"Harry Potter Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people). Since the release of the first novel, ""Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"", on 26"
"non-magical parents. The equivalent term used by the in-universe magic community of America is ""No-Maj"", which is short for No Magic. The French equivalent is ""Les Non-Magiques"". Another term is ""The Can’t-Spells"". The term ""Muggle"" is sometimes used in a pejorative manner in the books. Since ""Muggle"" refers to a person who is a member of the non-magical community, Muggles are simply ordinary human beings without any magical powers and almost always with no awareness of the existence of magic. According to Rowling, a quarter of the annual Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry intake have two non-magical parents; these"
"fiction is that the ability to use magic is innate and often rare, or gained through a large amount of study and practice. In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, it is mostly limited to non-humans, though some people gain small amounts and become known as sorcerers (wizards being powerful spirits). In many writers' works, it is reserved for a select group of humans, such as in J. K. Rowling's ""Harry Potter"" books, Katherine Kurtz's ""Deryni"" novels, or Randall Garrett's ""Lord Darcy"" universe. Magicians normally learn spells by reading ancient tomes called grimoires, which may have magical properties of their own."
"are completely ignorant of the Wizarding world that exists in their midst. If, by unfortunate means, non-magical people do happen to observe the working of magic, the Ministry of Magic sends Obliviators to cast Memory Charms upon them causing them to forget the event. Some Muggles, however, know of the wizarding world. These include Muggle parents of magical children, such as Hermione Granger's parents, the Muggle Prime Minister (and his predecessors), the Dursley family (Harry Potter's non-magical and only living relatives), and the non-magical spouses of some witches and wizards. Rowling has stated she created the word ""Muggle"" from ""mug"","
"are called muggle-borns. There have also been some children known to have been born to one magical and one non-magical parent. Children of this mixed parentage are called ""half-bloods"" (strictly speaking, they are 'Literal Half-bloods'); children with recent Muggle ancestry on the one side or the other are also called half-bloods. The most prominent Muggle-born in the Harry Potter series is Hermione Granger, who had two Muggles of unspecified names as parents. A witch or wizard with all magical heritage is called a pure-blood. In the ""Harry Potter"" books, non-magical people are often portrayed as foolish, sometimes befuddled characters, who"
"who do not have direct magical talents but are able to see and feel to a degree, magic cast by the Elemental Wizards. Some are capable of seeing and sometimes communicating with elemental spirits. Some sensitives may also cast small magics that are often based on emotions. A powerful Sensitive can use their powers to influence people. Sensitives often form the bulk of an Elemental Wizards's household. While psychics, wizards and elemental masters are portrayed as the more common magic users in the western world, the series also focuses on other forms of power such as the Hindu sorcerers of"
"anyone who married a half-blood or muggle. However, in ""Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"", Hagrid and Ron both state there is probably no such factor as ""blood purity"", with all wizards likely finding marriages to Muggles on their family tree provided sufficient research. Pure-blood is the term applied to wizards and witches who have no Muggle blood, Muggle-borns, or half-bloods at all in their family tree. They are the rarest of the three blood statuses, with J.K. Rowling saying 10% of the Wizarding community is made up of pure-bloods. Although technically pure-bloods have no Muggle ancestors, the small"
"in Azkaban, with the other members of the commission either imprisoned or becoming fugitives. Squib is the term applied to a child who is born of magical parents, but who develops no magical abilities. They are considered to be the opposite of Muggle-born wizards/witches. Squib births are rare: the only Squibs noted as such in the books are Argus Filch, Arabella Figg, and Molly Weasley's second cousin, who was an accountant. The Ministry does not require them to be registered as part of the community. Squibs share some things with wizards and they are aware of and comprehend the wizarding"
