THE HOGWARTS GHOSTS, LIVING BETWEEN SPECTRUMS

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have met the ghosts of Hogwarts. They are amazing kind nice people who have answered all the questions that the family have asked.

Hogwarts houses at least twenty ghosts, but when people in the novels speak of the ghosts at Hogwarts they usually refer to one of the four resident ghosts of the Hogwarts houses: Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington or, as the students refer to him, Nearly Headless Nick, the almost beheaded ghost of Gryffindor house; the Bloody Baron, who is the ghost of Slytherin house; the jovial Fat Friar, who is the ghost of Hufflepuff house; and the Grey Lady, who in life was Helena Ravenclaw, the ghost of Ravenclaw house. These ghosts seem to act as something like advisers and aides to the students; Nick frequently helps Harry during moments of uncertainty or crisis.

Despite animosity between the houses, their respective ghosts get along well with each other. Nearly Headless Nick is respectful of the Bloody Baron and claims that he cannot imagine starting a fight with him, while the Fat Friar pleads on behalf of Peeves the Poltergeist to allow him to come to the welcome feasts despite his past wrongdoings. During The Deathly Hallows, Nick is protective of Helena and only reluctantly tells Harry how to find her.

More information: Wizarding World

The Bloody Baron is the Slytherin House ghost. He is the only person besides Dumbledore and Fred and George Weasley who can exert any control over the poltergeist Peeves; Peeves is terrified of him for some unknown reason, referring to him as Your Bloodiness and Mr Baron.

The Baron's nickname comes from the fact that he is covered with blood, which appears silvery on his ghostly form. When Nearly Headless Nick is asked in the first book why the Baron is so bloody, Nick delicately comments that he has never asked.

However, this is explained in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Helena Ravenclaw (the Grey Lady) tells Harry that the Baron had been in love with her when the two were alive, and when she ran off with her mother's diadem, Rowena Ravenclaw sent the Baron after her, knowing he would not stop until Helena was found. When Helena refused to return with him, however, the Baron killed her in a fit of rage, and then, in remorse, killed himself with the same weapon. He has thus haunted Hogwarts ever since, wearing his ghostly chains as a form of penance.

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The Fat Friar is the Hufflepuff House ghost. He is a jolly man and very forgiving, frequently suggesting that Peeves be given another chance, or forgiven for any mishaps.

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The Grey Lady is the Ravenclaw House ghost. According to a letter written by Rowling to Nina Young, the actress who played the Grey Lady in the first film, she is a highly intellectual young lady... She never found true love as she never found a man up to her standards.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows reveals that the Grey Lady is Helena Ravenclaw, daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, making her the only house ghost known to be related to one of the Hogwarts founders. She informs Harry that she stole the Diadem of Ravenclaw from her mother, in an attempt to become smarter than her, and then went into hiding in Albania. It was a dying Rowena Ravenclaw's wish to see her daughter again, and so she sent for the Bloody Baron to look for her, knowing that he would not rest until he brought her back, partly because he was in love with her. However, she refused to come with the Baron and, in a moment of blind rage, he killed her with a single stab-wound to the chest.

Overcome with remorse, the Bloody Baron killed himself using the same weapon in turn and wears chains as penitence, as he should, the Grey Lady says. The diadem remained in the hollow of a tree in an Albanian forest until Tom Riddle managed to charm the story out of the Grey Lady. Riddle, who had been seeking historically significant objects to make into Horcruxes, later retrieved the diadem from Albania and hid it in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts while visiting the castle years later.

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Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington KG, often referred to as Nearly Headless Nick, Nick, or Sir Nicholas, is the Gryffindor House ghost who in life was sentenced to death by beheading after a teeth-straightening spell went awry on Lady Grieve. Unfortunately, the executioner's axe was blunt and Nick's head was still attached to his neck by a thin strip of skin after 45 chops.

Harry becomes friends with Nick when he attends his deathday party -the 500th anniversary of the event- in a Hogwarts dungeon. Nick's death date (31 October 1492) had the distinction of having served as the basis for the entire chronology of the Harry Potter stories, until the timeline was confirmed by James and Lily's headstone in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. His greatest wish is to become a member of the Headless Hunt, as mentioned in the second book.

However, he is excluded due to the fact that he is not actually headless, he is nearly headless, and would never be completely able to participate in the activities such as Head Polo.

