so devastated by Dumbledore's death (and upset by its
futility) that he tells his friends he will not be returning to
Hogwarts. Instead, he will spend the next year searching out
Voldemort's Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione insist on joining him in
destroying Lord
Voldemort for
good.
- Half-Blood Prince wiki
The Half
Blood Prince was released on the 16th of July 2005 by both
Scholastic and Bloomsbury.
THE
DEATHLY HALLOWS
Following
Albus Dumbledore's death, Voldemort consolidates his support and
power, including covert control of the Ministry of Magic, while Harry
is about to turn seventeen, losing the protection of his home. The
Order
of the Phoenix move
Harry to a new location before his birthday, but are attacked upon
departure. In the ensuing battle, "Mad-Eye"
Moody is
killed and George
Weasley severely
wounded and Hedwig is killed; Voldemort himself arrives to kill
Harry, but Harry's wand fends him off of its own accord. Harry, Ron
and Hermione make preparations to abandon Hogwarts and hunt down
Voldemort's four remaining Horcruxes,
but have few clues to work with as to their identities and locations.
One is a locket once owned by Hogwarts' co-founder Salazar
Slytherin which
was stolen by the mysterious "R.A.B.", one is possibly a
cup originally belonging to co-founder Helga
Hufflepuff,
a third might be connected to co-founder Rowena
Ravenclaw,
and the fourth might be Nagini,
Voldemort's snake familiar.
They also inherit strange bequests from among Dumbledore's
possessions: a Golden
Snitch for
Harry, a Deluminator
for
Ron, and a book of short tales collectively called The
Tales of Beedle the Bard for
Hermione.
The
trio attends Bill Weasley's wedding, but during the reception the
Ministry
of Magic finally
falls to Voldemort and the wedding is attacked by Death Eaters. They
flee to 12 Grimmauld Place in London, the family home of Sirius
Black,
that Harry had inherited a year before. Thanks to the house-elf
Kreacher they identify R.A.B. as Sirius' deceased brother Regulus and
learn that Slytherin's locket was stolen from the house by Mundungus
Fletcher, the dubious member of the Order of the Phoenix and
ultimately seized by Dolores
Umbridge of
the Ministry of Magic. They infiltrate the Ministry in disguise and
take back the locket, but accidentally break the protection of 12
Grimmauld Place during their escape and must go on the run across the
countryside. With no way to destroy the locket, they argue frequently
under the object's evil influence, culminating in Ron abandoning
Harry and Hermione.
Harry
and Hermione continue the quest, discovering more about Dumbledore's
past, including the death of Dumbledore's younger sister and his
connection to the dark wizard Gellert
Grindelwald.
They travel to Godric's Hollow, Harry's birthplace and the place
where his parents died, and meet the elderly magical historian
Bathilda Bagshot, but she turns out to be Nagini in disguise,
awaiting their arrival. The snake attacks Harry and again they barely
escape, but Harry's wand is damaged beyond repair. Their luck finally
appears to turn in the Forest
of Dean.
A mysterious silver doe Patronus
appears
and guides Harry to an icy pond containing the Sword
of Hogwarts co-founder Godric Gryffindor,
one of the few objects able to destroy Horcruxes. During Harry's
attempt to recover the sword, the locket Horcrux tries to kill him.
He is saved by Ron, who appears suddenly, takes the sword and uses it
to destroy the locket.
Ron
had been guided back to them by the Deluminator, indicating that
Dumbledore's gifts may be more useful than they thought. Hermione
identifies in Dumbledore's book a strange symbol also worn at the
wedding by Xenophilius
Lovegood.
They visit him and are told the symbol represents the mythical
Deathly
Hallows,
three objects from an old fairy
tale titled
The
Tale of the Three Brothers:
the Elder
Wand,
an unbeatable wand; the Resurrection Stone, able to summon the dead;
and an infallible Invisibility Cloak. Although Ron and Hermione are
skeptical, Harry believes the Hallows are real and could explain the
visions of Voldemort he has been having over the past few months. He
suspects Voldemort is hunting the Elder Wand, won by Dumbledore after
defeating Grindelwald, believing it will allow him to overpower the
connection between his own wand and Harry's. Harry believes the
Resurrection Stone was inset into the ring horcrux that Dumbledore
discovered the previous year, and may be hidden inside the Snitch
Dumbledore left for him, but he can't open it. The description of the
third Hallow also matches that of his own inherited Invisibility
Cloak. Harry's suspicions are confirmed when he has a vision of
Voldemort breaking open Dumbledore's tomb and stealing the Elder Wand
from within.