"repairs with the Elder Wand). In the novels, Harry is the only child of James and Lily Potter, orphaned as an infant. Rowling made Harry an orphan from the early drafts of her first book. She felt an orphan would be the most interesting character to write about. However, after her mother's death, Rowling wrote Harry as a child longing to see his dead parents again, incorporating her own anguish into him. Harry is categorised as a ""half-blood"" wizard in the series, because although both his parents were magical, Lily was ""Muggle-born"", and James was a pure-blood. Harry's aunt and"
"Lev Grossman argues that, ""Harry Potter lives in a world free of any religion or spirituality of any kind. He lives surrounded by ghosts but has no one to pray to, even if he were so inclined, which he isn't."" Grossman goes on to contrast ""Harry Potter"" with other, more explicitly religious fantasies, such as C. S. Lewis' ""The Chronicles of Narnia"" and J. R. R. Tolkien's ""The Lord of the Rings"". J. K. Rowling has repeatedly denied that her books lead children into witchcraft. In an interview with CNN in 1999, she said, ""I absolutely did not start writing"
"in the series describes Harry as having ""power the Dark Lord knows not"", referencing his capacity for love. True love is impossible to create magically; Amortentia, a love potion, can only create a powerful sense of infatuation and obsession. The following is a list of special abilities that a wizard or witch in the Harry Potter universe may have. An Animagus (portmanteau of animal and magus) is a witch or wizard who can turn into a particular animal or magical creature at will. This ability is not innate: it must be acquired by magical means. All Animagi must register at"
"Lord in the world of literature is the Dark Wizard Lord Voldemort from J. K. Rowling's ""Harry Potter"" novels, earning his place as a Dark Lord having surpassed the magical abilities of any other dark wizard before him, thus he is considered not a Dark Wizard but the first and only Dark Lord within the Harry Potter franchise, being so powerful and evil that his enemies even dreaded to speak his name. Dark Lords have a negative effect in their worlds, throwing them into ruin and despair. Sauron, for example, turned Mordor into a ""wasteland where the very air saps"
"wisemen) from long ago who figured out how to step into the Twilight. However, ""the Others"" are different from humans, they are born as ""Others"". Humans are not able (at least in the first part of the cycle) to become ""Others"". The Twilight does not offer its gifts freely; it feeds off the strength of those ""Others"" who enter it. If sufficiently weakened, they are consumed, never to return to the ordinary world. The aura of any Other, or emotional state at the time of their first entry into the Twilight, determines whether or not the Other will become a"
"or Wizards, and included Gandalf the Grey (Olórin or Mithrandir; later Gandalf the White), Saruman the White (Curumo or Curunír; he later called himself Saruman of Many Colours), Radagast the Brown (Aiwendil), and two Blue Wizards (Alatar and Pallando) who are mentioned in passing but do not appear in Tolkien's narratives. Maia (Middle-earth) The Maiar (singular: Maia) are among a class of divine beings from J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy legendarium. Supernatural and angelic, they are ""lesser Ainur"" who entered ""Eä"" in the beginning of time. The name ""Maiar"" is in the Quenya tongue (one of several constructed languages)"
"of Wicca or occultism but the same ""fantasy"" magic practised in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis; ""If anything, the magic in Rowling's world is even more emphatically imaginary, even further removed from real-world practices, than that of Tolkien or Lewis; and, like theirs, presents no appreciable risk of direct imitative behaviour."" ""Christianity Today"" columnist Charles Colson asserts that the magic in ""Harry Potter"" is ""purely mechanical, as opposed to occultic. That is, Harry and his friends cast spells, read crystal balls, and turn themselves into animals—but they don't make contact with a supernatural world."
