Harry Potter

Harry reaching out to his fans.

This article is about the book series. For other uses, see Harry Potter (disambiguation).

Harry Potter is a series of seven famous fantasy fables by British author/field lieutenant J.K. Rowling. The series tells the tale of Harry, the eponymous orphan boy wizard who somehow cheated death, and his two best friends as they attend a whacko boarding school of witchcraft and wizardry, learn a whole range of magical skills, and fight the dark forces of man-eating spiders, three-headed hellhounds, animated trees, noseless snake-like wizards, and Alan Rickman. The books follow Harry's life, from his early innocent childhood years of frequent abuse at the hands of his aunt and uncle, to his angsty teenage and young adult years as he graduates from wizard school, in which many, many of his so-called friends are killed brutally by the great pantomime villain Lord Voldemort and Harry's morally-grey teacher Snape. Harry also happens to have a spirit named "Deus Ex Machina" trapped inside his forehead's scar, which conveniently grants him near-unlimited power whenever he is in trouble and lets him embark on many firewhisky-fuelled adventures. In addition to the seven novels, the series also spawned seven eight movies (because, as we all know, 7 = 8), each unimaginably better than the last.

The series brought to mankind exceptionally genuine characters and never-before-seen themes, that made first-time readers hail it as the greatest set of words to ever be collectively penned. Some of its groundbreaking ingenious concepts include a tall white-bearded wizard who serves as a mentor to the heroes, midget-like creatures called elves, companions on a journey to end all evil, and calling the main antagonist 'The Dark Lord'. Filled with no plot holes and non-cliche themes of how love always triumphs above all ("all" apparently including three deadly curses, a huge evil wizard army, and the most powerful wizard that ever lived), it is one of the most successful book series of the 21st century. In reality however, love cannot conquer villainy; only soul music can, as it can anything.

Premise

Plot and setting

Hogwarts

The central character in the series is Harry Potter, a bespeckled nerdy looking smartass kid – the type bullies like to harass – that wants to be a wizard, though he lives at a council estate in Colchester. Like British politics and FIFA, the wizarding world exists in parallel to the real world and is shrouded in secrecy. The wizarding world also bears an uncanny resemblance to The Flintstones and The Jetsons, only with magical stuff acting as consumer appliances instead of dinosaurs and '60s sci-fi robots, and just like Scooby Doo, the police are dependent on teenagers to investigate mysteries and catch criminals for them.

Potter becomes a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a wizarding academy in Scotland, where most of the events take place between midge attacks, torrential downpours and political smears by the SNP for educating 'Th’english' for free, which they made illegal for all Welsh and English Muggles. 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 World of Warcraft, foot-shuffling monosyllabic moods, girls, athlete's foot, and being forced to get out of bed and go outdoors occasionally.