In Chamber of Secrets, Nick is a victim of the Basilisk that Ginny Weasley unleashes under the influence of Tom Riddle. The stare of the Basilisk is lethal to anyone who looks it directly in the eye. All of its living victims meet its gaze indirectly, either from a reflection or by seeing it through something else, and are only petrified rather than killed.

Nick is the only one to look directly at the Basilisk, but he too is petrified since he is a ghost and cannot die again. Nick also protected Hufflepuff student Justin Finch-Fletchley from death after Justin saw the basilisk's eyes through Nick's transparent body, thus only petrifying him as well.

The character appears again in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Harry has been looking for comfort upon Sirius' death, hoping he can see him later as a ghost. Nick explains that only witches and wizards who fear death and refuse to go on can become ghosts, dashing Harry's hope of communicating with Sirius. He appears briefly in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Harry asks Nick to bring him to the Grey Lady.

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Download The Hogwarts Ghosts, Living Between Spectrums (Exercise 4)

 

 

 Even the Hogwarts ghosts avoid it.

I asked Nearly Headless Nick…

he says he’s heard a very rough crowd live here.

No one can get in.

Fred and George tried, obviously,

but all the entrances are sealed shut…

Ron Weasley

GRYFFINDOR, HUFFLEPUFF, RAVENCLAW & SLYTHERIN

Today, The Weasleys and The Grandma have visited Hogwarts guided by Professor Albus Dumbledore, its Headmaster and Professor Rubeus Hagrid, its Guard. 

They have been talking about its four Houses, their history, members, values and rooms. It has been an amazing interesting day.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was divided into four houses: Gryffindor, founded by Godric Gryffindor; Hufflepuff, founded by Helga Hufflepuff; Ravenclaw, founded by Rowena Ravenclaw; and Slytherin, founded by Salazar Slytherin.

More information: Wizarding World

Gryffindor is one of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was founded by Godric Gryffindor.

Gryffindor instructed the Sorting Hat to choose students possessing characteristics he most valued, such as courage, chivalry, and determination, to be sorted into his house. Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, also known as Nearly Headless Nick is the House ghost.

Gryffindor corresponds roughly to the element of fire, and it is for this reason that the colours scarlet and gold were chosen to represent the house. The colour of fire corresponds to that of a lion as well, with scarlet representing the mane and tail and gold representing the coat.

The emblematic animal is a lion, and its colours are scarlet and gold.

Gryffindors and Slytherins have shared a fierce house rivalry since their founders, Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin, respectively, had a severe falling out over Slytherin's emphasis on blood purity. There might also be an element of feeling wronged, as Harry and his fellow Gryffindors tend to win in a lot of circumstances which, when viewed from a neutral point of view, may be considered unfair.

The Gryffindor Common Room is located in one of the castle's towers (Gryffindor Tower), the entrance to which is located on the seventh floor and is guarded by an oil painting of the Fat Lady, who is garbed in a pink silk dress. She permits entry only after being given the correct (regularly changing) password. Behind her painting is a large common room, with a fireplace, and two staircases leading up to the girls' and boys' dormitories. There is a spell on the girls' staircase that prevents boys from using it; however, there is no such enchantment on the staircase to the boys' dormitory, allowing girls to use it whenever they wish, due to the founders' belief that girls were more trustworthy. The common room is very comfortable, and members of the Gryffindor house meet there for study groups, celebrations, or relaxation. The walls are lined with portraits, each one depicting a previous or current Head of Gryffindor.

The head of house before and during Harry Potter's time was Minerva McGonagall. Minerva became the head of house possibly in 1956, when she was appointed Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, taking over Albus Dumbledore's previous teaching position when he became Headmaster. It is unknown who later became the head of house when she was made Headmistress in 1998 following the end of the Second Wizarding War.

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 You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry,
Set Gryffindors apart...
 

Hufflepuff is one of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Its founder was the medieval witch Helga Hufflepuff.

Hufflepuff is the most inclusive among the four houses; valuing hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, and fair play rather than a particular aptitude in its members. Students in Hufflepuff are known to value everyone and treat them as equal.

Hufflepuff corresponds roughly to the element of earth, and it is for that reason that the House colours were chosen: yellow represented wheat, while black was emblematic of soil. The Hufflepuff point hourglass contains yellow diamonds. Students sorted into Hufflepuff often demonstrate exceptional abilities in Herbology, owing to their correspondence to earth.

