Novels ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' Harry is first introduced in ''
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' (1997) as an orphan living with his abusive aunt and uncle,
Vernon and
Petunia Dursley, and their bullying son,
Dudley. On his eleventh birthday, Harry discovers he is a wizard when
Rubeus Hagrid brings him an acceptance letter from
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that his parents,
James and
Lily Potter, were murdered by a powerful Dark wizard,
Lord Voldemort, who also tried to kill Harry. However, Voldemort's
killing curse bounced back and apparently destroyed him, leaving Harry with a lightning-bolt-shaped scar on his forehead. Due to his miraculous survival, Harry became famous among wizards. Hagrid takes Harry to
Diagon Alley to shop for school supplies. Harry buys a wand, and the proprietor tells him that his wand and Voldemort's wand contain feathers from the same
phoenix. At the end of the summer, Harry boards the
Hogwarts Express, where he befriends
Ron Weasley and meets
Hermione Granger. When he arrives at Hogwarts, he is assigned to
Gryffindor House by the
Sorting Hat. During the school year, he receives guidance from the Transfiguration professor
Minerva McGonagall and the headmaster
Albus Dumbledore. He develops animosity towards a fellow first-year named
Draco Malfoy, and becomes increasingly wary of the Potions professor,
Severus Snape. Harry and Ron become friends with Hermione after they save her from a
troll, and Harry becomes the youngest
Seeker on the Gryffindor
Quidditch team in a century. During Christmas holidays, Harry receives an anonymous gift – his father's
invisibility cloak. Aided by the cloak, he is able to explore the school freely. He, Ron and Hermione decide to enter a trapdoor they discovered one night, which is guarded by an enormous three-headed dog. They believe a valuable magical object, the
Philosopher's Stone, lies beyond the door. After they navigate a series of obstacles, Harry faces
Professor Quirrell, whose body has been possessed by Voldemort. When Harry obtains the Stone, Quirrell tries to kill him. However, Quirrell's flesh burns upon contact with Harry's skin, and Harry passes out. Harry awakens in the Hogwarts infirmary, where Dumbledore explains that Harry was protected by his mother's love, which also killed Quirrell. Voldemort survived, and the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed. During the school's end-of-year feast, Gryffindor is awarded the House Cup thanks to the many points Harry and his friends obtained from their adventure.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets In
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998), Muggle-born students are being Petrified in the Hogwarts castle. Some students suspect that Harry is behind the attacks, which alienates him from his peers. Harry learns that he shares Voldemort's ability to
communicate with snakes, and he begins to question whether he is worthy of Gryffindor House. After Ron's sister
Ginny disappears, Harry enters the
Chamber of Secrets to rescue her. He battles Tom Riddle, a version of Voldemort that lives in a diary which had possessed Ginny. In addition to Riddle, Harry encounters the
basilisk which has been attacking students. To defeat it, Harry summons the
Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat. After Harry triumphs over the basilisk and saves Ginny, Dumbledore reassures him that he is worthy of Gryffindor.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Near the beginning of
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
, Harry becomes angry after his
Aunt Marge disparages his parents. He accidentally inflates her with magic, then runs away from home. As he re-enters the wizarding community, he learns about
Sirius Black, a notorious killer who escaped from the wizard prison
Azkaban. On the train to Hogwarts, Harry is assaulted by
Dementors, which cause him to relive his worst memories. During a
Care of Magical Creatures lesson with Hagrid, Draco is injured after provoking a
hippogriff named
Buckbeak. As a result, the
Ministry of Magic sentences Buckbeak to death. After Harry has more encounters with Dementors, he asks the new
Defence Against the Dark Arts professor,
Remus Lupin, to help him ward them off. Lupin teaches Harry the
Patronus charm, which Harry struggles to master. While in the village of
Hogsmeade, Harry learns that his parents were betrayed by Sirius, their friend and Harry's godfather, and that Sirius also killed
Peter Pettigrew. After Ron is taken to the
Shrieking Shack by a wild dog, Harry and Hermione give chase and realize the dog is Sirius in
Animagus form. Lupin arrives, and he and Sirius explain that Sirius did not kill Pettigrew. They also reveal that Ron's pet rat,
Scabbers, is Pettigrew. Lupin then transforms into a werewolf and injures Sirius, and Pettigrew escapes amid the chaos. A swarm of Dementors appear, but they are driven off by a Patronus cast by a mysterious figure. Awakening in the school infirmary, Harry and Hermione learn that Sirius is being held captive in Hogwarts and is awaiting the
Dementor's Kiss. At Dumbledore's advice, they use a
Time-Turner to travel back in time to the moment before Buckbeak's execution. After they save the hippogriff, Harry notices the past versions of himself, Hermione, and Sirius being attacked by Dementors. He conjures a strong Patronus to fight them off, then realizes that he was the mysterious figure who appeared earlier. Harry and Hermione free Sirius, who flies away on Buckbeak, still a wanted fugitive. Harry and Hermione then return to their original timeline.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire In