Characters

Do-Gooders

Harry Pothead and the Gallstone Problem

• Harry Potter – The series' protagonist, and the son of two rice huskers named James and Lily who were murdered by Voldemort. Harry is known for his nerdy glasses, meek personality, massive character shield, and peeled AC/DC tattoo on his forehead. He enrolls in the Hogwarts School of Craftsmanship and Pottery to become a potter, only to end up transferred to their wizardry branch when all of his pitchers come out pouring upward.
• Sir Ronald Duck-Bilius of Weasley – A gingerbread fool who is Harry's best friend; that is, the friend who's best-known by his peers as living proof that God doesn't exist. Beginning in book two, people call him Harry's lackey and it turns out that almost everybody thinks that is his actual name (Harry only calls him 'you'). His family forgets his real name in book four. Ron starts his quest to tell his name to someone else, but every time he tries to say his name, something generally absurd happens and cuts the event short. People may call him 'king', but most people believe he was born in a bin.
• Hermione Granger – Harry's know-it-all other best friend, who happens to be a girl. There's nothing between them, they're just friends; nothing more, nothing less. She possesses the 'plot device', a mystical artifact famed for its ability to counter the feared Wryter's Blok. As well as being the plot device, she is also a mudblood. Usually, mudbloods are not allowed into the wizarding world, but Dumbledore made an exception, as Hermione would ultimately act as a human shield for Harry in the second-to-last book.
• Professor Albus Dumbledore – The Headmaster of Hogwarts known for his eccentricity and subtle campiness. He took the position after retiring from his previous position, guide of a hobbit guerrilla army obsessed with finger jewelry. Snape kills him in book six, but who doesn't know that by now? Yeesh. He also recently came out as gay
• James Potter – Harry Potter's mother's husband's son's father's cousin's daughter twice removed. A popular playboy and mobster (therefore jerk), he is believed to have been killed along with Harry's mother, but actually left the story for a totally different story about surgeons during the Korean War.
• Molly Weasley – A raging, obnoxious soccer mom who gave birth to Ron, Ginny, Fred, George, Percy, Bill, and Charlie. Oddly enough, she has never heard of the sport football (or soccer in the states) and neither has her massive brood of Zergling-esque larvae. Despite having spent the entire series cooking dinner and doing woman shit, in a breathtaking display of authorial fiat she kills the most powerful witch in the world with ease.
• Fawkes – Dumbledore's pet phoenix. He is put to sleep by animal control after an outbreak of flaming avian influenza.
• Neville Longbottom – An unremarkable student that nobody likes or cares about. In reality, he had a 50-50 chance of being the main character, but unfortunately Voldemort He Who Must Not Be Named, using the questionable means of Eeny Meeny Miny Mo, decided Harry would give the series better readings, and chose him instead. Although throughout the majority of the books, Neville has no skills whatsoever and is called a noob by most of the other characters, in the seventh book he manages to summon a sword from a shabby old hat to strangle a snake.
• Fred and George Weasley – Ron's twin brothers who like pulling pranks; they are the men of every geek girl's dream. Fred was killed in an unrelated gang shootout in Liverpool after, in Percy's words, creating "the mother of all messes".
• Luna Lovegood – Harry's snorkack-obsessed friend who is cooler than he will ever be!
• Ginny Weasley – The girl Harry loves and marries (and hopefully divorces), as opposed to the more obvious guess of Hermione.
• Dobby – The son of Sméagol and Jar Jar Binks, Dobby is Harry's stalker. He worked for Keebler by baking cookies until constant attacks from the Rice Krispies elves took their toll on him. He wound up dead by means of an unknown accord; while he was evaporating elsewhere, a magical disfunction imbedded a knife into his heart.
• Cedric Diggory the Entertainer – Harry's mortal enemy #963 (Harry Potter Villain Union local 16) and later "special friend". A prominent member of House Fluffywifflepants, his death at the hands of Wormtail is ultimately blamed on FWISNH (Flying While In-a-Silly-Named-House), something that Harry considers to be a grave miscarriage of justice. He dies and is transformed into Edward Cullen.
• Hagrid – One of Harry's oafish, unethical, and bearded teachers, whose disability (gigantism) gives him permission to take a seeing-eye dragon into public places. He leaves the series in book six to play for the Chicago Bulls. Killed in a fight to the death with a cybernetically-enhanced Manticore, but not before tearing the monster clean in half and crushing its atomic power source with his bare hands. The explosion flattened most of Cumbria and damaged the Selkirk television transmitter, resulting in a population boom among the Scots because they had nothing to keep their minds occupied.
• Sirius "Seriously Black-Haired" Black – Harry's only parental figure whom became a famous rapper after Bellatrix pushed him into a mysterious curtain that transported him to East L.A. Harry's godfather who dies after Bellatrix pushes him into a mysterious curtain.
• Cornelius Fudge – The ineffectual Minister of Magic. He resigned in book six for embezzling government funds, and was replaced by Tony Blair Rufus Scrimgeour.
• Rufus Scrimgeour – The next Minister of Magic. At the height of the Second Wizarding War, he was beaten to death by Voldemort, who did not take kindly to his incredibly poor Welsh accent. Later replaced by Kingsley Shacklebolt.
• Professor Cuthbert Binns – The History of Magic Professor at Hogwarts, who told Hermione about the legendary Chamber of Secrets. He was cut from every film adaptation, not that it mattered.
• Kingsley Shacklebolt – The token blaxploitation character, with a name that seems straight out of a Quinten Tarantino movie. He once took 50 Death Eaters hostage in a train, demanding that their government remove their troops from Tibet. He and four hostages were killed in the resulting SAS rescue mission.
• The Sorting Hat – The talking hat who sorts Hogwarts students into their respective houses, via a ritual where he annoys others with his shitty poetry.
• Lee Jordan – Fred and George's friend who liked pulling pranks with them.
• Nymphadora Tonks – A member of the Order of the Phoenix, and Lupin's wife. She battled Hayley Williams in a Guitar Hero deathmatch to see who had the better hair color, but lost and was killed when Hayley got bored and started smashing her head in with her guitar.
• Cho Chang – A Ravenclaw student who joined Dumbeldore's Army, where she began a relationship with club leader Harry. Unfortunately, their relationship fell apart when Cho's best friend Marietta Edgecombe betrayed the D.A.; Cho was also suspicious over Harry's relationship with Hermione. She tried to get Harry back by assassinating Hermione in her sleep with a plastic knife.
• Kreacher – Sirius's house elf. He was captured by police during a raid on a dogfighting circle, and later humanely destroyed by pest control operatives.
• Remus Lupin – Shot by a farmer while eating his sheep (not in werewolf form).
• The Dursleys – Killed when their Volvo collided with a petrol tanker on the M1.
• Peter Pettigrew – Turned into Scabbers to evade being killed, only to get caught by a Swiss Army Mouse Trap.
• Charlie Weasley – Killed when the dragon he had flew into a Mcdonald's and caused Ronald to shoot him.
• Arthur Weasley – Killed by nerve gas pumped through the chimney whilst logging on to the Floo Network.
• Molly Weasley – Ron's kind-hearted, gentle mother. She later had the honor of killing psycho bitch Bellatrix Lestrange.
• Bill Weasley – Beaten to death by the police while resisting arrest in Bristol after attempting to bite several officers.
• Rita Skeeter– Literally wrote herself into a corner; after a week of being surrounded by her own obnoxious writing, Skeeter stabbed herself with her acid-green quill – which, apparently, contains actual acid.
• Fleur Delacour – Actually Joan of Arc in disguise, she was seized by police after an intense gun fight in which she killed 5 police officers.
• Sybill Trelawney – Tried to kill Umbridge, but failed when her spell went wrong, turning her into a Fortune Telling Machine. She can now be found in California.
• Viktor Krum – The Seeker for the Bulgarian National Quidditch team. While playing a game of Quidditch, he was accidentally sucked into the engine of a Boeing 747 and shredded.
• The Patil Twins – What's that you say? India? India is saying they were killed by Pakistanis?
• Percy Weasley – Died like Hermione, only cannibals would have preferred him boiled.
• Fred Weasley – Has been wearing the same underwear going on five years now.
• Hannah Abbott – A Hufflepuff student who was a prefect and member of Dumbledore's Army. After graduating, she became the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron, but was fired after being found guilty of phone-hacking her customers.
• Argus Filch – Filch is the caretaker and squib at Hogwarts. He has a cat, Frau Filch (yes, his wife is a cat). Assassinated by MI5 when they poisoned his flask. His beloved cat, Mrs. Norris, was huffed and then smacked hard against a tree. Mrs. Norris's husband, Chuck, overpowered the tree and ran to safety.
• Lucius Malfoy – Draco's Death Eater father, known for his luscious blonde-white hair. After 100 other Death Eaters were killed in an RAF airstrike on their manor, Lucius and Draco got cold feet and quickly renounced their old ways.
• Millicent Bulstrode – A Slytherin student who was a member of Umbridge's short-lived Inquisitorial Squad. She was diagnosed with dementia and locked in the psychiatric ward of Hoogivzanazpupeefok Hospital after being partially eaten by Petunia Dursley.
• Dean Thomas – Killed by MI5 after attempting to sell plutonium to North Korea.
• Gilderoy Lockhart – Ended up in the Mental Institution for Privileged Douchebags. Sylvia Plath was visiting one day, and he made a pass at her, so she smothered him to death with an pillow.
• Mad-Eye Moody – Suicide by slaughter-house machinery (while the poison took hold.)
• Dolores Umbridge – A Ministry of Magic bureaucrat who temporarily took over Hogwarts in book five. She was known for her cruelty, which she tried to mask with scones, tea, and kittens. She was later imprisoned in Azkaban for her corruption, and was soul-sucked a world record 2459 times by members of Dementors for Justice. Although she was killed in the fifth book, her grave was incinerated by a Korean A-bomb when Harry "accidentally" sent the Accio charm into a random direction.
• Nagini – Voldemort's pet snake, who contains one of his horcruxes. She died when Harry accidentally stood on her head and constricted her.
• Lavender Brown – A Griffyndor student who briefly had a relationship with Ron, who she annoyingly called "Won-Won". She later walked into a sauna, where she was locked in and roasted.
• Narsissa Malfoy – Went to Tokyo to try to ease relations with the Emperor, beaten to death by a group of angry geisha with Betamax video recorders after insulting the chairman of Sony.
• Prof. Minerva McGonagall – The Deputy Headmistress, Professor of Transfiguration, and Head of Gryffindor at Hogwarts. After retiring from Hogwarts, she now lives on the streets of Hollywood and goes by the name of Sparkles. See her for a good time.
• The Inquisitorial Squad – In the extended edition, it was revealed that they in fact were working for a massive galaxy-wide criminal organization, which was how they got their immunity to magic. However, they attempted to quit the organization, which promptly DESTROYED them with a MASSIVE cannon in space. YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CANNOT HIDE. This led to the resurrection of their victims, which enabled the corporate conglomerate (actually the same criminal organization) to be able to take more money from the fans with further sequels.
• Professor Sprout – Head of Hufflepuff House and Head of the Herbology department at Hogwarts. She was later arrested after a cocaine overdose and for snorting mandrake nip (the dirty lesbian).
• Antonin Dolohov – Was killed when the father of his 3 children, Salazar Slytherin, caught him in bed with Salazar Slytherin.
• Gregorovitch – Died after he ate a cucumber infested with e.coli and was vivisected by the German Army to try and remove it. Oops
• Professor Flitwick – The Charms master and head of Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. Later taken apart by furious dwarves.
• Madame Hooch – Tried to flee Hogwarts in a Grand Theft Auto-style escape, but her sense of direction was no longer what it once had been – due to being bashed in the head by bludgers for most of her career – and crashed her Ford Capri into a wall.
• Aberforth Dumbledore – Bled to death after his wife and favourite goat, Natasha, bit off his penis after a series of events that Aberforth could not satisfactorily explain before his demise.
• Gellert Grindelwald – Crushed by a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird after a midnight gay romp with Albus Dumbledore in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Centre; in the throes of passion, they failed to notice three American youths and a tiny robot sneaking into the Centre and somehow causing the Blackbird to come to life, stepping on Grindelwald as it assumed a robotic form.
• Blaise Zabini – Killed in a shootout between SAS operators and Russian terrorists at the Westminster tube station.
• 2James and 3Lilly Potter – clones of Harry’s dead parents, conjured up with the help of Dr. Manhattan, after Harry and Ginny learned that the damage caused by years of accidents while riding broomsticks in Quidditch had made them both infertile. Fans have pestered Rowling to write about both what Harry’s children will be like and what his parents were like as students; this way, she kills two birds with one stone.
• Albus Severus Potter – The bastard love child whose birth gave away Dumbledore’s secret, forcing him to come out of the closet, and admit to both having an affair and a child with Severus Snape. (What do you mean “how”? It’s called magic.) Adopted by Harry and Ginny, after his dad killed his other dad.
• Rose and Hugo Weasley – Children of Hermione and Ronald Weasley. Were separated at birth following the deaths of their parents (all of the original characters died, remember), in order to protect them from overwhelming publicity. The Ministry of Magic chose a foster home and secret identity for each of the children; Rose was sent to the planet of Alderaan to be raised a princess, and Hugo was sent to the desert planet Dune, to undergo Jedi training. Both of these new identities promise far more private and normal lives than being the known children of Harry Potter’s best friends would ever allow.
• Teddy Lupin – Born half a week after the rushed marriage of Remus Lupin and Nymphamaniac—er, Nymphadora Tonks. Having inherited shape-shifting abilities from both parents, Teddy can, under the light of the full moon, morph into any type of wolf of any wild color he so pleases. He uses these abilities to cause both amusement and mayhem at Hogwarts, to try and make up for the boredom that has come from Voldemort’s defeat. (Remus and Tonks named him to honor Tonks’ father after he was killed, not knowing at the time that they might as well just name him after themselves.)
• Victoire Weasley – Daughter of Bill Weasley and one of the French chicks that Fred and George were with the night they were killed (see their deaths in the list above). This particular French chick being Fleur Delacour/Joan of Arc. As part veela, Victoire has no trouble scoring with Teddy Lupin, the son of the hottest male from the first series. (The two actually do things worthy of a triple-X-rated video right in front of the Hogwarts express, but no one notices except for a disturbed Albus Severus, because everyone else is gawking at famous Harry Potter and his family.)
• Cho Potter – Bastardchild of Cho and Harry. She was adopted by the Dursleys and suffered a terrible childhood like her dad. She decided to join Hogwarts after Mr.Dursley "aciddentaly" falls on her. Despite the many MI5 plants she is wired to the KGB.
• Severus Snape – Harry's mortal enemy #3 out of 10000 (Harry Potter Villain Union local 12). He is a morally-grey character deserving of some pity, unless you've only read through book six, in which case he's evil. Second cousin of Miss Hardbroom from the Worst Witch novels, he kills Dumbledore in book six, but unless you've lived under a rock, you should know this several times over by now.