The emblematic animal is a badger, and yellow and black are its colours.

Hufflepuff appears to have the least rivalry with the other houses, except in Quidditch, although the Triwizard Tournament did temporarily put a great deal of strain on the relationship between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, due to unusual circumstances of the selection of both Gryffindor student Harry Potter and Hufflepuff student Cedric Diggory as Champions. This was mended by 1998, where a majority of Hufflepuffs rose to defend Harry from Pansy Parkinson and later helped to defend Hogwarts.

Hufflepuff is the house that produced the fewest dark wizards through out its history. Their cheerful and friendly demeanor can probably account for this property of the House. Hufflepuff firmly demonstrated its loyalty during the Battle of Hogwarts in 1998, when they were second only to Harry Potter's own house of Gryffindor in the number of students willing to stay and fight against Voldemort and his forces in the defence of their school. The Hufflepuff dormitories and common room have never been seen by outsiders and is the only house with repelling devices in case of intruders. They are accessed through a pile of large barrels, found stacked in a shadowy stone recess on a right-hand side corridor near the kitchens. The barrel two from the bottom, middle of the second row, will open if tapped in the rhythm of Helga Hufflepuff.
 

The Hufflepuff's head of house before and during Harry Potter's time was Pomona Sprout. She was the Herbology professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

More information: Wizarding World

 

 

 You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,
And unafraid of toil...
 

Ravenclaw is one of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Its founder was the medieval witch Rowena Ravenclaw.

Members of this house are characterised by their wit, learning, and wisdom. Ravenclaw House prizes learning, wisdom, wit, and intellect in its members. Thus, many Ravenclaws tend to be academically motivated and talented students. They also pride themselves on being original in their ideas, and methods. It's not unusual to find Ravenclaw students practising especially different types of magic that other houses might shun. Ravenclaws tend to be curious about the world and pay attention to the world around them. Ravenclaws are known to be logical and rational.

Ravenclaw corresponds roughly to the element of air, and it is for that reason that the House colours were chosen; blue and bronze represent the sky and eagle feathers respectively, both having much to do with air. The Ravenclaw points hourglass contains blue sapphires.

The emblematic animal symbol is an eagle, and blue and bronze are its colours.

Ravenclaw House appears to have little rivalry with the other houses, except in Quidditch. Harry Potter believed that they tended to side with Gryffindor in its rivalry with Slytherin, as did Hufflepuff house.

The Ravenclaw common room is in one of the castle's towers and is wide and circular. You have to climb a tight spiral staircase to get there. It has graceful arched windows, and the walls are hung with blue and bronze silks. The domed ceiling is painted with stars, which are echoed in the midnight-blue carpet. Tables, chairs, and bookcases cover the expanse of the floor, and a white marble statue of Rowena Ravenclaw sits next to the door that leads to the dormitories above. Harry Potter entered the common room in 1998 while searching for clues to the location of one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Unlike the other common rooms in the school, a logical riddle given by a bronze eagle-shaped knocker must be answered to enter.

The Head of Ravenclaw is Filius Flitwick and the house ghost is the Grey Lady, otherwise known as the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena Ravenclaw.

More information: Wizarding World

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind...
 

Slytherin is one of the four Houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, founded by Salazar Slytherin.

In establishing the house, Salazar instructed the Sorting Hat to pick students who had a few particular characteristics he most valued. Slytherins tend to be ambitious, shrewd, cunning, strong leaders, and achievement-oriented. They also have highly developed senses of self-preservation. This means that Slytherins tend to hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes before deciding exactly what should be done.

Slytherin corresponds roughly with the element of water due to serpents being commonly associated with the sea and lochs in western European mythology, as well as serpents being physically fluid and flexible animals. Similarly, in Celtic mythology, water is seen as a portal to another world, leading some to speculate that the element was chosen to symbolise many Slytherins' hope for a pure-blood only community. The colours also correspond with waters around lakes and lochs often being green, and silver being often associated with grey rainwater.

The emblematic animal of the house is a snake and its colours are green and silver.

