6.08.2008

ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND PRISONER OF AZKHABAN PART II

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There are a few changes at Hogwarts as Harry begins his third year. Hermione is taking a double courseload, including some that are taught simultaneously. Two new teachers join the staff: Professor Remus J. Lupin for Defence Against the Dark Arts and, to Harry, Ron and Hermione's delight, Rubeus Hagrid for Care of Magical Creatures. Lupin's lessons are enjoyable but Hagrid's soon become dreary. During the first class, Draco Malfoy is attacked by the hippogriff Buckbeak. Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy, files a complaint against Hagrid who then resorts to teaching them about the extremely boring animals 'Flobberworms'.
Black is still at large, and so Dementors patrol the school. Dementors drain happiness from anyone nearby, and Harry is particularly affected; he faints during a Quidditch match when they approach him and falls from his broomstick, which flies into the Whomping Willow's reach. Professor Lupin teaches him the Patronus charm to repel Dementors, should they attack him again.
Tension grows between Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley because Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, continually torments Ron's rat, Scabbers. At Christmas, Harry receives a superb Firebolt broomstick, and Hermione suspects Black is the anonymous donor. She reports it to Professor Minerva McGonagall, who confiscates the broom for testing. When the broom is returned some weeks later, the two boys try to make up with Hermione, but it goes wrong when Ron discovers Scabbers is missing; Ron blames Crookshanks. Hermione's heavy workload, meanwhile, begins to take its toll on her and she ends up doing the (for her) unthinkable: she accidentally misses a Charms class, and she drops out of another class, Divination, altogether.


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6.07.2008

ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKHABAN PART III

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Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, & Prongs
Shortly before Christmas, the Weasley twins give Harry their Marauder's Map, a magical document that shows every person's location within Hogwarts as well as secret passageways in and out of the castle. Harry uses a tunnel to sneak into Hogsmeade village where he overhears a disturbing conversation that Black was his parents' best friend and is his godfather and legal guardian. He was the Potters' Secret Keeper and he supposedly divulged the Potters' secret whereabouts to Lord Voldemort and murdered their friend Peter Pettigrew, as well as the twelve Muggle bystanders.
After Harry completes his Divination Exam, Professor Trelawney enters a trance and predicts that the Dark Lord's servant will return to him that night. Harry and Ron finally make peace with Hermione, but the trio soon learn that Buckbeak will be executed. When they visit Hagrid to console him, Scabbers appears, bites Ron, and Ron chases him to the Whomping Willow. A large dog attacks Ron and drags him and Scabbers into a hole at the tree's base. Harry and Hermione follow, finding a tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. Inside, Harry confronts Sirius Black, who, as an unregistered, and therefore illegal, Animagus, can transform into an animal at will. Lupin, who spotted the group on the Marauder's Map, suddenly bursts in and embraces his old friend Black. Confronted by Hermione, Lupin admits to being a werewolf and the Map's creator, along with Black, Pettigrew, and James Potter, the latter two also being illegal Animagi (a rat and a stag, respectively). Lupin and Black explain that Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew in his Animagus form. He is Voldemort's servant, and he betrayed the Potters, framing Black for the crimes. Harry is skeptical until Black and Lupin force Pettigrew back into his human form. Black explains he discovered that Pettigrew was still alive and escaped Azkaban to seek revenge. Harry stops Black and Lupin from murdering Pettigrew, believing that his father, James, would not have wanted his two best friends to become killers.
Lupin explains that Black was not the Secret Keeper. The Secret Keeper was actually Pettigrew who was able to convince people that Black was the traitor.


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HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKHABAN PART IV

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As the group heads back to the castle, Sirius Black asks Harry to come live with him, as he is Harry's guardian, permitting Harry to escape his uncle's home forever. However, the full moon rises, causing Lupin to turn into a werewolf. During the ensuing commotion, Pettigrew escapes. Black turns into his dog form to protect the others from Werewolf Lupin. Lupin flees, leaving Black badly injured. As Dementors move in to attack Black, Harry sees a mysterious figure in the distance cast a powerful stag-shaped Patronus, scattering the vicious creatures. Harry becomes convinced it is his father, or at least his father's spirit, who produced the Patronus. Black is then captured and taken to the castle where the Dementors intend to suck out his soul.
Hermione reveals to Harry that she was entrusted with a time-travelling device called a Time-Turner, which is how she was able to attend so many classes. Prompted by Dumbledore, she and Harry travel three hours into the past, watching themselves go through the night's previous events. They set Buckbeak free and return to the Whomping Willow. As the Dementors are about to attack the "other" Harry and Black, Harry realizes that the mysterious figure he saw earlier was actually himself. Armed with the new memory of his talk with Black, he casts the powerful Patronus that repels the Dementors. Harry and Hermione free Black, who escapes on Buckbeak as the two return to Dumbledore and resume their normal timeline.
Remus Lupin resigns as an angry Severus Snape, who has a childhood grudge against the Marauders, tells the whole of Slytherin House that Lupin is a werewolf. After Harry says good-bye to Lupin, Dumbledore tells Harry that Pettigrew is now in his debt, a fact for which he may one day be grateful. He also tells Harry that "all four Marauders were on school grounds tonight" and says that James Potter lives in Harry.


