• Character Joshua Sankara played Seeker for Burkina Faso’s National Team at the 2006 Quidditch World Cup. His team having won the 2006 final match, Sankara was so popular that he was elected as Burkina Faso’s Minister for Magic. After a few days he resigned the post, in favour of continuing with his… Read More
• Character Rafael Santos was a Beater for Brazil’s National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Character Noriko Sato played as Seeker for the Japanese National Team at the Quidditch World Cup tournament in 2014 (Pm). Described as a “gifted” Seeker, Sato was a member of the Japanese team at the 2014 tournament (Pm). Japan won their their first match in the Round of 16 against… Read More
• Broomsticks Broomsticks and broom sports hold a special place in the hearts of Hogwarts students. Quidditch matches are routinely attended by nearly every student and teacher in the school, and star fliers have near-celebrity status among the student body. Read More
• Event Scorpius Malfoy boards the Hogwarts Express on Platform Nine and Three-quarters at King’s Cross and starts his third year at Hogwarts. This is soon after the death of his mother Astoria Greengrass Malfoy, as the funeral has not yet taken place (CC1.4). Read More
• Creature A gigantic (can grow to a hundred feet in length), snake-like beast with a horselike head and a long snakelike body rising in humps out of the sea as it moves through the water; found in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific Oceans. The sea serpent has received very bad Muggle… Read More
• Quidditch The Seeker is the Quidditch player whose objective is to spot and catch the Golden Snitch. The role of the Seeker is often considered extremely important as catching the Snitch gives his or her team 150 points (PS10, CS7). History The position of Seeker was not originally… Read More
• Creature The Selma is a large serpent found in icy Norwegian lakes. They eat fish and human flesh. The Norwegian Quidditch team brought one as their team mascot in 2014, were it caused a conflict that eventually included many of the other mascots. Read More
• Character Shanice Higgins played Seeker for the Jamaican National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Character Shintaro Shingo was a Beater on the Japanese National Team at the Quidditch World Cup tournament in 2014 (Pm). Chaser Shingo and his teammate Masaki Hongo were star Chasers at the 2014 tournament, second only in popularity to the legendary Bulgarians of 1994, Volkov and Vulchanov (… Read More
• Broomsticks The Shooting Star is a racing broom manufactured by Universal Brooms Ltd. They were a very popular broom when introduced in 1955, as they were then the most inexpensive racing broom on the market. However, as the broom got older, it had a unfortunate tendency to lose height and speed,… Read More
• Sports and competitions Originating in the county of Devon in England, Shuntbumps is a broom game now only played by children. The aim of the game is to knock all other fliers off their brooms (QA2). Read More
• Character Sigrid Kristofferson played Seeker for the Norwegian National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Character Tony Silva played Seeker for Brazil’s National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Broomsticks The Silver Arrow was a popular broom produced by Leonard Jewkes, developed sometime after the Moontrimmer of 1901 and before the advent of the Cleansweep One in 1926. The good-looking Silver Arrow broom achieved higher speeds than either the Moontrimmer or the Oakshaft 79. Its maximum… Read More
• Character Silvio Astolfi was a wizard who participated in a broom race that resulted in the destruction of the Colosseum in Rome. Astolfi flew an incredibly close race from Aberdeen to Rome with his bitter rival, Scottish wizard Torquil McTavish. Astolfi was transfigured into a chicken in the confusion and explosion… Read More
• Character Narinder Singh was a Beater for the Fijian National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Quidditch Skinning is the Quidditch foul of flying to deliberately collide with another player. During the Quidditch World Cup of 1994 the Irish team was awarded a penalty after an incident of skinning by the Bulgarian side (GF8). This foul would have been one of the… Read More
• Spells The Slowing Charm was an invisible spell which decreases the speed of a traveling object (CG). Read More
• Sports teams The Slytherin Quidditch Team of Hogwarts is drawn from the students of Slytherin House. The team wear robes of green. The Slytherins field a very strong Quidditch team. They won the Cup for seven years in a row until Gryffindor finally took it away from them in 1994. Slytherin… Read More
• Event Because Slytherin did not beat the Ravenclaw team by a large margin in their Quidditch match, Oliver Wood tells Harry Potter that it means that Gryffindor will be in second place for the Quidditch Cup if they also beat Ravenclaw in the next match (PA12). Read More
• Event The Slytherin Quidditch Team “flatten” Gryffindor in their Quidditch match the previous year, according to McGonagall (PS9). The new Gryffindors are reminded of the history during their first evening by Nearly-Headless Nick: “Gryffindor have never gone so long without winning. Slytherin have got the cup… Read More