Slytherin and Gryffindor are generally rivals in Quidditch and for the House Cup, of which the former had won seven years in a row prior to Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts in 1991. It is also rare for Slytherin and Gryffindor students to be friendly with one another, and is also quite common for them to share animosity. There are exceptions, such as Slytherin Merlin who had a friendship with Gryffindor Sir Cadogan and Slytherin Severus Snape and Gryffindor Lily Evans, who were best friends until Snape's use of the slur Mudblood as well as his aspirations to be a Death Eater caused Lily to sever their ties. 

The Slytherin common room is in the dungeons of Hogwarts Castle and underneath the Black Lake. Because of this, the light in the common room is green. Harry Potter along with Ron Weasley entered the common room in his second year to find out if Draco Malfoy was the one opening the Chamber of Secrets. To enter the Slytherin common room one must merely speak aloud the current password in front of a stretch of a damp stone wall; once the word is uttered a concealed stone door will slide aside leaving a rectangular hole in the wall leading to the Slytherin common room.

Slytherin's head of house for Harry's first six years of school was Severus Snape; however, as he fled with the Death Eaters at the end of Harry's sixth year, Potions Master Horace Slughorn became the head of Slytherin House.

More information: Wizarding World

Download Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw & Slytherin (Exercise 3)

Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You'll make your real friends,
These cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends.

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

QUIDDITCH, FLYING BETWEEN BROOMSTICKS AND BALLS

Today The Weasleys & The Grandma have been invited to watch a quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. They have enjoyed a lot discovering this interesting game and learning its rules. Harry Potter (Gryffindor) is one of the best seekers and Draco Malfoy is his great rival (Slytherin).

Quidditch is a fictional sport invented by author J. K. Rowling for her fantasy book series Harry Potter. It is a dangerous but popular sport played by witches and wizards riding flying broomsticks. Matches are played on a large oval pitch with three ring-shaped goals of different heights on each side, between two opposing teams of seven players each: three Chasers, two Beaters, the Keeper, and the Seeker. There are three different balls: the Quaffle, the two Bludgers, and the Golden Snitch.

The Chasers and the Keeper respectively score with and defend the goals against the Quaffle; the two Beaters bat the Bludgers away from their teammates and towards their opponents; and the Seeker locates and catches the Golden Snitch, whose capture simultaneously wins the Seeker's team 150 points and ends the game. The team with the most points at the end wins.

Harry Potter plays as Seeker for his house team at Hogwarts. Regional and international Quidditch competitions are mentioned throughout the series. Aspects of the sport's history are revealed in Quidditch Through the Ages, published by J. K. Rowling in 2001 to benefit Comic Relief.

More information: Wizarding World

A real-life version of the game has been created, in which the players use brooms, but run instead of flying.

Rowling came up with the sport in a Manchester hotel room after a row with her then-boyfriend. She explained: I had been pondering the things that hold a society together, cause it to congregate and signify its particular character and knew I needed a sport.

Rowling claims that the word Quidditch is not derived from any particular etymological root, but was the result of filling five pages of a notebook with different words beginning with Q.

The final Quidditch scene in the books appears in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Rowling experienced fiendish glee writing this scene, which features memorable commentary by Luna Lovegood.

In 2014 Rowling started publishing a series of match reports from the Quidditch World Cup on Pottermore, culminating in a short story about the final featuring the return of Harry, Ron, Hermione and their friends as adults. This generated interest from several media outlets, as it was the first new writing about the Harry Potter characters since the end of the series in 2007.

Quidditch is introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and is a regularly recurring feature throughout the first six books. It is depicted as being played by both professionals as in tournaments like the Quidditch World Cup and amateurs.

A major motif of five of the Harry Potter books is the competition among the four Hogwarts houses for the Quidditch Cup each school year; in particular, the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin.

Quidditch matches are played over an oval-shaped pitch, with a scoring area at each end consisting of three hooped goal posts, each at a different height. Each team is made up of seven players, consisting of three Chasers, two Beaters, one Keeper and one Seeker. The job of the Chasers is to keep possession of the scarlet Quaffle, a leather ball passed between players.

They must attempt to score goals worth 10 points by throwing it through one of the opponents' three hoops. These hoops are defended by the opposing team's Keeper, who ideally tries to block their goals. Meanwhile, players of both teams are attacked indiscriminately by the two Bludgers. These are round, jet-black balls made of iron that fly around violently trying to knock players off their brooms. It is the Beaters' job to defend their teammates from the Bludgers; they carry short wooden clubs, which they use to knock the Bludgers away from their teammates and/or toward the opposing team.

