• Event The Magical Congress of the United States  was housed in a secret edifice somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains until 1760, when it was relocated to Williamsburg, Virginia, the home of Thornton Harkaway, then President of MACUSA (Pm). Unfortunately for the local No-Maj population, President Harkaway raised Crups, a type of… Read More
• Headlines and advertisements Maddock blamed for Kestrels’ win is an article in the Sports section of the Daily Prophet, after another mistake by Quidditch player Alasdair Maddock (DP2). Maddock was the Chaser for the Montrose Magpies Quidditch team and the cause of his team’s loss against the Kenmare Kestrels. This came about because… Read More
• Clothing • Furniture and household items Witches and wizards use some non-magical items in their daily lives. Hogwarts students are required to purchase a selection of non-magical equipment which they will use as they study at school: a bookbag While cauldrons in general may be magical in themselves or not, students are required to have an ordinary… Read More
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Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays
From the start of the Harry Potter series, our hero finds himself a stranger in a very strange land. He discovers that the world he grew up in hides a secret wizarding world. This is no Oz or Wonderland that exists separate from the normal world and can only be entered through extraordinary means. Read More
• Ministry of Magic A massive black-stone statue in the Atrium at the Ministry of Magic added during the regime of Voldemort, carved with the motto “MAGIC IS MIGHT” in foot-tall letters (DH12). Read More
• Muggle places • Streets, alleys, and lanes “Several streets away” from Privet Drive (PA3), Magnolia Crescent is a street on which several of Dudley’s friends probably live, as he bade them goodbye “at the entrance to Magnolia Crescent” when they were all walking home (OP1). It is probably also fairly long; Harry at one point… Read More
• Place Also found in Little Whinging, Magnolia Road is on the opposite side of Magnolia Crescent from Privet Drive (OP1). On this street is a playground, where Dudley and his gang have broken all but one of the swings, and where Harry once sat thinking about Sirius and Cedric (… Read More
• Headlines and advertisements Magpie Chaser “Only Tried Football for a Laugh” is an article in the Sports section of the Daily Prophet about Alasdair Maddock’s obsession with Muggle sports (DP1). The Prophet reported that Maddock, a Chaser for the Montrose Magpies Quidditch team, had been spotted practising… Read More
• Place In a Daily Prophet story about out-of-control Hallowe’en celebrations, a Maidenhead barbecue is mentioned as an example of a wizarding party gone awry, as there were several loud explosions and a vampire came, “showed an alarming interest in the neighboring Muggles’ daughter, and was only persuaded back over the fence… Read More
• Character A maid at the Riddle House was the first person to find the dead bodies of Tom Riddle, Sr., and his parents. After coming across the corpses in the drawing room in the early morning, the maid ran into Little Hangleton, screaming and waking whomever she could (GF1). Read More
• Glossary • Titles, nicknames, and honorifics Shortened term for “No Magic” – American Wizarding slang for Muggles, or non-magical humans (Pm, WFT). Read More
• Islands Majorca (or Mallorca) is an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain and a European vacationing hot spot, where the Dursleys wanted to buy a vacation home (CS1) and where Petunia’s friend Yvonne once vacationed (PS2). Both of these events, of course, caused frustration for the… Read More
• Character Lucius Malfoy (I) was a wizard who associated with Muggle aristocracy and royalty. Evidence suggests that he was a suitor to Queen Elizabeth I and that, unsuccessful in winning her hand, he jinxed her so she would never marry another (Pm). Read More
• Atlas of the Wizarding World • Houses and addresses Number Four Privet Drive aerial view – number four and number six with yards and gardens This Muggle house, located in Little Whinging, Surrey, to the south-west of London, was where Harry Potter lived from November 1, 1981 through August 31, 1991. [NOTE: This plan is created strictly from the information… Read More
• Atlas of the Wizarding World   General Notes to the Local Area Map The Local Area Map of Privet Drive is based upon research into similar residential areas of North Surrey and elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Most of the distances used are fairly certain and the actual orientation of number four is… Read More
• Character Miss Marjorie Eileen Dursley is Vernon Dursley’s loathsome older (Pm) sister. She lives in the country, in a house with a large garden where she breeds bulldogs but appears to have no other type of employment. Even though she is not Harry’s blood relation, he has been forced to call… Read More
• Place The outskirts of this town was one of the places where Harry, Ron, and Hermione hid while on the run from the Death Eaters, and was a place where they stopped in hopes of finding food. However, this didn’t go as planned, as dementors loomed over the town, and as… Read More
• Character Mark Evans was a boy who lived near Privet Drive, who, at age ten, was beaten up by fifteen-year-old Dudley Dursley (OP1). Read More
• Character Martha Sayre Steward‘s husband was a No-Maj from the Pocomtuc tribe (Pm). Martha, who was a Squib, met her husband through being friends with his sister. Painful as it was to live in a world she could never fully be part of, she decided to… Read More