"however have more knowledge and power for using it for their purposes. A witch can inherit their lineage from their parents or develop their craft over many years, and neither a witch nor warlock must necessarily be human, such as Cyvus Vail. While not prominent in the Buffyverse, there are individuals who gain special powers through means other than the ones mentioned above. Gwen Raiden and Bethany (from the ""Angel"" episode ""Untouched"") seem to be born with their powers. Drusilla had psychic powers as a human before becoming a vampire though their origins are never explained. Others, like Marcie Ross"
"the same degree that living beings can. In the ""Harry Potter"" universe, only wizards and witches can become ghosts. As Nearly Headless Nick explained to Harry, ""Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod ... I was afraid of death. I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder whether I oughtn't have ... Well, that is neither here nor there ... In fact, I am neither here nor there..."" Despite having chosen this afterlife, many ghosts bemoan their inability to eat, and many are described as gloomy. They also"
"Snape was a Muggle. Harry himself is a half-blood, since his pure-blood father, James, married a Muggle-born woman named Lily, and his maternal grandparents were Muggles. Muggle-born is the term applied to wizards and witches whose parents were Muggles. J.K. Rowling has said they are second-most common of the three types of blood status wizards, numbering about 25% in the Wizarding community. They are often believed to be descended from Squibs who married Muggles, and the dormant magical gene may resurface after a couple of generations. Harry Potter's mother, Lily Evans, was a Muggle-born. Unlike children of Wizarding families who"
"both because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and because it increases background magic levels considerably. Because of this, wizards generally lack children, due to both rigid celibacy laws and overall non-enabling personality. Besides a mention of Krull (see below) and the prominent Eskarina Smith, all wizards are implicitly male, though this may be a cultural bias of the Unnamed Continent confirmed by narrativium. Wizards grade magical ability in a series of levels, the highest of which is eight. People without magical ability are ""level zero"". It was the opinion of many tutors at the time Rincewind was a student that he"
"virtually non-existent since the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy was introduced in 1692. Few wizards are aware of basic Muggle culture (for instance, most wizards do not understand Muggle clothing customs). On the odd occasions when it may be necessary for a wizard or witch to dress in Muggle clothing, the result is usually comical. While the series is set in Great Britain, there is evidence that the wizarding world has locations throughout the globe. This is shown in ""Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"", when it describes many people at the Quidditch World Cup speaking foreign languages. The"
"practise illegal and dangerous spells known as dark magic. Their ideology is of racial supremacy. They believe wizards are, as a genealogy book within the story phrases it, ""Nature's Nobility""; other magical creatures and the non-magical are inferior and should be subjugated. Within the wizarding community, only those who are born to wizard parents are worthy of magical power, despite the fact that parentage does not in fact determine who possess such powers. They categorise wizards according to blood purity; ""pure bloods"", or wizard borns, out-rank ""half-bloods"" (mixed parentage) and ""mudbloods"", a derogatory name for those born to non-magical parents"
"Below is a list of magical creatures mentioned in the ""Harry Potter"" universe. Those creatures that Rowling took from myth and folklore have links to their mythological articles. The Blast-Ended Skrewt is a hybrid of a fire crab and manticore. Inferi are neither beasts nor beings, but merely animated corpses with no will of their own. For a list of magical plants mentioned in the series, such as mandrakes and devil's snares, see List of fictional plants. Luna Lovegood, a pupil at Hogwarts, and her father Xenophilius Lovegood profess belief in a number of magical creatures that the overwhelming majority"
"Harry Potter (character) Harry James Potter is the titular protagonist of J. K. Rowling's ""Harry Potter"" series. The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard. Thus, he attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to practice magic under the guidance of the kindly headmaster Albus Dumbledore and other school professors along with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Harry also discovers that he is already famous throughout the novel's magical community, and that his fate is tied with that of"
"dementors, noting he has long felt the Ministry of Magic erred in ""allying"" with such creatures, implying that dementor society in general exists apart from the general wizarding world. Dumbledore forbade dementors from entering Hogwarts but this ban was ultimately broken in ""Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"" by Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, who insisted on being accompanied by a dementor as a bodyguard. In the books, dementors have a generally human shape, approximately 3 metres (10 feet) in height, covered in dark, hooded cloaks that reveal only their decayed-looking hands. Beneath the cloak, dementors are eyeless, and"