Finally, the role of the Seeker is to catch the Golden Snitch. This is a small golden ball the approximate size of a walnut. The winged Snitch is enchanted to hover, dart, and fly around the pitch, avoiding capture while remaining within the boundaries of the playing area.

More information: Harry Potter Fandom

Catching the Snitch ends the game and scores the successful Seeker's team 150 points. As the team with the most points wins, this often guarantees victory for the successful Seeker's team. A notable exception is when Bulgaria Seeker Viktor Krum catches the Snitch for Bulgaria during the World Cup Final in Goblet of Fire, while his team are still 160 points behind Ireland their opponents, thus making his own team lose by only 10 points.

Magical flying broomsticks are one of the forms of transportation for wizards and witches, as well as being used for playing Quidditch.

The three most prominent broomsticks in the books are the Nimbus 2000, Nimbus 2001, and the Firebolt, both of which have been produced as merchandise by Warner Bros.
 

The Nimbus is introduced as one of the best broomsticks in the wizarding world. Harry receives a Nimbus 2000 in Philosopher's Stone so that he can play for Gryffindor house.

Lucius Malfoy buys a full set of the more advanced Nimbus 2001s for the Slytherin team as a bribe, so they would choose his son Draco as Seeker the following year.

The Firebolt later supersedes the Nimbus as the fastest and one of the most expensive racing brooms in existence. Harry receives a Firebolt model from his godfather, Sirius Black, after his Nimbus 2000 is destroyed during a Quidditch match in Prisoner of Azkaban.

In Goblet of Fire, Harry uses his Firebolt to escape the Hungarian Horntail, a dragon, during the Triwizard Tournament.

In the real world, the word Quidditch, long predating Harry Potter, occurs in some English placenames, and seems to come from Anglo-Saxon cwǣð-dīc = mud-ditch.

A street in Lower Cambourne, Cambridgeshire, England is named Quidditch Lane, supposedly after a type of nearby dry ditch called a Quidditch. Fans have been known to visit the area.

In November 2014, a plaque appeared outside the entrance of Bristol Children's Hospital attesting that the famous hooped sculptures which stand in front of the paediatric institution are, in fact, not a 15 m interactive installation inaugurated in 2001, but instead the goalposts used in the 1998 Quidditch World Cup.

In 2017, Quidditch was defined by Oxford Dictionaries, following the inclusion of Muggle in the Third (2003) Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford Dictionaries associate editor Charlotte Buxton explained that Quidditch had gained recognition beyond the books, pointing to its existence as a real-life sport.

More information: Sportsmatik

In 2007 the United States Quidditch Association, back then named the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association or (I.Q.A), was founded to regulate quidditch in the United States and abroad, a very popular sport amongst college students.

Since 2005, many American schools, such as UC Berkeley, have added Quidditch to their list of team sports. The sport has since then spread across more than 25 countries and includes multiple international tournaments, including a World Cup.

In 2012, the International Quidditch Association held the IQA World Cup, then named the IQA Summer Games, as the torch was passing through Oxford, UK for the Summer Olympics.

Gameplay is based on the description in the books, films, and game adaptations, though the sport has been adapted to suit real-world constraints. Quidditch is still evolving to suit safe play for the members of the teams, male and female. Apart from joining teams registered with their national governing body, individuals are also able to become an official certified referee to officiate tournaments and games throughout the year as teams compete to take part in various national and international tournaments. As the oldest national governing body, USQ has hosted a grand total of ten US Quidditch Cups as of 2017.

In the United Kingdom, the Quidditch Premier League is played between 10 teams, split between the North and South divisions. In 2017, West Midlands Revolution won the QPL.

 Download Quidditch, flying between broomsticks and balls (Exercise 2)

 

 

 He missed Hogwarts so much

it was like having a constant stomachache.

He missed the castle, with its secret passageways

and ghosts, his classes… 

 

 ...the mail arriving by owl, eating banquets in the Great Hall,

sleeping in his four-poster bed in the tower dormitory, visiting the gamekeeper, Hagrid, in his cabin next to the Forbidden Forest in the grounds, and especially, Quidditch,

the most popular sport in the wizarding world.
 