• Character Fictional character in a wizarding comic book that Ron was reading, The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle (CS3). Read More
• Character Mary Dorkins was a Muggle television news reporter. In the summer of 1995, she did a story on a water-skiing budgie named Bungy (OP1). Read More
• Character Mary Lou Barebone was the fanatical leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, an anti-magic group active in New York during the 1920s. A “handsome” woman who wore Puritanical clothing like her Scourer ancestors, Mary Lou was also mother to three adopted children whom she raised inside the New Salem… Read More
• Magical effects The Masking Fog is a special magical fog used by the Ministry of Magic to hide the location of a Quidditch stadium in Exmoor National Park. Spectators for a Quidditch match between the Wimbourne Wasps and the Holyhead Harpies were advised to arrive early before… Read More
• Character Mr and Mrs Mason were a builder and his wife, who were dinner guests of the Dursleys’ on Harry’s twelfth birthday – an unfortunate night for all parties involved, especially given Mrs. Mason’s severe ornithophobia (CS1,CS2). Read More
• Countries Mauritius is a tiny island nation found east of Madagascar in the southern Indian Ocean, and is famous both in the Muggle world and the wizarding world as the home of the Diricawl, which Muggles refer to as the dodo. Though Muggles believe that the bird died out over a… Read More
• Event Minerva McGonagall disguised as her cat Animagus arrives outside the home of the Dursley family on Privet Drive early in the morning of November 1, 1981. At half-past 8 a.m., Vernon Dursley leaves his driveway and notices a tabby cat reading a map on the corner near his house, which made… Read More
• Character Minerva McGonagall was the Transfiguration professor and Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts for over forty years, and a powerful witch and Animagus (PS1, PS4). McGonagall has a stern exterior, keeping her classes strictly controlled and following the rules closely (PS8), yet has a warm heart and… Read More
• Character The Reverend Robert McGonagall was a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He married Isobel Ross, an 18-year-old, high-spirited witch after they eloped. The pair brought forth three children, Minerva, named after Isobel’s grandmother, Malcolm and Robert Jr. They lived in the manse just outside Caithness, Scotland. It was… Read More
• Character Jim McGuffin was the weatherman on the evening news Vernon Dursley was watching on November 1, 1981 (PS1). Read More
• Character Tarquin McTavish was a wizard who imprisoned his Muggle neighbour inside a tea kettle. He was sent to prison for this act (JKR, WoM). Read More
• Thing Memories can be removed from the head of a witch or wizard and placed into a vessels known as a Pensieve to be viewed and studied. After removal, memories can be tampered with, as Horace Slughorn did when he tried to revise and conceal his own memory of teaching Tom… Read More
• Wizarding culture Charms used to modify or erase a (portion of a) person’s memory. The spell used is “obliviate”. Read More
• Spells The Memory Modifying Charm is also called “Memory Charm”. Modifies or erases portions of a person’s memory. A person who has their memory erased can be described as “Obliviated” (WFT). Memory Modifying Charms are often used to uphold the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy and to avoid frightening Muggles. Officials… Read More
• Character Merope Gaunt was the daughter of Marvolo Gaunt and mother of Tom Riddle. Eighteen-year-old Merope’s hair is lank and dull and she has a “plain, pale, rather heavy face.” Her eyes also gaze in opposite directions. Merope’s father is extremely abusive to her and derisively calls her a “Squib” (and other… Read More
• Place A river famous for running through the port of Liverpool on England’s west coast, there was a three-way broom crash over this river involving wizards racing to get to a Celestina Warbeck concert (DP). Read More
• Countries A Spanish-speaking country in North America just to the south of the United States. Read More
• Event With the fall of the Ministry to the Death Eaters on August 1, 1997 (DH9), the attitude of the bureaucracy changed immediately toward the persecution of Muggle-born witches and wizards. A leader in this effort was Dolores Umbridge, who headed up the Muggle-Born Registration Commission which was tasked with imprisoning Muggle-borns… Read More
• Rules and laws Ban on Experimental Breeding 1965 written by Newt Scamander (FB) Code of Wand Use clause 3: no non-human creature permitted a wand (GF9) Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery 1875 (CS2, CS5, PA3, OP2, OP8) Violation under paragraph… Read More
• Glossary A verbal abbreviation (slang) used by the UK police to refer to a “missing person”. A misper report is usually made directly to the police. Read More
• Ministry of Magic The Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office is a small division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in the Ministry of Magic. Arthur Weasley was the Head of the Office (until July 1996), which is meant to keep enchanted items out of the hands of Muggles. His son Ron called it “the… Read More
• Source MNA refers to a series of essays written by Rowling originally for Pottermore detailing the history of magic on the North American continent as well as the background of the Magical Congress of the United States and of Ilvermorny, the North American school of magic. The Magical Congress of… Read More
• Event Merope Gaunt liked to wait by the window for a glimpse of handsome Tom Riddle Sr., a rich Muggle boy. Morfin Gaunt, Merope’s brother, mocked her for it and late one night he caught her at it. Just for spite, he hit Tom Riddle Sr. with a Hives Jinx. This… Read More