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6.04.2008

ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS PART I

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Harry is once again back "home" with the Dursleys, and his summer holidays aren't going to plan . The Dursleys have forbidden his broom, wand and all his school books. Harry Potter has not received any letters from his friends yet; Ron, Hermione. On his twelfth birthday (July 31), Dobby, a house-elf arrives to warn Harry that he will be in mortal danger if he returns to Hogwarts, confessing that he has been intercepting Harry's letters to make it seem as though his friends had forgotten him. Harry is still determined to return to Hogwarts, the best home he has ever known, so Dobby destroys the dessert for an important dinner party attended by Uncle Vernon's potential client and the client's wife. Harry is blamed by the Ministry of Magic for Dobby's charm and is told that if he does magic outside school again, he will be expelled. The Dursleys were unaware that Harry couldn't practice magic outside of school; now that they're no longer afraid of this, they lock him in his room and fit bars onto the bedroom window.
Fred, George and Ron Weasley rescue Harry and take him to the Burrow, the Weasleys' home. After a pleasant month together in the Burrow, everyone heads to Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station to take the Hogwarts Express back to school. To their shock, Harry and Ron are unable to enter the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. In desperation, they steal the family's enchanted Ford Anglia and fly to Hogwarts but crash into the Whomping Willow and damage Ron's wand. The semi-sentient car ejects them and their belongings and disappears into the Forbidden Forest.


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ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS PART II

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Heir of Slytherin
Events at school take a turn for the worse when the legendary Chamber of Secrets is opened and a monster stalks the castle, petrifying anyone who meets its gaze. According to legend, the Chamber was built by Salazar Slytherin and can only be opened by his heir, in order to purge Hogwarts of "all those who were unworthy to study magic" - i.e. Muggle-born wizards. Many suspect Harry is the heir of Slytherin, when he inadvertently speaks Parseltongue, a rare talent which he gained during Voldemort's unsuccessful attack on him eleven years previously. Harry himself begins to believe he might be Slytherin's Heir, as the Sorting Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin when he entered Hogwarts.
In order to discover the identity of Slytherin's Heir, Ron and Harry use
Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as Slytherin students, Crabbe and Goyle, as they think Draco Malfoy is the Heir. He isn't, but he does inadvertently provide Harry and Ron with an important clue about the Chamber of Secrets. Later, Harry finds a blank diary belonging to Tom Riddle and decides to keep it.
The attacks increase throughout the year, petrifying more students, including Hermione. All activities, including
Quidditch, are cancelled, and students are not allowed to leave their dormitories or classes without their teachers. A message written on a wall declares that Ginny Weasley has been taken into the Chamber, where "her skeleton will lie forever."
Harry discovers the location of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. He and Ron force
Gilderoy Lockhart to go with them. Once they find the entrance to the Chamber, Lockhart reveals that he is not the hero he pretends to be. He attempts to use Ron's broken wand to erase Harry and Ron's memories, but the spell backfires on himself. The ceiling caves in, separating Harry from Ron and Lockhart, and it is Lockhart whose memory is erased rather than Ron's and Harry's.
Harry reaches the Chamber of Secrets, where he finds an unconscious
Ginny and a ghostlike young man named Tom Riddle, who claims to be a "memory". Harry learns that Ginny, under the control of Lord Voldemort, opened the Chamber. Voldemort, whose real name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, imprinted his memory in an enchanted diary, in order to continue the work he began when he opened the Chamber fifty years ago — ridding Hogwarts of non-pureblood witches and wizards. Hagrid, a Hogwarts student at the time, was blamed for the attacks and expelled.
It is this fragment of soul in the diary which has set loose the
basilisk, the monster responsible for petrifying the students. The basilisk attacks Harry, despite his ability to speak Parseltongue; Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, arrives in the nick of time with the Sorting Hat, from which Harry draws out the mystic sword of Godric Gryffindor. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, destroying its fatal gaze, and Harry slays it with the sword. Harry's arm is pierced by the creature's poisonous fang as he kills it, but Fawkes heals Harry with his tears. Harry destroys the diary by stabbing it with one of the basilisk's fangs.


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ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS PART III

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Everyone petrified by the basilisk recovers, from Mrs. Norris on up to Hermione. Ginny recovers. Dumbledore dispels Harry's fears about whether he belongs in Gryffindor or Slytherin when he tells Harry that it is his choices that define him and not his abilities, and that Harry could not have wielded the sword of Gryffindor if he did not truly belong to that house. With Ron and Harry granted two-hundred points each for their adventure, Gryffindor wins the House Cup for the second year in a row. As a school treat, all final exams are cancelled (much to Hermione's dismay; she studied for nothing).
Dobby reveals he is the Malfoys' servant, and knowing their treachery, had been trying to protect Harry all year. Harry realizes Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when he encountered the Weasleys in a Diagon Alley bookshop. House elves can only be freed when their masters give them clothing; Harry tricks Malfoy into giving Dobby clothes by hiding Riddle's diary in his sock, remembering what Dobby had said on his birthday that his (Dobby's) owners would not even give him a sock, in fear of setting him free. Malfoy tosses the sock, still slimy from Harry's battle with the Basilisk, straight into Dobby's hands. Lucius Malfoy attempts to attack Harry when he realizes what Harry has made him do, but the grateful Dobby, no longer bound to obey the Malfoy family, intervenes and blasts Lucius with some magic of his own. A disheveled Lucius gathers himself and exits Hogwarts, declaring that Harry will soon meet the same end as his parents for his meddling.


