• Place A street located in Clapham, London, which at number two is home to Sturgis Podmore (OP14). There are two streets by this name in London – one is in Enfield, while the other is in Croydon. (Clapham Common is in Lambeth.)… Read More
• Monuments • Muggle places Père Lachaise is a Paris cemetery in which Gellert Grindelwald held a rally in an amphitheater accessed via the tomb of the Lestrange family (CG). Read More
• Place “Loch” is a Gaelic word meaning “lake”, that usually is applied to lakes in Scotland. lakes and lochs found in the series: Lake Windermere Loch Lomond Loch Ness the Hogwarts lake Voldemort’s Inferi-filled lake in a seaside cave An unnamed Scottish loch with a tiny island, where Harry and Hermione… Read More
• Place When slandering Elphias Doge in a newspaper interview, Rita Skeeter claimes that he’s gone completely crazy, and thought that he was sitting at the bottom of Lake Windermere, and that she should watch out for trout (DH1). Read More
• Regions, counties, and territories Lancashire was the site of a Quidditch match in 1385 that didn’t go too well for the local team. An Irish team from Cork beat them soundly and the fans of the Lancashire team chased the Irish players out of town (QA8). Read More
• Character In 1973, proprietor of the Green Dragon, who shacked up with a certain Janus Thickey after the latter faked his own death via Lethifold (FB). Read More
• Place A street in the town of Millburn and, at number seventeen, home to Stuart Jones – an eight-year-old Muggle fan of J.K. Rowling, who writes to her in the FAQ – Other Stuff section of her website. Read More
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Posted by in Canon discussion / Essays
Do we ever find out what the language of instruction used at Durmstrang Institute is? At Beauxbatons it would have to be French, but although “Durmstrang” sounds German, the Durmstrang students we meet are all of Slavic ancestry as far as we know. On the one hand, German continues to be sort of a “lingua franca”… Read More
• Pubs and inns The Leaky Cauldron is a wizarding pub located on Charing Cross Road in London. Introduction Built by Daisy Dodderidge around 1500 “to serve as a gateway between the non-wizarding world and Diagon Alley” (FW), the Leaky Cauldron has remained a famous and popular place for five hundred years… Read More
• Rooms, chambers, and floors Floor of the Ministry of Magic Headquarters housing the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (OP7). Read More
• Rooms, chambers, and floors Level 7 of the Ministry of Magic houses the Department of Magical Games and Sports. This floor is has a rather unkempt look and Quidditch posters unevenly stuck on the corridor walls (OP7). A man carrying several brooms gets out of the lift on this level… Read More
• Rooms, chambers, and floors Floor at the Ministry of Magic headquarters which houses the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes and its divisions, including Obliviator Headquarters, the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee, and the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad (OP7). Read More
• Mysterious places • Rooms, chambers, and floors The level of the Ministry of Magic housing the Department of Mysteries (OP7). The Department of Mysteries is accessed via the lifts from the Atrium. A simple, bare corridor leads to a plain black door. This door opens into the circular room with twelve plain, black, handleless doors all… Read More
• Rooms, chambers, and floors Level eight of the Ministry of Magic consists of the entry atrium and a corridor lined with twenty or more lifts (OP7). Read More
• Rooms, chambers, and floors This level is old and can only be reached by the stairs to the left of the door which leads to the Department of Mysteries on Level Nine (OP7). The courtrooms are accessed along dungeon-like corridors of rough stone are lined with sturdy wooden doors and hard benches (… Read More
• Page Books by Steve Vander Ark About The Reader’s Guide series Welcome to the Harry Potter Lexicon Reader’s Guide series. Each Guide expands a reader’s understanding of and appreciation for the books in the Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling. The commentary and annotations presented are the observations… Read More
• Hogwarts castle and grounds • Rooms, chambers, and floors The Hogwarts library contains tens of thousands of books on thousands of shelves (PS12). Included in its many sections is an Invisibility Section (CS11), a section with information about dragons (PS14), and a Restricted Section at the back, set off with a rope. A signed note from… Read More
• Countries A tiny, mountainous country located between Austria and Switzerland, Liechtenstein is home to only about 33,000 people. Though it has not played a central role in Muggle history, it did have a place in wizarding history: the warlocks of Liechtenstein refused to join the International Confederation… Read More
• Countries Country in Northern Europe, home of the Gorodok Gargoyles quidditch team (QA8)… Read More
• Place Liverpool is a famous port town on the western coast of England, Liverpool was the site of a Celestina Warbeck concert in 1999 (DP). As late ticket-holders raced to the event, there was a three-broom crash over the Mersey River, which runs through Liverpool. Read More
• Place Perhaps the most famous loch in Scotland, we know that Loch Lomond is home to merpeople because Mirabella Plunkett fell in love with a merman from Loch Lomond (fw65). Read More
• Place Loch Ness is, of course, the home of the Loch Ness Monster – actually a kelpie that prefers to take the form of a sea serpent. Loch Ness is the largest loch in Scotland, and its famous monster has gotten the Ministry of Magic in trouble for repeatedly breaking the… Read More
• Ministry of Magic A room located in the Department of Mysteries on Level Nine of the Ministry of Magic (OP34)… Read More
• Cities Located in southeastern England, London is one of the largest and most famous cities in the world. For Muggles, it is the center of British commerce and government, and for wizards and witches things are no different. We know of more wizarding places in London than anywhere else in Britain,… Read More
• Muggle places The underground railway system in London is commonly referred to as the Underground or the “tube.” Though the names of the stations are never specified, Harry has taken the Underground three times: On Harry’s first trip to London, he and Hagrid took the underground from an unknown surface train station (likely Paddington, though there are… Read More
• Houses and addresses Home of Neville Longbottom, his Gran Augusta Longbottom and various other relatives (PS7). Read More
• Article
Posted by in Essays
I’m in fact Lancashire born and bred, which is probably why I’ve always had a very soft spot for Neville, who I’m pretty sure comes from my neck of the woods (the Blackpool pier incident, the fact that his grandmother is a typical Lancashire matriach, the fact that he has a traditional Lancashire… Read More
• Creatures' homes, lairs, and territories • Regions, counties, and territories One of the southern United States located at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the Gulf of Mexico. Read More
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Posted by in Harry Potter Lexicon Minute
On a couple of previous podcasts, I have talked about Ottery St. Catchpole and the Burrow. I’ve discussed why we identify the town with Ottery St. Mary in Devon, near Exeter. I talked about the relationship between the town and the Burrow, located, according to the books,… Read More
• Houses and addresses On a hillside some miles from the Burrow in south Devon lies a cylindrical house shaped like a giant chess rook – the home of Xenophilius and Luna Lovegood, and also the main office of the Quibbler. Predictably, the place is rather, er, eccentric, with perfectly circular rooms and curved furniture painted… Read More
• Place A fictitious town in Scotland, Lowercroft is the home of Nicola Wells, a fifteen-year-old Muggle fan of J.K. Rowling who writes to her in the FAQ – About Me section of her website.  Nicola lives at number 25, Wildbrook Crescent. Read More
• Countries Luxembourg is a tiny European country sandwiched between France, Germany and Belgium. According to Charlie Weasley, Luxembourg’s Quidditch team slaughtered Scotland in the Quidditch World Cup playoffs of 1994 (GF5). Bigonville, home of the Bigonville Bombers Quidditch team, is also located in Luxembourg (QA8). Read More