The
trio are captured by Snatchers and taken to Malfoy
Manor;
this was directly caused due to their use of a name that had a taboo
placed
upon it (Voldemort). Upon arrival at Malfoy
Manor,
Bellatrix
Lestrange tortures
Hermione to learn how the three acquired the sword, which she had
believed was in her vault at Gringotts.
With the help of Dobby the house-elf they escape along with fellow
prisoners Luna
Lovegood,
wandmaker Mr.
Ollivander,
Dean Thomas, and the goblin Griphook. During the escape, Peter
Pettigrew is strangled by his own silver hand after Harry reminds him
of the debt he owes him; Harry overpowers Draco
Malfoy and
steals his wand; and Dobby is killed by Bellatrix. Bellatrix's anger
in interrogating Hermione suggests to Harry some exceptional object
is in her vault, and when questioned, Griphook confirms a gold cup is
indeed in her vault. With Griphook's help, they break into the vault
at Gringotts, retrieve the cup, and escape on a dragon, but in the
chaos Griphook steals the Sword of Gryffindor from them. Harry has
another vision of Voldemort and sees that he now understands their
plan, and intends to make his remaining Horcruxes even safer. The
vision also confirms the unidentified horcrux is at Hogwarts.
They
enter the school through an undiscovered secret entrance in the Hog's
Head, a bar in Hogsmeade owned by Dumbledore's brother, Aberforth.
Harry alerts the teachers Voldemort is planning an assault on the
school. Snape, who had been Headmaster under Voldemort's regime, is
ousted by the combined efforts of the heads of houses, and the Order
of the Phoenix is summoned to help defend the school and buy time for
Harry to locate the horcrux. Voldemort had set a guard in the
Ravenclaw tower, corroborating Harry's belief the horcrux is Rowena
Ravenclaw's diadem,
lost centuries ago. The Ravenclaw ghost's story further confirms this
belief, and Harry remembers an old diadem in the Room
of Requirement.
Ron and Hermione destroy the cup with basilisk
fangs
taken from the Chamber
of Secrets as
Voldemort and his army besiege the castle. They find the diadem but
are ambushed by Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe
and
Goyle.
Crabbe tries to kill them using Fiendfyre, a cursed fire, but is
unable to control it; the fire destroys the diadem and himself while
Harry and his friends save Malfoy and Goyle. Meanwhile, several major
characters are killed in the Battle of Hogwarts, including Remus
Lupin,
Nymphadora
Tonks,
and Fred
Weasley.
In
his encampment, Voldemort feels the Elder Wand is not performing as
he expected. According to legend, its full allegiance must be won by
killing the previous owner, and Voldemort reasons that as Snape
killed Dumbledore, he will not be able to fully wield the wand's
power until he kills Snape, which he does. Harry arrives as Snape is
dying, and Snape passes him memories to view in a pensieve.
They reveal Snape had a lifelong love for Harry's mother and felt
haunted for causing her death, and despite hating Harry's father he
agreed at Dumbledore's request to watch over Harry and act as a
double
agent against
Voldemort. The doe Patronus that led Harry to the Sword was summoned
by Snape, who was watching over them the whole time. It is revealed
that Dumbledore was slowly dying after mishandling the ring horcrux,
and he planned his "murder" with Snape in advance to prove
Snape's allegiance to Voldemort. The memories also explain that Harry
himself is a horcrux and must die at Voldemort's hand if Voldemort is
to become mortal. Harry accepts his death and goes to the Forbidden
Forest to allow Voldemort to kill him. On the way he mentions to
Neville
Longbottom that
Voldemort's snake Nagini must be killed to make Voldemort vulnerable.
He finally manages to open the Snitch and uses the Resurrection Stone
within to seek comfort and courage from his dead loved ones—his
parents, Sirius Black, and Lupin—dropping the Stone in the forest
before reaching Voldemort's camp. Voldemort uses the Killing
Curse and
Harry does not defend himself.
Harry
awakens in a dreamlike location resembling Kings
Cross station and
is greeted by Dumbledore, who explains that Voldemort's original
Killing Curse left a fragment of Voldemort's soul in Harry, which
caused the connection they had felt, making Harry an unintended
Horcrux; this fragment had just been destroyed by Voldemort himself.