J. K. Rowling

THE WEASLEYS, IN SEARCH OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

Today, The Weasleys have started their first day in Hogwarts. First, they have assisted to the Hat's ceremony where a magic Hat has sent every one of them to a House.

The Weasleys have been chosen to be members of Gryffindor. They are going to be under the orders of Professor Minerva McGonagall.

Gryffindor values are courage, bravery, nerve, and chivalry. Gryffindor's mascot is the lion, and its colours are scarlet and gold.

During the books, the Head of this house is the Transfiguration Professor and Deputy Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall until she becomes headmistress, and the house ghost is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, more commonly known as Nearly Headless Nick. According to Rowling, Gryffindor corresponds roughly to the element of fire. The founder of the house is Godric Gryffindor.

The Gryffindor common room is in one of the castle's highest towers, and its entrance is on the seventh floor in the east wing of the castle and is guarded by a painting of The Fat Lady, who is garbed in a pink dress.

She permits entry only after being given the correct password, as was established in the third book, when Sirius Black tried forcing entry into the tower, only to be blocked by The Fat Lady after he could not give the correct password.

In the first book, Neville Longbottom tends to forget the password and must wait near the painting until other Gryffindors arrive to open the way.

The Stones have started to search the Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold.

The Grandma has told them the story of this magic stone.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. 

The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.

The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US.

The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.

Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed.

The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer.

More information: Harry Potter Fandom

While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullies.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by some religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft under the guise of a heroic, moral story.

Other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.

HP and the Philosopher's Stone

The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995.

In 1990 Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known, wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny little black-haired bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product.

Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry. Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels.

By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages. By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots. It was translated by Matthew Fitt, who said that he was honoured to be the Scots translator, and that he wanted to do it for a long time.

The translation is considered significant by Heart, who described it as probably the most incredible version so far, The Guardian, who believed that it may just be the best of all, and Stylist. Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek, with the latter being described as one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries.

The Philosopher's Stone, more properly philosophers' stone or stone of the philosophers, in Latin lapis philosophorum, is a legendary alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (chrysopoeia, from the Greek χρυσός khrusos, gold, and ποιεῖν poiēin, to make) or silver. It is also called the elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and for achieving immortality; for many centuries, it was the most sought goal in alchemy.

 

 More information: History

The Philosophers' Stone was the central symbol of the mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss.

Efforts to discover the Philosophers' Stone were known as the Magnum Opus (Great Work).

The earliest known written mention of the Philosophers' Stone is in the Cheirokmeta by Zosimos of Panopolis (c. 300 AD). Alchemical writers assign a longer history. Elias Ashmole and the anonymous author of Gloria Mundi (1620) claim that its history goes back to Adam who acquired the knowledge of the stone directly from God. This knowledge was said to be passed down through biblical patriarchs, giving them their longevity. The legend of the stone was also compared to the biblical history of the Temple of Solomon and the rejected cornerstone described in Psalm 118.

The theoretical roots outlining the stone's creation can be traced to Greek philosophy. Alchemists later used the classical elements, the concept of anima mundi, and Creation stories presented in texts like Plato's Timaeus as analogies for their process. 

According to Plato, the four elements are derived from a common source or Prima Materia first matter, associated with chaos. Prima Materia is also the name alchemists assign to the starting ingredient for the creation of the Philosophers' Stone. The importance of this philosophical first matter persisted throughout the history of alchemy. In the seventeenth century, Thomas Vaughan writes, the first matter of the stone is the very same with the first matter of all things.

Early medieval alchemists built upon the work of Zosimos in the Byzantine Empire and the Arab empires. Byzantine and Arab alchemists were fascinated by the concept of metal transmutation and attempted to carry out the process. 

 

The 8th-century Muslim alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (Latinized as Geber) analyzed each classical element in terms of the four basic qualities. Fire was both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist.

He theorized that every metal was a combination of these four principles, two of them interior and two exterior. From this premise, it was reasoned that the transmutation of one metal into another could be affected by the rearrangement of its basic qualities. This change would be mediated by a substance, which came to be called xerion in Greek and al-iksir in Arabic from which the word elixir is derived.

 

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It was often considered to exist as a dry red powder also known as al-kibrit al-ahmar, red sulfur made from a legendary stone -the Philosophers' Stone.The elixir powder came to be regarded as a crucial component of transmutation by later Arab alchemists.

