• Once again, there are many edits, additions, and improvements all through the Lexicon. I'm adding links to many pages, new spells to the Spell Encyclopedia, new characters to the list of Witches and Wizards, and things like that.
• I have added a new map to the Wizard's Atlas. This one is of Platform 9-3/4.
• I've also added a page for good old cowardly Fang the boarhound. I've been looking for a picture to put on that page, but no one seems to have included Fang in their artwork of Hagrid. Too bad...
• While I'm on the subject of pictures: I've been asked why I don't include pictures from the film on the Lexicon site. The fact of the matter is, it's illegal to do that without permission from Warner Bros. I have written and asked, but so far I've not been given permission to use any pictures from the movie. They did give me permission back in June to include the artwork from the books, but that's all they've done so far.

• I have revised and updated the page which discusses the mysteries surrounding the attack by Voldemort on Harry's family in 1981. After scads of email, some of which was downright nasty, I decided that it was worth an afternoon's work to make things clearer. There are still pages coming which discuss the priori incantatem effect and the fidelius charm, both key factors in our understanding of the events of that fateful night,  but they might have to wait until later.

• Editing again, adding little details here and there. I have added a couple of spells from the film, but one of them, Lumos Solarum, really doesn't fit into the canon. I have put it into the Encyclopedia of Spells, but with a disclaimer. I'm afraid I may have to do that with other details from the films when I add them to the Lexicon. While JKR had a lot of input into the creation of the film, she did not have final say and she did not approve every single detail. The film does not agree with the books on every single point, and for the purposes of this Lexicon, the books are considered the final word.
• Elizabeth Dalton has written a nice essay about The Changing Image of Grown-Ups in the Harry Potter books which I just added to the "Delving Deeper into Harry Potter" resources of the Help/About section.

• After a discussion on the Harry Potter for GrownUps list, several members gave permission for me to include their comments about Harry Potter's status as a pureblood, half-blood, or 'mudblood'.
• Another essay what has been sitting here waiting for a final edit has finally made it into the Lexicon: Food and Drink in the Potter Universe.

• I added a schedule of classes by year to the Hogwarts Academics page. I also linked a new essay which explains O-levels and A-levels, tests which in the Wizarding World become O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s and which were a complete mystery to me (and a lot of other non-British readers).

• I added several new spells to the Spell Encyclopedia (it's amazing how many there are when you really look!)
• I added a new essay: Languages at Durmstrang by Eric Oppen. I still have a couple more that I'm working on.
• I broke the list of witches and wizards into several smaller pages. When it was all in one page, it was getting too large to open quickly and cumbersome to edit. I've added a number of new names to the list, including a couple of new Weasleys.
• And I still have a huge backlog of new material which I have been trying to find time to add to the Lexicon. Hopefully, I'll have all of GF, QA, and FB added before the new book comes out!

• Along with numerous edits and small additions here and there, I created a page about Aurors. (I've fixed this link -- sorry, everyone, and thanks so much to those who emailed me about it!)

• Hedwig finally got her own page today.
• There's also a new page added for the Blast-Ended Skrewts.

• There has been a lot of editing over the last few days. I've added a couple of new spells and a few new magic items. I'm also working on several new essays which I'll post soon.
• I'm delighted to have been given permission by Christoph Seimens to add some of his artwork to the Lexicon. You'll find the first ones on the Nearly Headless Nick and the Voldemort pages. His contact information is not on the artists' page yet, but it will be soon.
• The movie opens in six days. I've received a video tape which includes snippets of the film, some interview soundbites, and about 14 minutes of candid video as various scenes were being shot. I've also been in contact with folks who have already seen the movie. I have made a decision to include at least some of the new information from the film into the Lexicon. The reference for these tidbits is (SS/f), which means the film version of Sorcerer's Stone. You will find new facts added to the Alohomora spell, the page about James Potter, and a few other places. I'll add more as more details become available.

• I've been doing some general editing all through the Lexicon's 300+ pages. I actually discovered a couple of pages that still had the old formatting, which just goes to show you that I need to watch a little closer.
• I've added a delightful (if somewhat confusing, for us Muggles) essay by Edis Bevan. He gives us a taste of what a Muggle Studies textbook might be like...