Dark Artists

• He Who Must Not Be Named – Harry's mortal enemy #1 (Harry Potter Villain Union local 42). We must not name him under any circumstances. Otherwise known as 'You-Know-Who', 'That bald git with no nose', or 'Voldemort'–damn it! Lord Voldy Woldy Mouldy Voldemort (once known as Tom Malovo Riddle) wants to kill everyone, has a mutilated face and preys on minors, and has at least seven pieces of his heart scattered across the globe. Rumour has it one piece was found in the Vatican in Pope Benedict's secret safe. His human self, Tom Riddle, died long ago when he gave himself to the Dark Side in the hopes that his new power could save the life of his beloved snake Nagini. Bellatrix hates when he uses her shower gel without asking.
• Bellatrix Lestrange – Harry's mortal enemy #3228 (Harry Potter Villain Union local 27) whose hobbies include hating mudbloods, torturing mudbloods, killing mudbloods, disemboweling mudbloods, basket weaving, being completely annoying, and ruining everything. She killed herself by leaping in front of the London to Manchester express after realising that Voldemort was never coming back from Edinburgh, but only after knifing every mudblood in Knightsbridge.
• Draco Malfoy – A Slytherin student who's Harry's mortal enemy #1822 (Harry Potter Villain Union local 22). He doesn't kill Dumbledore, because he's a wuss, but Snape does. Jeez. Hermione also punches him in the face (spoiler warning!). Then he turns good after his previous adversaries saved him from getting burned to death.
• Jareth the Goblin King – The latest teacher at Hogwarts, He teaches crystal ball juggling, as well as baby-snatching.

Books

Harry Potter and the Philanthropist's Stock Options

The British cover of the first Harry Potter book. Will Harry get through his first year, or will corporeal punishment be too much?

Harry, a small and especially irritating bespectacled child – who, in the Golden Age, would be down the tin mines earning his keep (bloody kids these days) – lives with his benevolent Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, and their slim, kind-hearted son Dudley who is always polite and gets good grades. Harry learns that his aunt and uncle are in fact the heads of a Masonic splinter lodge. To keep their secret well-hidden, Vernon and Petunia bundle Harry off to Hogwarts boarding school when he is visited in the night by Hagrid, a large bearded dwarf who tells Harry 'Yer a wizard 'Arry.' Harry is an aspiring trader, and one day dreams to work in the LSE by forcing his way through bribery, fraud, and other things you don't want to know.

On the drive to Hogwarts, Harry learns from Hagrid that his long-dead parents James and Lily did not in fact die in a car crash as the Dursleys lied to him. Rather, they were killed in a tragic fly-by shooting under the orders of Lord Voldemort (named after the sound produced by trying to yawn with a mouth full of marshmallows) during the First Wizarding War, and Harry got his magical scar from his mom imprinting it on him; the power of the scar allowed Harry to survive Volde— He Who Shall Not Be Named's assault and become "The Boy Who Lived". Hagrid and Harry stop for a bit at a pub, then Harry is taken to an ancient bank deep in the heart of London, where he learns his parents left him stocks and shares worth five times the amount of all the money in Paragon City. Not only that, but he has magic powers and, being a small child who desires wanton destruction above all else, is a danger to humanity.

One feeble explanation about 'mitochondria' later and Harry's off to the Hogwarts to master in witchcraft and wizardry (and also Quidditch). He is placed in a secret friendship club known as Gryffindor by a mystical piece of headgear known as the Selection Sombrero. On the way, he meets awkward weasel-faced Ron Weasley and know-it-all bookworm Hermione Granger, who, like him, have special powers and thus require secure detention. After indoctrination at the top-secret academy, they proceed to break all the rules, vandalise ancient works of art, and murder their Self-Defence teacher (as well as several other minor characters) under the excuse that they were 'saving the world' and 'He was Voldemort in disguise.' At the end of the school year, Slytherin has won the most points and celebrates in the Grand Hall, but Dumbledore rigs it at the last minute by arbitrarily assigning 170 points to Harry, Ron, and Hermione for their alleged bravery, and the Slytherin banners change to Gryffindor ones.

The American publication of the book was retitled Hairy Pothead: The Sorcerer's Stoned! in order to help less intelligible American audiences better understand the book, though it only served to confuse them further. The first printing of this edition left out seven chapters, as Scholastic believed American children had too short attention spans to sit through a longer book.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Music

Harry goes back to Hogwarts to get away from those mean Dursleys, which is dumb, considering he could've stayed safe at home with his mean Dursleys instead of battling Voldemort and all those old weirdos. While there, [Generic Evil Spell #28193] starts terrorising the students; once every month, on the full moon, one student turns into a classical musician, usually a violinist. At the end of the year, Harry opens a door in the girls' bathroom (for reasons best not disclosed) and discovers a chamber (not that kind!).