In the 11th century, there was a debate among Muslim world chemists on whether the transmutation of substances was possible. A leading opponent was the Persian polymath Avicenna (Ibn Sina), who discredited the theory of transmutation of substances, stating, Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in the different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change.

According to legend, the 13th-century scientist and philosopher Albertus Magnus is said to have discovered the Philosophers' Stone. Magnus does not confirm he discovered the stone in his writings, but he did record that he witnessed the creation of gold by transmutation.

The 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus believed in the existence of alkahest, which he thought to be an undiscovered element from which all other elements (earth, fire, water, air) were simply derivative forms. Paracelsus believed that this element was, in fact, the Philosopher's Stone.
 

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We teachers are rather good at magic, 

you know.

Minerva McGonagall

HOGWARTS, AN AMAZING MAGIC WONDERFUL SCHOOL

Today, The Weasleys & The Grandma have arrived to Hogwarts where they have been received by Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall. Rubeus Hagrid is going to be their guide during this visit to the most popular school of wizards.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, commonly shortened to Hogwarts is a British school of magic for students aged eleven to eighteen, and is the primary setting for the first six books in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.

Rowling has suggested that she may have inadvertently taken the name from the hogwort plant (Croton capitatus), which she had seen at Kew Gardens some time before writing the series, although the names The Hogwarts and Hoggwart appear in the 1954 Nigel Molesworth book How to Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans.

Hogwarts school was voted as the 36th best Scottish educational establishment in a 2008 online ranking, outranking Edinburgh's Loretto School. According to a director of the Independent Schools Network Rankings, it was added to the schools listing for fun and was then voted on.

More information: Hogwarts On Line

In the novels, Hogwarts is somewhere in Scotland, the film Prisoner of Azkaban says that Dufftown is near. The school is depicted as having numerous charms and spells on and around it that make it impossible for a Muggle to locate it. Muggles cannot see the school; rather, they see only ruins and several warnings of danger.

The castle's setting is described as having extensive grounds with sloping lawns, flowerbeds and vegetable patches, a loch called The Black Lake, a large dense forest called the Forbidden Forest, several greenhouses and other outbuildings, and a full-size Quidditch pitch. There is also an owlery, which houses all the owls owned by the school and those owned by students. Some rooms in the school tend to move around, and so do the stairs in the grand staircase. 

Witches and wizards cannot Apparate or Disapparate in Hogwarts grounds, except when the Headmaster lifts the enchantment, whether only in certain areas or for the entire campus, so as to make the school less vulnerable when it serves the headmaster to allow Apparition. Electricity and electronic devices are not found at Hogwarts.

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hermione indicates that due to the high levels of magic, substitutes for magic that Muggles use such as computers, radar and electricity go haywire around Hogwarts. Radios however, make an exception. Rowling explains this by saying that the radios are not powered by electricity but by magic.

Hogwarts is on the shore of a lake, sometimes called the Black Lake. In that lake are merpeople, Grindylows, and a giant squid. The giant squid does not attack humans and sometimes acts as a lifeguard when students are in the lake.

Hogwarts is a coeducational, secondary boarding school, taking children from ages eleven to eighteen.

Education at Hogwarts is not compulsory, with some students being home schooled as stated in the seventh book. Rowling initially said there are about one thousand students at Hogwarts. She later suggested around six hundred, while acknowledging that this number was still inconsistent with the small number of people in Harry's year. She further explained that this had resulted from her creating only 40 characters for Harry's year.

Rowling has said that Hogwarts is a multifaith school. She has further stated on the subject, The only people I never imagined there are Wiccans. In response to the query, Do you think there are a lot of LGBT students in modern age Hogwarts? I like to imagine they formed an LGBT club, Rowling replied, But of course.

According to the novels, admission to Hogwarts is selective, in that children who show magical ability will automatically gain a place, and squibs cannot attend the school as students, though they can work there in other roles, as Argus Filch does. A magical quill at Hogwarts detects the birth of magical children and writes their names into a large parchment book, but there is no admission test because you are either magical or you are not.

More information: Wizarding World

Every year, a teacher checks this book and sends a letter to the children who are turning eleven. Acceptance or refusal of a place at Hogwarts must be posted by 31 July. The letter also contains a list of supplies like spell books, uniform, and other things that the student will need.