• Magical identities Muggles, as non-magical folk are called by wizards, are “not as stupid as we think,” or so a report recently published in the Daily Prophet proclaimed (DP). Many witches and wizards find this concept hard to accept; Muggles are for the most part oblivious to the entire society of magical… Read More
• Magical artifacts Muggle objects which are specifically not allowed to have magical spells applied to them. Read More
• Games, toys, and jokes Muggle-baiting is activity which uses magic to confuse or humiliate Muggles without the Muggles realizing that magic was involved. Arthur Weasley describes it this way: “Sell [Muggles] a key that keeps shrinking to nothing so they can never find it when they need it …. Of course, it’s very hard to… Read More
• Titles, nicknames, and honorifics Term used around 1000 A.D. to refer to Muggle-born witches and wizards. The origin of the term is obscure, but may refer to those magic-using persons “bobbing up” in a Muggle family unexpectedly. Muggle-born witches and wizards were completely accepted and even treated as special at that time, which makes… Read More
• Magical identities Muggle-born is the term used to describe a wizard or witch born of two Muggle parents. (Sometimes spelled Muggleborn with no hyphen)… Read More
• Ministry of Magic After Voldemort took hold of the Ministry for Magic, a Muggle-Born Registration Commission was appointed. The purpose of this Commission was to interview all Muggle-borns (DH11). Read More
• Magical artifacts Magical device that acts as an alarm when touched by a non-magical hand (DP2)… Read More
• Place Hogwarts has a library of course, but it isn’t the only one that Hermione visits. While searching for Horcruxes, she, Harry, and Ron come to London in search of Tom Riddle’s orphanage. There, Hermione sneaks into a Muggle library, where she discovers that the orphanage has been demolished (DH15). Read More
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Posted by in Essays
The quotation above was coined by Arthur C. Clarke as his Third Law, in Report on Planet Three (1972). This essay compares the different technologies available to the magical and muggle worlds. Magical Artifacts Artifacts with magical properties are quite common in the magical world described in the books of J.K. Rowling. Some of them are similar to… Read More
• Headlines and advertisements Mugglemaniac Maddock must quit Magpies, says McLeod is a headline in the Sports section of the Daily Prophet, continuing the saga of Alasdair Maddock’s obsession with Muggle sports (DP3). It is reported that Chaser Maddock of the Montrose Magpies Quidditch team was sacked by team manager Cormack… Read More
• Event Uncle Vernon finds the report lacking, however, since the television reporter doesn’t even say where this Black person has escaped from: “Hang on!” barked Uncle Vernon, staring furiously at the reporter. “You didn’t tell us where that maniac’s escaped from! What use is that? Lunatic could be coming up the street… Read More
• Place Nearly all of the locations in the books exist in the Muggle world as well, so how is a ‘Muggle place’ defined? The places below are locations that are mentioned as Muggle places in the books, and that have little or no importance to the wizarding world (so they are… Read More
• Character Vernon Dursley once doubted that Dudley even knew who the Prime Minister was, since the boy took no interest in current events, but neglected to mention the name himself (OP1). Vernon would be horrified (judging from his reaction to the existence of the Ministry of Magic in (OP2) to… Read More
• Books and Literature Discusses what happens when Muggles encounter the Wizarding world. Published in 1972. Read More
• Headlines and advertisements Muggles Not as Stupid as We Think, says Ministry Report is the headline for a lead article in the Daily Prophet (DP1). This article in the Prophet outlines the findings of a report by a committee on Muggles, headed by Professor Phoebus Penrose, entitled “A Study… Read More
• Hogwarts academics Muggle Studies is a course in the history, culture, and psychology of non-magical people. The class attempts to help young witches and wizards understand the difference between the way Muggles think and the way wizards think. When Ron calls a telephone a “fellytone,” Hermione tells him she should consider taking… Read More
• Thing Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys took three Muggle taxis from the Burrow to King’s Cross at the end of the summer break before Harry’s fourth year (GF11). Read More
• Character After stealing Salazar Slytherin’s locket from Hepzibah Smith, Tom Riddle used the murder of a Muggle tramp to turn the locket into a Horcrux with part of his soul inside (BLC). Read More
• Article
Posted by in Essays
Wizards don’t use electricity for a very good reason—they don’t need it, in fact they don’t need our technology at all (except maybe for sherbet lemons). Modern Muggle technology, according to wizards, is a poor substitute for magic. And modern Muggle technology is largely based on the availability of cheap,… Read More
• Magical objects Newt Scamander’s magical suitcase had a brass dial that could be turned to “MUGGLEWORTHY” so the No-Maj customs inspectors would not see the dangerous magical creatures inside. With a turn of the dial, Muggles would only see common objects such as maps, an alarm clock, and a Hufflepuff scarf (WFT). Read More
• Ministry of Magic This committee within the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes is responsible for concocting explanations when Muggles notice wizarding activity… Read More