Inside the chamber, Harry discovers a younger Voldemort calling himself Tom Riddle. He defeats Tom easily, but behind him are four violinists, one pianist, one cellist, one bassist, and one cymbalist: a recipe for pure pain. Harry hates classical music so much that he sits with his ears covered for five minutes of page-turning pain. Summoning his courage, he does his bravest deed yet: uncover his ears and yell, 'Could you keep it down?!' After informing the violinists (Penelope Clearwater, Hermione, Seamus Finnigan, and Nearly Headless Nick), pianist (Filch's cat), cellist (Dean Thomas), bassist (Colin Creevey), and cymbalist (Neville Longbottom) of his agony, they are freed.

An unauthorized Dutch version of the book was released a month after, called Harry and the Chamber of Pot. In addition to minor (and pointless) spelling changes, this version also features a unique subplot involving Hermione's physics degree. The ripoff proved so intriguing that it, and not the original, was adapted for DVD. J.K. Rowling was so infuriated over the obvious copyright infringement that she purchased every copy of the direct-to-video creation, using them as Christmas gifts for his less-overtly-enthusiastic fans.

Harry Potter and the Plot Twist of Azkaban

The American cover of the third Harry Potter book.

When Harry senses a thousand voices 'crying out, and suddenly silenced', he goes to investigate. It turns out that notorious murderer Sirius "Seriously Jet Black-Haired" Black, the one who allegedly betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort leading to their deaths, has escaped from Azkaban prison and has used his magical powers of mass hypnosis to try to break the world 'simultaneous interrupted scream by a crowd of people' record. Determined to thwart this evil genius, Harry returns to Hogwarts, and along the way he has several close brushes with Dementors, ghostly cops draped in black (which automatically makes them the bad guys) who enjoy sucking out people's souls.

New teachers are introduced in this installment. Along with gay werewolf Prof. Lupin (no relation to The Third) who, quite convenient for Harry, knew Harry's dad who always took him out at night (if you know what I mean), there's also Prof. Trelawney who can predict the future, which Hermione calls bullshit. Somehow, she's seen werewolves, flying cars, people turning into animals, animate trees, moving stairs, animate paintings, a three-headed dog, and even has a damn time machine necklace which is used to save the day, and yet predicting the future is impossible for her?

Ron discovers that his pet rat Scabbers is actually Peter "Wormtail" Pettigrew, one of Voldemort's Death Eaters who has been trying to sleep with Ron for the past three years. Wormtail was a childhood friend of Harry's parents but ultimately betrayed them leading to their deaths, then zapped up twelve muggles on a highway overpass while escaping and framed Sirius for this; as it turns out, Sirius was the good guy all along, and is in truth Harry's godfather. The gang apprehend him but then Lupin uncontrollably turns into his werewolf form as the moon rises and scratches up Harry and pals, allowing Wormtail to escape. Harry is taken to the hospital where he learns that Sirius has been sentenced to soul-sucking by the Dementors. Fortunately, Harry uses Hermione's deus ex machina time-turner necklace to go back in time and save Hagrid's pet bird Buckwheat from being put to sleep, and the bird carries Sirius to safety. Unfortunately, Lupin is forced to resign because of his little episode, but tells Harry they'll meet again.

Different regional printings of the book include variations that suited the local nationality, including title and content changes. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Uzbekistan, Harry is arrested for speaking against Islam Karimov and is boiled alive until he confesses to being an Islamic radical (but ultimately, he is served as soup for Karimov's dinner). In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azerbaijan, Harry is locked inside a metal shipping crate in the sun and left for dead. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Turkmenistan, Harry accidentally offends Turkmenbashi due to the wording of a spell and is imprisoned for blasphemy. Other copies include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Guantanamo Bay also known as Harry Potter and the Iraq Incident in which Voldemort sells Harry to US Marines as a Taliban combatant; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Abu Ghraib where Harry is stripped naked and forced to cast spells on his privates; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of North Vietnam where Harry's Nimbus 2000 is blown out of the sky by a SA-2 attached to a blodger; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Finland in which Harry can't tell that he's in prison except for the constant reminders that if he ran away, the government would be 'very hurt'; and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Amazon, in which Harry is captured by Amazon.com and sent to Voldemort in an Amazon shipping crate disguised as a Samsung computer.

Harry Potter and the Giblets on Fire

Ooh, Harry, you kinky boy.

The book opens with Harry dreaming about Frank Bryce, a quaint old man who gets killed by Voldemort. Suddenly, the Weasleys rudely barge into the Dursleys' house and take Harry and Hermione to the Quidditch World Cup, where a majority British audience cheer on the Irish to victory. Unfortunately, the Death Eaters attack and burn down the tent city where the Quidditch Cup is being hosted, and it's off to Hogwarts we go.

This year, Hogwarts is hosting the Triwizard Tournament, where three students from three wizarding schools fight in three different events. At Halloween, the students submit their names in the Goblet of Fire; the three picks are Cedric Diggory, the popular guy from Hogwarts; Fleur Delacour, the token cute French girl; and Viktor Krum, the Soviet boy who represents the working class's discontent with the current dichotomy. That last sentence contains more words than those three speak in the entire book. However, it additionally gives a fourth name – Harry Potter – leading to Dumbledore yelling at Harry if he put his name in the Goblet of Fiyah while slamming him into a table calmly asking Harry if he put his name in the Goblet of Fire, and legally binding Harry to compete in the hellish tournament.

In a subplot, Harry becomes the victim of a smear campaign by Rita Skeeter of The Daily Prophet, which reveals he has dubious personal dancing habits. He is coerced into having "private lessons" with the official school mandolinist, Professor Drape, and narrowly escapes from a teenage romance with Fleur through the tactful deployment of a magic tesla coil. Harry also discovers that a group of anti-dementor protesters have adopted him as their official patron, and sets about prosecuting them over the rights to his image.

In the Triwizard Tournament, the students fight dragons, mermaids, and finally evil hedge rows in order to win the cup, all the while Harry is being helped by his obviously evil Defence Against the Dark Arts (DADA) teacher, Mad-Eye Moody. Harry and Cedric touch the cup at the same time and are mysteriously transported to the sinister Voldemort Egg Farm. A raging Wormtail murders Cedric and uses Harry as the victim of a diabolical scheme to get him to eat steak and kidney pies on national television, causing terminal embarrassment and, hopefully, death. However, the plan is (tin-)foiled when Harry ends up eating a vegetarian tofu pizza instead; Wormtail then stabs Harry and feeds his blood to a fire-breathing chicken (hence the name of the book). The chicken then lays an egg and it hatches, revealing a resurrected Voldemort (who's now missing his nose). Harry duels Voldemort then scrambles away from the egg farm with the help of his parents' ghosts, and escapes back to Hogwarts with the help of a deus ex machina Portkey.

Back at Hogwarts, Harry discovers that Moody is self-licking Death Eater Barty Crouch, Jr. and the real Moody was kidnapped; Barty is sentenced to death-by-kissing from the Dementors. Dumbledore holds a feast in Cedric's memory as the school year ends and the Second Wizarding War begins, though the ineffectual Minister of Magic John Major Cornelius Fudge tries to keep tabs on it to prevent public hysteria. Oh, and Malfoy turns into a ferret and goes into some guy's pants.