"people, even other mages, cannot see. By contrast, all four protagonists of the series have chosen to keep their given names—although Briar Moss merely kept the name he chose when Niklaren found him. Ambient magic, although it also exists as a potential from birth and cannot be manufactured, operates on a different principle. It is tied to a specific craft, power or raw material, ranging from carpentry to dance to weather. Ambient mages can only work with the craft their magic is tied to. Ambient mages are rarer than academic ones, at a ratio of about one to four. Both"
"him. Nevertheless, many magicians live in pseudo-medieval settings in which their magic is not put to practical use in society; they may serve as mentors, act as quest companions, or even go on a quest themselves, but their magic does not build roads or buildings, provide immunizations, construct indoor plumbing, or do any of the other functions served by machinery; their worlds remain at a medieval level of technology. Sometimes this is justified by having the negative effects of magic outweigh the positive possibilities. In Barbara Hambley's ""Windrose Chronicles"", wizards are precisely pledged not to interfere because of the terrible"
"of Light wouldn't change for too much dense populated, there is imposed restrictions on number of children. Because of that each family can have just one child. The author has populated this fantasy world with people, the Spirits of the warlock Móri, ancestors of the Icepeople, the deads who didn't whonever got happiness in their lives, fairies, Earth-beings who are hostile to other creatures, Strangers, several members of the Lemurian race as well as 4 Madrags; the technologically advanced inhabitants of Mu. There are no winds, changes of states of weather or the blue sky in the Realm of Light,"
"Death Eater Death Eaters are characters featured in the ""Harry Potter"" series of novels and films. They are a group of wizards and witches, led by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort (Tom Marvolo Riddle), who seek to purify the Wizarding community by eliminating the Muggle-borns (wizards and witches born to non-magical parents). They also try to create a new order through the Ministry of Magic and spread fear throughout the Wizarding community by terrorising and killing important officials and other enemies of the Death Eaters, chiefly the members of the Order of the Phoenix. Death Eaters recognise one another by"
"likely to be caught using magic than those who grow up in the wizard world. Those living in the muggle-world generally have no contact with other witches or wizards away from school and the Ministry simply presumes that any magic performed where they are is an act of under-age wizardry, while at the same time presuming that any magic performed in a wizard home that has minors present was performed by those aged 17 and over. This means that minors living in the wizard world have a much greater chance of escaping punishment for the use of under-age magic. The"
"those who believe in them. People do not believe in God, practice magic, or think that witches cause misfortune because they think they are providing themselves with psychological reassurance, or to achieve greater cohesion for their social groups. They do so because they think their beliefs are correct – that they tell them the truth about the way the world is. Nineteenth-century rationalist writers, reflecting the evolutionist spirits of their times, tended to explain the lack of rationality and the dominance of false beliefs in pre-modern worlds in terms of the deficient mental equipment of their inhabitants. Such people were"
"books begin), Cornelius Fudge, Rufus Scrimgeour, Pius Thicknesse (under the Imperius Curse, controlled indirectly by Lord Voldemort), Kingsley Shacklebolt (at first temporarily, but later known to be permanent) and Hermione Granger. The Muggles remain, for the most part, oblivious to the wizarding world. This situation is considered preferable to the alternative by wizards. Most things of magical nature are hidden or otherwise obscured from Muggles; others, such as Dementors, are invisible to them, although they experience the same depression and sense of manifest darkness and despair while near a Dementor. It is commented that Muggles generally dismiss anything they cannot"
"from a parallel world — ours — to apply the skills he learned in our world to magic. At other times, magic and technology do develop in tandem; this is most common in the alternate history genre. Patricia Wrede's ""Regency"" fantasies include a Royal Society of Wizards and a technological level equivalent to the actual Regency; Randall Garrett's ""Lord Darcy"" series, Robert A. Heinlein's ""Magic, Incorporated"", and Poul Anderson's ""Operation Chaos"" all depict modern societies with magic equivalent to twentieth-century technology. In ""Harry Potter"", wizards have magical equivalents to non-magical inventions; sometimes they duplicate them, as with the Hogwarts Express"
"is; he would kill his best friend if he got anywhere near him. A werewolf only responds to the call of his own kind. The only way that a werewolf can retain his sanity, intelligence and memory while transformed is using the Wolfsbane Potion. A Metamorphmagus (a portmanteau of ""metamorph"" and ""magus"") is a witch or wizard born with the innate ability to change some or all of their appearance at will. The talent cannot be acquired; a witch or wizard who has it must be born with it. Nymphadora Tonks and her son, Teddy Lupin are currently the only"