• I have added several works of art done by Edgar Torné, a very talented artist. Edgar's work currently appears on the new Voldemort page and on the Hogwarts Ghosts page.
• I am also adding new artwork by Phénix and Lord Voldemort. They contributed illustrations of J.K.Rowling and of the Niffler (and I'm going to add more soon.)
• I have been editing various pages, including adding quite a bit of information to the Dudley page.
• Amy Z, a frequent contributor to the Lexicon, has written a very nice essay about the plotlines in Prisoner of Azkaban. You'll find it in the "Delving Deeper into Harry Potter" section of the Help/About page.
• I've also added (finally) the essay by Rrishi Raote about the use of descriptive words in the Harry Potter books.

• The biography page for Lord Voldemort has been updated with a fantastic and comprehesive history of the most dangerous Dark Wizard of our age by contributing editor, Wednesday. Linked to that is a timeline as well.

• At long last, the essay by Ebony about generations in the Wizarding World has been added.
• I've uploaded pages detailing all the differences between British and US versions of the book. You can access them from the Help/About page.

• Sources of the kind of information I don't include in the Lexicon, things like movie news and filksongs. The sites I've linked there are the ones I consider to be the best.
• I've added a page giving some contact information about the artists whose work I feature in the Lexicon.

• After a number of requests, I have added a page about the Harry Potter Trading Card Game, with a couple of links and also a list of etymologies for some of the new spell names.
• I've been adding names to the master list of Witches and Wizards. Laura Freeman, one of the more prolific artists whose work is featured on the Lexicon, has contributed a number of wonderful portraits to add to that page. Check out her pictures of Hannah Abbot and Lee Jordan, for example. That page is getting a bit, well, large, but it's worth the wait to see all the artwork.

• I've been spending a lot of time getting the Harry Potter for Grown Ups FAQ web site up and running. It's quite something! Check it out if you get a chance. The FAQ Site is a series of essays compiling and excerpting material from the discussions from the Harry Potter for Grown Ups group. You'll find there the collected wisdom of over 1500 Harry Potter fans who have spent hours and hours thinking about and talking over details of the books in the message area of the group. I will be placing links in the Lexicon between the two sites, so watch for that.
• I finally put together a map of the ground floor of Hogwarts castle, based on careful reading of the books. The Great Hall and the Entrance Hall take up most of the space. You'll notice that the trailer from the film does NOT agree with the arrangement as given in the books, and of course the books are considered canon and the movie is not. This is quite a nice map, I think. I'm working on more of them for the Atlas of Hogwarts.
• The day-by-day calendar of Prisoner of Azkaban is done and uploaded. This one was very tricky, since there was no way to make the dates actually fit any real calendar. I managed to put it together as logically as possible, but there are three main discrepencies that are noted at the beginning of that page.

• I've spent the last couple of days researching Diagon Alley. The result is a greatly expanded page of details about the shops there and also a map of Diagon and Knockturn Alleys. The map is of course not technically canon, but it does follow the clues given in the books very exactly. For example, since in SS5 Hagrid travels from the Leaky Cauldron to Madam Malkin's and when he gets there he has two ice creams in his hands, I made sure there is an ice cream parlor between the two. Shops that are described as smaller I made smaller. I added shops that are mentioned but not named (e.g. the stationery shop where they buy ink, quills, and parchment, which is mentioned as being next door to Quality Quidditch Supplies. All the most well-known shops seemed to be on the Leaky Cauldron end of Diagon Alley when I plotted them all out, so I made the far end a bit on the shabby side, with the junk shop, the second-hand robe shop, and Ollivander's way down there. All this research still doesn't make it canon, but it makes for a darned interesting map, in my opinion.

• I've created a new page for Nearly Headless Nick. The artwork on that page comes from a French site which includes tons of very interesting clip art-style illustrations. I have permission from them to include more of those pictures, but since they are designed for a black background, most of them don't work very well for the Lexicon. The one of Nick is very, very cool -- animated too -- so I'm glad it worked for that page.

The Harry Potter Lexicon has just been given permission by Warner Bros. to place scanned images of Mary GrandPré's artwork on various pages. This means that I'll be scanning and including some of her chapter art. I am excited to be able to include these wonderful drawings in the Lexicon.