This book marked Lord Voldemort's return to world fame. He was ranked Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten Sexiest Terrorists, coming in at a close third to Osama bin Laden (#2) and, of course, Hans "Snape" Gruber (#1).

Harry Potter and the Organization of the Birdy Buddy

Prof. Umbridge pleasures in torturing her students.

With the death of Cedric Diggory and the return of Voldemort leaving everyone rather glum, Harry is awkwardly thrusted into the world of war when he meets the Order of the Phoenix, a sort-of wizard Justice League named after Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes. The Order comprises old characters like reformed Gary Oldman lookalike Sirius, gay bisexual werewolf Lupin, and googly-eyed middle-aged man who was captured and replaced by an evil clone in the last book Mad-Eye Moody, plus new ones like deep-voiced black guy Kingsley "Dumbledore's Got Style" Shacklebolt, noted for his silly Kwanzaa hat. Oh, and Harry's also put on trial in wizard court for performing magic off school grounds, but he's found unguilty, so it's really a waste of time.

In this year, Hogwarts suffers the loss of its two best characters, Fred and George Weasley, who dropped out of school to open up a prank shop. Stealing two brooms from caretaker Filch (while he was trying to mop up the swamp they'd conjured up in the hallway), the brothers escaped Hogwarts and took their "business" to South America. However, Just Kidding Rowling compensates for this loss with the introduction of two equally bizarre characters, spacey Hot Topic chick Luna Lovegood and Lupin's lover Nymphadora Tonks (who prefers only to be known by her last name, as her first name sounds embarassingly close to "nymphamaniac". The name "Lovegood" isn't much better, now that I think of it).

The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Prof. Margaret Thatcher Dolores "Dimple Dolores" Umbridge, is a real nasty piece of work, and forces Harry to write essays whose words cut wounds into his arms. She soon converts the school into a police state reminiscent of Stalin's Soviet Union (only with less vodka), replete with a student KGB and banning of all extracurricular activities, and Dumbledore flees the school, forcing Harry and his nerd friends to find a new way to effectively defend against the Dark Arts. Thus, Harry forms a secret club called Dumbledore's Army (which isn't actually an army or run by Dumbledore), wherein he and other nerds – wait for it – LEARN, with a series of obligatory training sequences. He also develops yellow fever for his club buddy Cho Chang, the only Asian in the Harry Potter universe, but she ultimately rejects Harry; apparently Rowling is trying to teach children everywhere that Asians cannot be trusted. Fortunately, Harry loses this Asian fever, forgets about Cho, and sets his sights on Ginny instead.

Finally, Harry and Hermione get back at child-hater Cum-Bitch while they're out on a walk in the Forbidden Forest, using the "Accio giants!" charm causing centaurs to come and take her away. The book climaxes with Harry and pals breaking into the Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries to find some prophecy/MacGuffins and rescue Sirius, as Harry had visions of him supposedly being in danger. Unfortunately, this turns out to be another waste of Harry's time, as Sirius is killed by psycho bitch Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange and falls through a shower curtain that's apparently the most secret thing in the wizarding world. As it turns out, this was all a trap set by Voldemort, and he prepares to deliver a killing blow to Harry. Luckily, Dumbledore returns from hiding and engages in a death-defying battle with The Dark Lord, but the villain escapes. Cornelius Fudge then arrives on the scene in his PJs, mad that his nap was interrupted and that Voldemort's return and the Second Wizarding War are now public knowledge.

Returning to Hogwarts, Harry gets all emo over Sirius's death and seems to have left caps lock on for the majority of what he says; that, or he has anger-management problems (understandable when your godfather just died). Harry then learns from Dumbledore that he was chosen over token unlucky student Neville Longbottom to be the series' main character, wherupon he seeks out Neville and teases him endlessly. Dumbledore also provides an unexpected plot-twisting revelation: "Harry, Voldemort is out to kill you. You and him are spiritual equals, neither can live while the other survives." The book ends with Harry sucking up his tears and realising he must kill Voldy before Voldy kills him, setting the stage for the final showdown.

A lighter-hearted, alternative version of the book was released in America, for young readers who just couldn't take the sadness of Sirius's death. It's called Harry Potter and the Odor of the Phoenix and it's about Harry and the gang trying to figure out why the phoenix smells so bad. It turns out someone bewitched his ashes!

Harry Potter and the Professor Formerly Known as the Half-Blood Prince

It's Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, and Voldemort is definitely back with a vengeance, which is annoying as by now Harry should be thinking less about saving the world and more about girls and smoking behind the bike shed. Instead, Harry finds his world of magic is yet again changing for the worse and Ofsted are starting to breathe down the necks of senior management. Wizards, witches, and Muggles are dying at the jaws of Voldemort's Death Eaters despite the non-efforts of the still-ineffectual Ministry of Magic to stop them. Double maths on a Friday is disrupted now that the war has started up, leaving the students struggling with trig and basic equations.

In spite of all the danger, Harry, Ron, and Hermione return to Hogwarts, resigned to the fact they will probably never be accountants now and have to face a career of sitting in a teepee on the outskirts of a small village curing warts instead. They get yet another Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Snape, who they admit, always seemed a bit wobbly when it came to deciding whether he should be good or evil or whatever. They begin their N.E.W.T. exam classes in preparation for life after Hogwarts, and Harry gets some much-needed Potions help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince. The term sees the re-introduction of the Slug Club, for nerds that prefer racing slugs to hanging around in town, begging for a local to buy them a half-bottle of vodka.

In the meantime, Harry questions his own feelings for Ron's younger sister Ginny, while trying to understand the effect it is having on his friends, who he will likely instantly outgrow once he finally feels Ginny's warm embrace. In another subplot, Hermione develops a case of gingervitis and finds herself falling for Ron, jealous of his new girlfriend Lavender Brown (who always calls him "Won-Won"). Yet while life at Hogwarts continues, the deaths also continue, with someone trying to bring murder weapons into Hogwarts, despite the plethora of lethal spells and mortally powerful magic wands, in the hands of out-of-control children. Danger seems to lurk around every corner, and Harry is as determined as ever to unmask it. Dumbledore takes Harry under his guidance and together they explore Lord Voldemort's past, a job that should have been done by the Department of Magical Education before employment, to find a way to stop him before it's too late. Harry also learns about Horcruxes, everyday objects containing pieces of Voldemort's soul, and also the Elder Wand, a super-wand owned by Dumbledore.

In the end, it turns out that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince and that he was a double-agent for Voldemort this whole time. He (spoiler alert!) KILLS DUMBLEDORE and flees as the Death Eaters torch Hogwarts. After Dumbledore's funeral, Harry is so bummed out that he decides he won't be attending Hogwarts next year, and instead will go on a rousing camping trip in England looking for Voldemort's horcruxes.

J.K. Rowling revealed to The New York Times that the book's original title was Harry Potter and the SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE, but felt that was too much of a giveaway, the same reason she scrapped Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Sexual Orientation. She also grappled with the title Harry Potter and the Land of Awkward Adolescent Embarrassment, but felt the book already said that for itself.

Harry Potter and the Deadly Gallows

The sample cover for one proposed title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Stargate.

“You want to kill me, don't you? Just pick up your wand — it's right over there.”