The prospective student is expected to buy all the necessary materials, normally from shops in Diagon Alley, a concealed street near Charing Cross Road in London that can be found behind the wizarding pub, The Leaky Cauldron. Students who cannot afford their supplies can receive financial aid from the school, as happened with the young orphan Tom Riddle.

Letters to Muggle-born witches and wizards, who may not be aware of their powers and are unfamiliar with the concealed wizarding world, are delivered in person by a member of Hogwarts staff, who then explains to the parents or guardians about magical society, and reassures them regarding this news. Though the school is in Great Britain, its catchment area is the wider British Isles, as Irish students can also attend.

Each student is allowed to bring an owl, a cat or a toad.

Along with the acceptance letter, first-year students are sent a list of required equipment which includes a wand, subject books, a standard size 2 pewter cauldron, a set of brass scales, a set of glass or crystal phials, a kit of basic potion ingredients for Potions, and a telescope for Astronomy.

The Hogwarts uniform consists of plain work robes in black, a plain black hat, a pair of protective gloves, and a black winter cloak with silver fastenings. Each uniform must contain the wearer's nametag. First years are not allowed a broomstick of their own, though an exception to this rule is made for Harry in his first year after he demonstrates an excellent ability as a Seeker in Quidditch.

The primary mode of transport to Hogwarts is the Hogwarts Express that students take at the start of each school year. Students board the train from the also fictional and hidden Platform 9¾ at King's Cross station in London. The train arrives near Hogwarts, some time after nightfall.

From there, first-year students are accompanied by the Keeper of the Keys, Game and Grounds, which was Hagrid during the first novel to small boats, which magically sail across the lake and get them near the entrance of Hogwarts. The older students ride up to the castle in carriages pulled by creatures called Thestrals.

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When the first-year students initially arrive at the castle, they wait in a small chamber off the entrance hall until the older students have taken their seats, and then enter the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony to determine their House assignments.

As Professor Minerva McGonagall said in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room."

After the Sorting Hat sings a song, each student in turn is seated upon the stool in front of the rest of the student body. The Hat is placed on the student's head, whereupon it examines his or her mind and assigns them to one of the four Houses based on abilities, personality, and preferences.

After the Sorting Ceremony, the students and teachers enjoy a feast, prepared by the Hogwarts house-elves. If Dumbledore is feeling cheerful, he will lead the students in singing the school song.

Hogwarts is divided into four houses, each bearing the last name of its founder: Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff. Throughout the school year, the houses compete for the House Cup, gaining and losing points based on actions such as performance in class and rule violations. The house with the highest end-of-year total wins and has its colours displayed in the Great Hall for the following school year.

Each house also has its own Quidditch team that competes for the Quidditch Cup. These two competitions breed rivalries between the houses. Houses at Hogwarts are living and learning communities for their students. Each house is under the authority of one of the Hogwarts staff members. The Heads of the houses, as they are called, are in charge of giving their students important information, dealing with matters of severe punishment, and responding to emergencies in their houses, among other things.

Each year, year level groups of every separate house share the same dormitory and classes. The dormitory and common room of a House are, barring rare exceptions, inaccessible to students belonging to other Houses.

Being a school of magic, many subjects at Hogwarts differ from the studies of a typical school. Some subjects, such as History of Magic, derive from non-wizard -or muggle- subjects, but many others, such as charms and apparition classes, are unique to the wizarding world.

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There are twelve named teachers referred to as Professors, each specialising in a single subject. All professors are overseen by a school head and deputy head. Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Herbology are compulsory subjects for the first five years, as well as flying lessons.

At the end of their second year, students are required to add at least two optional subjects to their syllabus for the start of the third year. The five choices are Arithmancy, Muggle Studies, Divination, Study of Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures. According to J.K. Rowling, very specialised subjects such as alchemy are sometimes offered in the final two years, if there is sufficient demand.

At the end of their fifth year, students take the Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) examinations for all subjects in which they are enrolled. Each examination consists of a written knowledge test and, where applicable, a practical demonstration of skills before a panel of proctors from the Ministry of Magic.

Students who achieve a high enough O.W.L. grade in a particular subject may take its advanced course for the final two years, in preparation for the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.W.T.) given at the end of the seventh year.

More information: Thought Catalog

 

 

 Whether you come back by page 

or by the big screen,

Hogwarts will always be there 

to welcome you home.

J. K. Rowling