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6.03.2008

ABOUT Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand and jellybeans that come in every flavour, including strawberry, curry, grass and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J K Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In the non-magical human world--the world of "Muggles"--Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is renowned as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoilt, pig-like cousin Dudley.
A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry". Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig ... and that's where the real adventure--humorous, haunting, and suspenseful--begins.....................................


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6.02.2008

HOW THINGS STARTED

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After leaving university I worked in London; my longest job was with Amnesty International, the organisation that campaigns against human rights abuses all over the world. But in 1990, my then boyfriend and I decided to move up to Manchester together. It was after a weekend's flat-hunting, when I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, that the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head. I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. To my immense frustration, I didn't have a functioning pen with me, and I was too shy to ask anybody if I could borrow one. I think, now, that this was probably a good thing, because I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them (although sometimes I do wonder, idly, how much of what I imagined on that journey I had forgotten by the time I actually got my hands on a pen).
I began to write 'Philosopher's Stone' that very evening, although those first few pages bear no resemblance at all to anything in the finished book. I moved up to Manchester, taking the swelling manuscript with me, which was now growing in all sorts of strange directions, and including ideas for the rest of Harry's career at Hogwarts, not just his first year. Then, on December 30th 1990, something happened that changed both my world and Harry's forever: my mother died.It was a terrible time. My father, Di and I were devastated; she was only forty five years old and we had never imagined - probably because we could not bear to contemplate the idea - that she could die so young. I remember feeling as though there was a paving slab pressing down upon my chest, a literal pain in my heart.Nine months later, desperate to get away for a while, I left for Portugal, where I had got a job teaching English in a language institute. I took with me the still-growing manuscript of Harry Potter, hopeful that my new working hours (I taught in the afternoon and evening) would lend themselves to pressing on with my novel, which had changed a lot since my mother had died. Now, Harry's feelings about his dead parents had become much deeper, much more real. In my first weeks in Portugal I wrote my favourite chapter in Philosopher's Stone, The Mirror of Erised.I had hoped that when I returned from Portugal I would have a finished book under my arm. In fact, I had something even better: my daughter. I had met and married a Portuguese man, and although the marriage did not work out, it had given me the best thing in my life. Jessica and I arrived in Edinburgh, where my sister Di was living, just in time for Christmas 1994.
I intended to start teaching again and knew that unless I finished the book very soon, I might never finish it; I knew that full-time teaching, with all the marking and lesson planning, let alone with a small daughter to care for single-handedly, would leave me with absolutely no spare time at all. And so I set to work in a kind of frenzy, determined to finish the book and at least try and get it published. Whenever Jessica fell asleep in her pushchair I would dash to the nearest cafe and write like mad. I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.Finally it was done. I covered the first three chapters in a nice plastic folder and set them off to an agent, who returned them so fast they must have been sent back the same day they arrived. But the second agent I tried wrote back and asked to see the rest of the manuscript. It was far and away the best letter I had ever received in my life, and it was only two sentences long.It took a year for my new agent, Christopher, to find a publisher. Lots of them turned it down. Then, finally, in August 1996, Christopher telephoned me and told me that Bloomsbury had 'made an offer.' I could not quite believe my ears. 'You mean it's going to be published?' I asked, rather stupidly. 'It's definitely going to be published?' After I had hung up, I screamed and jumped into the air; Jessica, who was sitting in her high-chair enjoying tea, looked thoroughly scared.And you probably know what happened next.


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6.01.2008

ORIGIN OF HARRY POTTER

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Harry Potter is a heptalogy of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the eponymous adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his best friends from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The central story arc concerns Harry's struggle against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents in his quest to conquer the wizarding world, after which he seeks to subjugate the Muggle world to his rule.
Since the release of the first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997, which was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States, the books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide.[2] The series has spawned films, video games and Potter-themed merchandise. As of June 2008, the seven book series has sold more than 400 million copies [3] and the books have been translated into 67 languages.[4] The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released on 21 July 2007.[5] Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the U.S. alone.[6]

The success of the novels has made Rowling the highest-earning novelist in history.[7] English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia, and Raincoast Books in Canada.

Thus far, the first five books have been made into a series of motion pictures by Warner Bros. The sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, began filming in September 2007, with a scheduled release of 21 November 2008.[8] The series also originated much tie-in merchandise, making the Harry Potter brand worth £7 billion ($15 billion).[9]


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