~ The Inquisitor on Harry's severed hands

Otherwise known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Camping Trip. When we last left the wizarding world, DUMBLEDORE GOT KILLED BY SNAPE, Malfoy constantly cried like a bitch, Voldemort went hog wild with his evil plans, and Harry finally started moving towards third base with Ginny (as if embarrassing his poor friend Ron with all his fame wasn't enough). After the usual exposition with Harry saying goodbye to the Dursleys (who can't find it in them to say goodbye, except for Dudley), a wedding is held between Fleur and Ron's brother Bill, but the Death Eaters show up and it all goes to pot. Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape and camp out in the English forests looking for Voldemort's Horcruxes; if you destroy all of the Horcruxes, Voldemort dies for good, apparently.

Meanwhile, Voldemort and his gang of black-cloaked skinheads kill the Minister of Magic and assume control of the wizard government. Colin Creevy, Dobby, Fred Weasley, Hedwig, Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody, Nymphadora Tonks, Wormtail, Crabbe (one of Draco's sidekicks), Ted Tonks (father of Nymphadora), and some other people die, George Weasley loses an ear, some stuff with the aforementioned Deathly Hallows happens, and Hogwarts gets turned into Auschwitz as Voldemort leads his army of the righteous in a crusade against all wizards, witches, muggles, squibs, and innocent bystanders in funny hats. After destroying the other horcruxes like Voldemort's toy horse collection, Harry and friends learns that one of the last horcruxes is buried in the Louvre Voldemort's pet snake Nagini, so they return to Hogwarts. There, they reluctantly save Draco and his foppish friends after they set the Room of Requirement alight, then the gang goes to the Hogwarts greenhouse where Voldemort and Snape are chilling out. Unexpectedly, SNAPE DIES when Voldy gets sick of him and has Nagini take a bite out of him.

Harry learns from Snape's memories that he was in love with Harry's mum Lily, but was bullied by James and Sirius. As a result he started to practice the Dark Arts and hang out with Voldemort, and also slipped up when he accidentally called Lily a mudblood, both of which drove her closer to James's side. Later, Snape fucked up again, revealing to Voldemort the prophecy of the boy who could defeat The Dark Lord (Snape didn't know it was James and Lily's son), which of course led to Voldy ordering the fly-by shooting of Harry's parents and Harry receiving his iconic tattoo scar. Saddened over Lily's death, Snape then worked as a double-agent for Dumbledore to protect Harry from Voldy, mostly because Harry had his mother's eyes. All these years Snape put up with Harry and his annoying little friends because he felt guilty over Lily's death, while doing menial chores for Dumbledore like doing his laundry, getting him a soda, posing as a Death Eater, and killing him because he was getting sick of life after 116 years.

Harry then finds out he's one of the Horacecruxises, and realizes he has no choice but to let Voldemort kill him. Harry goes to the Forbidden Forest where he meets the spirits of Sirius Oldman, Bi Werewolf, and his parents, who comfort him by saying death feels totally painless, and they're so proud of all he's done so far blah blah blah. Harry then goes to Voldy, seemingly surrenders, and allows The Dark Lord to use the Killing Curse on him. In the afterlife of Limbo, which apparently looks like a white version of King's Cross Station, Harry meets Dumbledore, who informs him that, rather conveniently, the horcrux part of him was destroyed when Voldemort killed him. Harry is then given the choice to stay dead or return to life, and as expected, he done gone and resurrected himself, selfishly not wanting to spend time with his parents and old friends.

Thus begins the absolute final battle. Voldemort announces Harry's death and demands the folks of Hogwarts to surrender. However, Harry reveals himself to be alive, and the two tango across the castle, with their faces morphing together as they tussle. Meanwhile, Ron's mom Molly finally kills psycho bitch Bellatrix Lestrange after she threatens Ginny, and Neville stops being useless when he draws the Sword of Gryffindor and kills the Nagini, saving Ron and Hermione. With all the horcruxes gone, Moldy Voldy becomes mortal; he shoots a Killing Curse at Harry, but it rebounds, culminating in Voldemort's death by...uh, flaking. After the battle, Harry explains to Ron and Hermione that in the last book, Draco disarmed Dumbledore, and since Dumbledore was the master of the Elder Wand, Draco became the owner of it. And Harry disarmed Draco at some point in this book, meaning, uh...Harry controls the Elder Wand now and its curses rebound off him? As a result of this inane plot twist, the Rebel Alliance Hogwarts folks bring down the Imperials Death Eaters, the Death Star Voldemort is blown up turned into dandruff, the Second Wizarding War is over, and all is well.

In the last book, a short epilogue presents this portrait of Harry in his Golden Years.

In the last few chapters, Kingsley Shacklebolt becomes the new Minister of Magic; Hogwarts is purified and converted to a megachurch under the pastorship of Rev. Billy Graham; the hippogriffs are captive-bred for poultry; Hedwig creates a political stir over logging in the Pacific Northwest; Harry's money is seized by the Inland Revenue for payment of back taxes; Kreacher is relocated to a Malaysian sweatshop; and everyone shags a lot and has kids. Harry and Ginny have three kids: James, Albus Severus, and Lily; guess Ginny had no say in what to name her own children. Ron and Hermione also shacked up and made two poverty-stricken children, Bill and Fleur had a daughter, Remus and Tonks's son Teddy has grown up and loves Fleur's daughter, and even foppish Draco found a woman to foster his son. In an epilogue, we see the Potter, Weasley, and Malfoy children being sent off to Hogwarts, where Harry tells Albus Severus he's named after brave men (Snape being 'the bravest', despite him being an abusive emo), and they all live happily ever after.

A 2007 article in the Shoujo Beat teen magazine reported that Rowling had arrived on the sound of the title before deciding on the specific wording and plot. Alternatives batted about included:

• Harry Potter and the Deadly Bellows – Queen Victoria returns to head Hogwarts, and all ragamuffin orphans like Harry are put in their place, working in a workhouse with lax safety standards, making bespoke monocles for gentlefolk.
• Harry Potter and Dudley's Tallow – Desperate for replacement suet for a candle-enchanting spell required to graduate from Hogwarts, Harry finds an unexpected source in his oft-annoying cousin.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Stargate – The first considered title, though it was soon dropped when Rowling was threatened with lawsuits by SciFi Channel. During the legal battle that followed, SciFi's alliance with the Goa'uld Empire is rumored to have given them the upper hand. Though the title was changed, many fans remain loyal to the original story, favoring Harry's final showdown scene fighting off Voldemort with a panzer to the one actually used in the book.

Originally, Rowling planned for every character that has ever appeared in any of the books, including Harry, to be killed at the end (except James and Lily Potter). However, due to the massive hype surrounding Harry Potter and high expectations for the last installment, Rowling decided to play it safe. Just before a mob of angry fans managed to tear down the Rowling estate, Just Kidding quickly announced that her final book came with an epilogue, which introduced the children of everyone who was screwed over in book 7, who will carry on the legacy of all the most popular characters. The lynch mob eventually forgave Rowling and released her, in exchange for a cameo in the next Harry Potter movie. (No one knows exactly what part this crowd of rabid fans has been given for the film. But they do know they will appear in the opening scene of movie 6, and it will require them all to be standing on a bridge.)