• Character Darius Smackhammer played Seeker for the United States National Team at the Quidditch World Cup tournament in 2014. Smackhammer was considered to be the “outstanding player” from the US team at the 2014 tournament (Pm). A controversial but close-fought match against Jamaica ended when the opposing… Read More
• Creature Snail is the common name given to mollusks that have a coiled shell.  Snails can be found on land or in water. Read More
• Event After an encounter with Harry during which Snape admits he was the Half-Blood Prince and shouts that Harry should not call him a coward, Buckbeak the hippogriff attacks Snape and chases him back towards the Hogwarts gates. Snape, along with several other Death Eaters including the Carrows, Thorfinn Rowle and… Read More
• Creature The Snidget is a small round-bodied bird that was chased as part of the game of Quidditch for about a century in the 1200s and 1300s, until the bird became nearly extinct. Read More
• Event Roderick Plumpton of the Tutshill Tornados makes the fastest-ever capture of a Snitch in 1921 – only three and a half seconds – in a match against the Caerphilly Catapaults. He casually swerved just after the start of the match and the Snitch flew right up… Read More
• Character Joseph Snuka played Seeker for the Fiji National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Article
Posted by in Essays
Note: This piece is not about the class Charms, and I’ve left aside the vexing question of the difference between Charms and Transfiguration (e.g., why are winged keys a Charm and giant moving chess pieces are a Transfiguration?). Rather, I’m looking at Charms in the general sense, as a synonym for spells, that is,… Read More
• Spells The spells on this page may or may not be considered canon. Some of them, such as those from the video games, were apparently created or at least approved by Rowling. Those from the films, however, were probably created by the scriptwriter, Steve Kloves. Many of them don’t really fit… Read More
• Character Able Spudmore was one of the founders and owners of Ellerby and Spudmore, makers of racing brooms in the mid-twentieth century. Able’s son Randolph Spudmore was the designer of the famous Firebolt racing broom (c. 1993) (Pm). Read More
• Character Randolph Spudmore is the innovative designer of the popular Firebolt broom. He is the son of Able Spudmore of Ellerby & Spudmore, broom manufacturers of the Swiftstick and Tinderblast models (MagSp). The design and manufacture of the Firebolt broom was his secret project, released in 1993. Even now… Read More
• Character Young, pimply conductor of the Knight Bus. He wears a purple uniform, has large protruding ears, and a Cockney accent. Stan is only about 5 years older than Harry (PA3). He was the first wizard to tell Harry the history of Sirius Black’s arrest for murder and his escape… Read More
• Broomsticks Starsweeper XXIs are the brooms ridden by the United States National Team during the Quidditch World Cup tournament of 2014 (Pm). Read More
• Sports and competitions Stichstock was an ancient broom game played in Germany (QA2). Read More
• Character Stoyanka Grozda was a Chaser on the Bulgarian National Team at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup. Read More
• Creature The streeler is a giant snail that changes color every hour, and deposits a trail of venom as it moves that kills and shrivels all vegetation over which it passes, and which can kill horklumps. It is often kept as a pet (FB). Read More
• Spells The Summoning Charm causes an object to fly to the caster, even over quite some distance; the target object is said to have been Summoned. It would seem that the caster must know at least the general location of the object Summoned. Read More
• Character Susan Blancheflower played Keeper for the United States National Team at the Quidditch World Cup in 2014. Appearances A participant in the 2014 tournament, her weakness in the early rounds was letting in too many goals during the opening matches against Jamaica and their subsequent quarter-final against… Read More
• Broomsticks The Swiftstick was a broom produced by Ellerby and Spudmore in Germany, who had earlier released the Tinderblast, in 1952. It was never used for Quidditch because of its inability to ascend powerfully (QA9). Read More
• Sports and competitions Swivenhodge is played with an inflated bladder, with players sitting backwards on brooms and using the brush end to knock the bladder back and forth across a hedge. A point is awarded every time an opponent misses (QA2). Read More
• Character Jocunda Sykes was the first person to ride a broom across the Atlantic Ocean (QA9, JKR, FW). Read More
• Character Sylvian Boigny played Seeker for Ivory Coast’s National Team in 2014. A participant in the Quidditch World Cup tournament in 2014, Boigny failed to outrace the Norwegian Seeker and missed the Snitch in the opening Round of 16 match (QWC). Read More
• Character Sylvian Jolicoeur played Seeker for the Haitian National Team at the Quidditch World Cup in 2014. In Haiti’s first-round match against Brazil at the 2014 tournament, Jolicoeur was knocked out by a poorly hit Bludger from his teammate, Bloncourt, just before he would have caught the Snitch. Read More