When Voldemort used Harry's blood to regain his full strength, this
further protected Harry from Voldemort, allowing Harry to return to
life if he chooses, or to "go on". Harry chooses to return
and feigns death. Narcissa
Malfoy feels
Harry's pulse and lies to Voldemort by stating he is dead after he
whispers to her that Draco is still alive. Voldemort calls a truce
and displays Harry's body, offering to spare most of the defenders if
they surrender. Neville, however, pulls the Sword of Gryffindor out
of the Sorting Hat and uses it to behead Nagini, leaving Voldemort
unprotected, and Harry escapes under his cloak as the battle resumes.
In
a final onslaught, Bellatrix
is
killed by Molly
Weasley and
Harry reveals to Voldemort that he is alive. He explains to Voldemort
the Elder Wand's loyalty transfers upon the defeat, not necessarily
the killing, of its previous master. Although Voldemort believes by
killing Snape he has gained the Wand's loyalty, Snape was in fact
never its master. Instead, Draco Malfoy inadvertently earned the
Wand's loyalty when he disarmed Dumbledore just before Snape arrived
to kill him. Therefore, Harry believes that their duel will depend on
whether or not the Wand recognises Harry to be its new master after
he disarmed Draco at Malfoy Manor weeks prior. Voldemort attempts one
final Killing Curse on Harry, but the Elder Wand refuses to act
against Harry and the spell rebounds, striking Voldemort and
destroying him once and for all.
Harry
uses the Elder Wand to repair his original wand, planning to return
the Elder Wand to Dumbledore's tomb where its power may vanish if
Harry dies undefeated and it can drop out of history. Harry does not
intend to search for the Resurrection Stone he dropped in the
Forbidden Forest, but will keep the Invisibility Cloak he inherited.
The wizarding world returns to peace once more.
- Epilogue
In
an epilogue set in King's
Cross station 19
years later, the primary characters are seeing their own children off
to Hogwarts. Harry and Ginny
are
a couple with three children: James
Sirius,
Albus
Severus,
and Lily
Luna.
Ron and Hermione also have two children, Rose
and
Hugo.
Harry's godson Teddy
Lupin is
found kissing Bill
Weasley and
Fleur
Delacour's
daughter Victoire;
Neville
Longbottom is
now a Hogwarts professor; Draco
Malfoy and
his wife are also at the station to send off their son, Scorpius.
Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts and is worried he
will be placed into Slytherin House. Harry reassures him by telling
his son he is named after two Hogwarts headmasters, one of them
(Snape) a Slytherin and "the bravest man he had ever met",
but the Sorting
Hat could
also take account of personal preferences, as it did for Harry. The
book ends with the words: "The scar had not pained Harry for
nineteen years. All was well."
- The Deathly Hallows wiki.
The Deathly
hallows was published on July 21st 2007 (My 17th
birthday.....wooo) by both Scholastic and Bloomsbury.
J. K.
ROWLING
Joanne
Rowling was born on July 31st 1965 to parents Anne and
Peter Rowling as their eldest daughter (followed by sister Diane). Jo
spent her childhood being imaginative and writing stories for her
sister. Jo passed through schooling as a quite bright child earning
A's and B's. Jo passed her studies at the University of Excetor and
started work as a researcher and a secretary. In 1990 during a 4 hour
wait on a train from Manchester, Harry Potter came into her head. It
took six years for the manuscript of Harry Potter to be written but
in that time Jo had moved abroad married and had a child...her eldest
daughter Jessica. Jo managed to get a publisher and an agent and her
life was never the same again. In 2001 Jo remarried to Dr Neil Murray
they went onto have son David and Daughter Mackenzie as of June 2014
the family live in Scotland.
My opinion
of J. K. Rowling is similar to how I feel about Walt Disney. She's a
hard working genius whose both of her time and ahead of her time.
She's had a some what chaotic yet interesting life both before and
since Harry Potter. J. K. spent so much time on Potter giving a whole
load of time and energy to the extended world that it shows her
creativity and imagination and I love her for it.
WEBSITE
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
And there
you have it a decent set of books for all the ages. So we'll be
leaving this here for today please leave a comment, share with others
if you want or not Friday is random blog day and remember keep it
sensible in the comments all abuse will be tracked and reported to
the appropriate people.
THIS IS
THE BANDERSNATCH, I'M MAMA OGRE AND REMEMBER STAY WEIRD, STAY WACKY,
STAY WONDEROUS AND I'LL SEE YOU SOON...
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