The following is a direct quote from the culminating fight scene between Harry and Voldemort at the end of Deathly Hallows, another masterpiece from J.K. Rowling that showcases the writer's skills of captivating modern day youth:

“

Voldy: [flies] Harry: u haxx0r ima report u Voldy: im 1337, u n00b _Voldy_ was kicked from server Harry: gg no re

”

Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash

Possibly the most riveting book of the series, this was the original draft of Order of the Phoenix, and quite possibly the best of the bunch. Readers of the book weren't able to believe that Just Kidding's first draft could have been so divine, and thus was attributed to the fictional "Botnik Studios" to keep the public masses from rising up against this beautiful–I mean, heinous "crime."

We start with Chapter 13, where we open with the Hogwarts castle, magically intensified wind, and an emo sky crying blood. Due to prior events, Harry's ghost is all that's left to wander the castle grounds. Ron, due to his ever-intensifying crush on Harry, was tap dancing to impress him, but, seeing Harry's unimpressed reaction, begins to stress-eat, consuming Hermione's family in the process-- a tragically disturbing moment for all involved. This solidifies Harry's anti-crush position cocerning Ron.

Ron is discovered to have ornithophobia when Harry describes him as "a loud, slow, soft bird" and is rather insulted by this, ending his crush altogether. It's a good thing Ron doesn't have arachnophobia though, because he's gonna be spiders and he knows it. Oh, also Death Eaters.

Hermione, performing possibly the only logical action in the entire novel, thinks to spy on the Death Eaters' meeting. They almost run into the meeting, but remember that witches don't climb. That was a close one; good call. The trio discover that the door is locked, and Mr. Staircase uses this opportunity to release his pent up frustrations, yelling the the door because of its closedness and asking it to substitute itself with an orb. This turns out well, as it inspires Hermione to shout "beef women" at the door, thus unlocking it. Again, Hermione is very logical.

It appears that the Death Eaters were not in fact planning anything, but discussing their deepest emotions, because oH RIGHT YOU FORGOT Death Eaters are people too. This discussion culminates with one professing their love for another; a kiss ensues, and polite clapping occurs. Then they all remember what they're getting paid for, and quickly discuss a haphazard plan to drain Harry's magic. It's stupid, but at least they have something to show Voldemort. Todd was on the brink of getting fired if he didn't get this report in, y'know. Very important stuff.

Harry thinks the Dark Lord is giving him a disapproving look and cannot bear the thought of his crush hating him. He rips his eyes out very melodramatically and throws them into the Forbidden Forest. One Death Eater waves around his very red "Hermione Has Forgotten How to Dance" shirt. The redness of it all enrages Hermione, and, snorting and rearing her head, she tackles the offending Death Eater to the ground, dipping his face in mud in a malicious display of bull-like strength and wits.

Whilst all this occurs, the much less important Ron throws a wand at Voldemort in a very pathetic manner. Everyone, including He Who Shall Be Named, applauds politely because Ron's self-esteem is already so low. It is said that Ron and Hairy abracadabra'd Voldy, but really it's just Harry. As he does this, he smugly dips Hermione in hot sauce, relieved that Voldemort is "[N]ot so handsome now." Ron flinches because he's weak-sauce. The Death Eaters are dead, because oh yeah Ron and Harry killed them too, but really it was also just Harry, but all this fighting has made Harry very hungry, so he eats half of the hot sauce-drenched Hermione, saving the rest for later.

Now we cut to the Great Hall. Chandeliers are moaning, mice mountains are exploding, long pumpkins of McGonagall are falling, and an eccentric librarian her masonry books is admiring. Dumbledore's hair creeps up to what's left of Hermione, finding her very attractive. A pig pulses like a bullfrog, purporting to be a Hufflepuff. No one falls for it. It is Hagrid now. The trio demonstrates self-awareness, saying that '[They] were the only ones that mattered, and he's never going to get rid of [them].' This is true. The castle floor seems to be a big magic pile, and who says it isn't, but the Dursleys aren't ever going to be there. What losers. Harry, looking around, falls down the staircase for the whole summer, grinning, 'I'm Harry Potter. The Dark Arts better be worried, oh boy!'

Ron realizes what losers his friends are, raising his self esteem, and becomes friends with Draco Malfoy instead, because he's much cooler. And they all lived happily ever after.

Spinoffs

You'll get what's coming to you, Satanic fangirls!

Even though J.K. Rowling stated she was only going to write seven books, she cleverly never mentioned that she need to have additional books as fillers. After the end of the series, Rowling released many bonus books and a compilation book on the main series after realising that she was hopeless at writing anything else and that she was running out of money. Rowling has also written two other supporting books under the pen name of J.R.R. Tolkien:

• Fantastic Books and How to Burn Them – Thought to be written after the author's loathing of other and far better written book's than hers.
• Windex Through the Ages – A timeline of how Harry Potter's owl Hedwig has used Windex in the past.
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Harry Potter comes back to fight his evil twin, Draco Malfoy. But sadly Draco is a ferret, and obviously dies extremely early in the book. Hermione wanders into the forbidden section of the library and discovers the Kama Sutra Wizard's Edition, and gets into a menage with Ron, Ginny, and Buckbeak. Dumbledore rises up from the ashes of Book 6 burnt by angry readers and smites the crap out of Tom Marvello Riddle, now using his real name in order to apply for a credit card at Gringott's. A riot is started by the residents of the Ravenclaw and Huffenpuff houses after being ignored for all these years. The rest of the book is taken up of how Harry Potter and a kid named Daniel Radcliffe look so much alike. Fans have pestered Rowling to write about both what Harry’s children will be like and what his parents were like as students; this way, she kills two birds with one stone.

Promotional movie poster for Harry Potter and the Snape's on a Plane.

• Harry Potter and the Snape's on a Plane – Dumbledore, drawing upon his magical powers of blatant copyright infringement, reappears alive in the Fangorn Forest (this is actually what happens in the series of short stories Lord of the Rings by J.K. Rowling). Upon flying home to stepchild Harry Potter, Snape learns of his revival. He makes a whole load of motherfucking clones (apparent reference to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones) of himself and puts them on Dumbledore's Plane, hoping to kill him once and for all. Dumbledore is played by Samuel L. Jackson in this book and in the movie, unlike the other books in which he is portrayed by Andy Serkis and state-of-the-art computer animation.
• Harry Potter and the Overdue Income Tax Form – In an exciting change of direction from the rest of the series, Book 9 is almost entirely comprised of the now-graduated Harry at his desk as he attempts to complete his tax returns for the year, having put it off until the night before the last posting date! The 8000-page book features such exciting moments as: Aunt Petunia offering Harry a ham sandwich, Cousin Oliver being transformed into a Casio XR-118 Graphing Calculator, Hexadecimal Mode!!!!, Harry and Ronaldo's Guide To Tax Form E1337, Harry scratching his head and wondering how the hell he managed to spend £140 at the garden centre. Particularly since wizards use galleons rather than pounds as a currency, Gordon Brown appearing on television, prompting a volley of muttered abuse from Harry.

