Portal:Harry Potter/Selected article/Archive
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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them : English author J. K. Rowling wrote Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to benefit the British charity Comic Relief. About 20% of the cover price of each book sold goes directly to poor children in various places around the world. According to Comic Relief, sales from this book and its companion Quidditch Through the Ages have raised £15.7 million. In a 2001 interview with publisher Scholastic, Rowling stated that she chose the subject of magical creatures because it was a fun topic for which she already had developed a lot of information.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a fictional school of magic that is the main setting of the Harry Potter series. Hogwarts is the only known school of magic in the British Isles, training the children of the United Kingdom possessing magical abilities to become fully qualified witches and wizards.
A magical quill at Hogwarts detects the birth of magical children, and writes their names into a large parchment book. Every year, a teacher (in recent years, Professor McGonagall) checks this book and sends a letter to the children who will have turned eleven years old by 31 August. The student body of Hogwarts is divided into four Houses, each named after the wizard or witch who founded it. Because students spend nearly all their time at school with fellow members of their own house, this is a very important part of Hogwarts.
Unforgivable Curses are some of the most powerful Dark Arts spells known in the fictional world of Harry Potter. Commonly used by the villains, such as Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters, their use inspires horror and great fear amongst others. The curses are so named because their use is - except by Ministry of Magic authorisation - forbidden and literally unforgivable in the Wizarding World. Use of any of these spells on any human being can carry a life-sentence in the magical wizard's prison of Azkaban. These curses are thus very rarely used openly. Since the spells are very powerful, their use requires a strong desire to bring about the effects, a directed will, and great skill. The three unforgivable curses are Avada Kedavra (The Killing Curse), Crucio (The Cruciatus Curse), and Imperio (The Imperius Curse).
A Horcrux is a fictional magical object in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. It is a Dark Magic device created for the purposes of attaining immortality. The concept is introduced in the sixth novel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though Horcruxes are present in earlier novels without being identified as such. Rowling uses the character Horace Slughorn to introduce their properties. The retrieval and destruction of Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes forms the main focus of the final two books in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
April 2008 Since first coming to wide notice in the late 1990s, the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling has engendered a number of legal disputes. Rowling, her publishers and Time Warner, the owner of the rights to the Harry Potter films, have taken numerous legal actions to protect their copyright, and also have fielded accusations of copyright theft themselves. The worldwide popularity of the Harry Potter series has led to the appearance of a number of locally produced, unauthorised sequels and other derivative works, sparking efforts to ban or contain them. While these legal proceedings have countered a number of cases of outright piracy, other attempts have targeted not-for-profit endeavours and have been criticised as a result as too draconian.
J. K. Rowling is a British writer and author of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold nearly 400 million copies. The 2007 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £545 million, ranking her as the 136th richest person and the 13th richest woman in Britain. Forbes has named Rowling the second-richest female entertainer in the world, and ranked her as the 48th most powerful celebrity of 2007. Time named Rowling as a runner-up for their 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain and One Parent Families. Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated $15 billion (£7 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson (born 15 April 1990) is a French-born English actress who rose to prominence playing Hermione Granger, one of three starring roles in the Harry Potter film series. Watson was cast as Hermione at the age of nine, having acted only in school plays. From 2001 to 2007, she starred in five Harry Potter film installments alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. She will return for the final three installments: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due to be released in 2008, and the two parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Watson's work in the Harry Potter series has earned her several awards and more than £10 million.