Harry Potter and the Dining in Hell

• Harry Potter and the Dining in Hell – The Persian God King Lord Voldemort sends his vast armies to conquer Hogwarts. Only Harry Potter and his company of 300 wizards can stop them. Voldemort sends his emissary to convince the Wizards to give up their fight, but ends up getting poofed into the bottomless pit. Harry's famous line: "Hogwarts? THIS IS SPARTAAA!!!"
• A Night at the Hogsbury – In a semi-follow up to Hogwarts Days, Night at the Hogsbury had turned into a slapstick-like comedy with a Saturday Night Live twist and an M. Night Shyamalan twist. It's where the American teens-to-young-adults, Potter and Weasley, sneaking out of the house to go to Hogwarts, but Hogwarts was actually a night club. Does this ring a bell? They go on Hangover-like twists into a cut-off prevention of Harry getting slapped in the balls. They go on and sing What is Love on YTMND and on YouTube. Parody of A Night at the Roxbury.
• Harry Potter and the Invasion of the Radioactive Crumple-Horned Snorkacks from a Planet Near Mars – Harry and his "friends" are enjoying a lovely match of "snooker" with the giant squid, who is totally owning, when a meteor falls from the sky and blows up Hogwarts. Everyone except the 3 main characters dies a bloody death. Now it's up to Harry and Hermione to stop the mutated Crumple-Horned Snorkacks from taking over the world, because Ron is hiding in his closet clutching a copy of "How to be a Whiny Little Git" by Draco Malfoy to his chest.
• Extraordinary Bonus Book Special: Harry Potter and The Wizardry of Haruhi Suzumiya
• Pottermore – A lengthy tome, in which each plothole and continuity error of the entire series is patiently explained away by Harry to an audience of middle-aged men with National Health glasses and poor personal hygiene wearing pointy hats. Harry awards house points for well-behaved fanboys who accept his glib explanations, and disintegrates those who question him.
• Just Kidding Rowling has stated there may be a possible spin-off series, due to the recession and all that, 180 billion trillion pounds is not really going to see her through. To gain publicity, Rowling asked her readers to vote for the name of the new book, out of a possible list of 17-ish: Neville Longbottom: Enemy of the State, Neville Longbottom and the Chamber of Deathly Half-Blood Stones, Neville Longbottom: Ace Attorney, Neville Longbottom and The Case of the Missing Leafblower, The Nevster: Wizard's Last Hope, Neville Longbottom's Annotated Dictionary, and Neville Longbottom and His Bitch Hop into a Mysterious Taxi in West Yorkshire. Neville Longbottom: Enemy of the State is now available as a paperback! Harry experiences a mid-life crisis and Neville is forced to save the Wizarding World. Neville's sudden burst of skill comes from an experimental drug, which is slowly regressing and making him even more inept. If Harry sees Hedwig being killed by Neville in Hogsmead with a cauldron scrub brush, buy Book 7.12: Neville Longbottom and the Now-Doomed Wizarding World ($23.95, order now!).

Reception

“Brilliant!”

~ Harry Potter on the Harry Potter series

Harry Potter received critical acclaim from Millennials, Buzzfeed readers, and neoliberals who would never read any other book, and parallels were drawn between Donald Trump and series villain Lord Voldemort. However, the series' reputation was tainted when J.K. Rowling would make transphobic comments on Twitter, leading to many swearing off the series for good. By contrast, the Daily Mail developed a newfound appreciation for the books and called them "a wonderful children's series."

Harry Potter has been translated into all known languages, including Arabic, Inuit, and Swearing. Thanks to Krafty Witch Foods, wizarding snacks are also now available to muggles! Such foods include Harry Pop Tarts (Magical pastry with filling that changes flavor! Also with lighting shaped sprinkles), Butter Beer (Beer for kids! Who knew it would be a hit!), Bernie Bott's Every Flavor (They mean every flavor!), and Chocolate Frogs (Yummy enchanted frogs! Besides it's the cards you want!). Did you know that the Harry Potter book and film series have profited more than the operations of American Airlines over the past year alone? It's true! Also, did you know wands from the wizarding world are banned by the TSA? The films are banned in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, along with K-pop, and will result in an immediate sentencing to seven years of hard labor and 'recovery from Western ideologies', under Kim Jong-un's orders.

Contributions to the Occult

An example of a Satanic Harry Potter product made during the PotterMania hype.

The series was attacked by religious groups from the start, not because they disagreed with the mention of magic, but because the books were published with a fine leather binding with gold trim in a manner similar to the Bible, which made them feel insecure. In addition, many animal rights activists were offended by Harry's defeat of snake Voldemort and his endorsement of private school vouchers for Hogwarts. The publication of Harry Potter was also dogged by controversy after Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger claimed that it was blatantly plagiarised from their 1487 work, the Malleus Maleficarum. However, Rowling's lawyers pointed out in court that having been dead for more than 500 years, the only way Kramer and Sprenger could bring a suit was by the involvement of necromancy, and the two were dragged off to the stake.

Only a month after the first book hit the shelves, Satanic spies that were planted in the Christian churches of America took notice of how popular the books were. Wanting to take advantage of the opportunity, they came to meet at a Burger King in Little Rock, Arkansas, to discuss how to take advantage of the newest craze. This meeting would later be known as 'Satan's Rally of '97'. The members of Satan's Rally bounced ideas off each other, trying to figure out how to use the otherwise harmless fantasy story about a boy coming of age to promote their goals of indoctrinating the youngest of their congregation into the occult. Reverend Jim Carrey, halfway through the night, finally brought up the idea of using reverse psychology. They would make it seem that Rowling was meaning to indoctrinate the children into the Church of Satan, and they would meanwhile demonize her.

Since kids are little idiots and will indulge in whatever they are not allowed to have, this plan worked wonders for the Satanic community. Children across the country were buying the books behind the backs of their parents. Since the church-seeded spies insisted that reading the books would turn the people who read them into witches, the children were not far behind in following those orders. Although Rowling was upset at the slander at first, she soon found out that her books were more popular than ever before. Her morals were soon drowned out by the large pile of money that she sleeps on to this very day.

Interpretations

Marxist interpretation

Accio means of production!

Much discussion has exposed J.K. Rowling as an obvious Marxist, attempting to pollute the minds of our youth with Communist propaganda. The "pureblood" Slytherins represent the aristocracy, who believe that "magic" (i.e. capital) should be in the hands of a privileged elite. The "clever" Ravenclaws represent the bourgeoisie, who collude with the aristocracy in the suppression of the petty-bourgeois Hufflepuffs and the proletarian house-elves. The brave Gryffindors (who wear red Quidditch robes) and Dumbledore's Army represent the Red Army, the true army of the proletariat.

Dumbledore, with his voluminous white beard, obviously stands for Karl Marx, while Harry's glasses and untidy black hair make him identical to Leon Trotsky. Harry's lightning-bolt scar is in reference to the fatal head wound inflicted on Trotsky by Ramón Mercader with an ice pick. Harry survives this attack, just as the Totskyist ideal has survived in Rowling's twisted commie mind.

Note the Gryffindor house song:

“

Sung to "The Internationale" Theme Arise purveyors of the broomsticks, Arise ye caster of the spells, For Gryffindor revolt now thunders, And at last ends Slytherin! So bring forth a Quiddich battle, Servile potions arise arise, We'll change forth with the old conditions, And wizarding gains the prize, Chorus So wandsmen come now rally, And the next fight let us face, The House of Gryffindor unites the wizard race. So wandsmen come rally, And the next fight let us face, The House of Gryffindor unites the wizard race!

”

Star Wars interpretation

The originality of Harry Potter made clear.

• Harry = Luke Skywalker
• Ron & Hermione = Han & Leia
• Sirius = Obi-Wan
• Dumbledore = Yoda. Well, a GAY Yoda.
• Lord Voldemort = Darth Vader
• Rubeus Hagrid = Chewbacca
• Snape = Lando

Yes kids, it really is that simple.

See also

• J.K. Rowling
• UnBooks:Dirty Harry Potter
• UnBooks:Catholic Church's Version of Harry Potter
• HowTo:Write a Harry Potter Ripoff
• Harry Potter (movies)