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000), Harry is mysteriously chosen by the
Goblet of Fire to compete in the dangerous
Triwizard Tournament, even though another Hogwarts champion,
Cedric Diggory, has already been selected. During the Tournament's final challenge, Harry and Cedric are transported to a graveyard, where Cedric is killed by Peter Pettigrew. Voldemort, aided by Pettigrew, uses Harry's blood to resurrect his body. Harry then duels Voldemort, and their wands connect. Spirit echoes of Voldemort's victims, including Harry's parents, emerge from his wand. The spirits protect Harry as he escapes to Hogwarts with Cedric's body. Rowling said it was necessary to depict violence and death in this novel because it allows Harry's bravery and compassion to show. She said that Harry's effort to prevent Cedric's body from falling into Voldemort's hands was based on the scene in Homer's
Iliad where
Achilles retrieves the corpse of his friend
Patroclus from his enemy
Hector. She stated that
Goblet of Fire marks a turning point in Harry's life—he has been "very protected until now" but now he is no longer protected.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix In
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003), the
Ministry of Magic wages a
smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore, disputing their claims that Voldemort has returned. The Ministry appoints
Dolores Umbridge as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Because the Ministry suspects that Dumbledore is building a student army, Umbridge refuses to teach students practical defensive magic. Harry, Hermione and Ron subsequently form a secret group called
Dumbledore's Army to teach students defensive spells. The group is disbanded, however, when one student informs Umbridge about it. To shield his students from punishment, Dumbledore falsely claims that Dumbledore's Army was his idea. As a result, he is ousted from his position as headmaster and replaced with Umbridge. During this time, Harry's increasingly angry and erratic behaviour nearly estranges him from Ron and Hermione. He suffers another emotional blow when his godfather Sirius is killed by the Death Eater
Bellatrix Lestrange during a battle at the
Department of Mysteries. Also present is Voldemort, who tries to possess Harry so Dumbledore will kill him. This ruse fails, and Harry and Dumbledore thwart Voldemort's plan to steal an important prophecy. Later, Dumbledore explains to Harry that Voldemort chose Harry as his equal, and that either he or Voldemort must eventually kill the other. A subplot of the novel involves Harry's romance with Cho Chang, which quickly unravels. Rowling said she put Harry through extreme emotional stress in
Order of the Phoenix to show his emotional vulnerability and humanity, which contrast with Voldemort's inhumanity.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince In
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), Dumbledore brings Harry along as he attempts to persuade
Horace Slughorn to rejoin the Hogwarts faculty as the Potions professor. Harry excels in Slughorn's class after he begins using an old textbook that once belonged to someone known as "The Half-Blood Prince". Outside of class, Dumbledore uses the
Pensieve to teach Harry about Voldemort's life and his rise to power. Harry and Dumbledore learn that Voldemort created six
Horcruxes to gain immortality, and that they must be destroyed before Voldemort can be killed. Harry repeatedly warns Dumbledore that Draco Malfoy is an agent of Voldemort, but Dumbledore refuses to take action against Draco. He tells Harry that he already knows more about what is happening than Harry does. During the course of the novel, Harry becomes romantically involved with Ginny. Near the end of the book, Dumbledore and Harry enter a cave in search of a Horcrux. Dumbledore drinks a potion inside the Horcrux's container and begins to scream in agony. When Harry attempts to retrieve some lake water for Dumbledore to drink, he is attacked by
Inferi. They try to drown Harry, but Dumbledore rescues him. Dumbledore and Harry then return to the Hogwarts
Astronomy Tower with the Horcrux. Dumbledore asks Harry not to interfere in the events that are about to take place, and puts him in a body-binding curse. Immobilized, Harry is unable to intervene as Snape arrives and kills Dumbledore. Later, Harry ends his relationship with Ginny to protect her from Voldemort. Rowling said that Harry's tumultuous puberty in the novel is based on her own difficult teenage years and those of her sister. She said that after
Half-Blood Prince Harry becomes "battle-hardened" and is ready to fight and take revenge against Voldemort and Snape.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave Hogwarts in
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) to search for and demolish Voldemort's four remaining Horcruxes. They must be destroyed with basilisk venom, the Sword of Gryffindor, or some other powerful means. Ron, Hermione,
Vincent Crabbe and
Neville Longbottom each destroy one of these Horcruxes. After a battle at Hogwarts, Harry goes into the Forbidden Forest to meet Voldemort, who uses the
Elder Wand to cast the Killing Curse on Harry. The curse stuns Harry into a deathlike state, and he finds himself in an ethereal realm with Dumbledore. The deceased headmaster tells Harry that he is a Horcrux that Voldemort unknowingly created. There was a part of Voldemort's soul inside Harry, but it was destroyed by the curse Voldemort cast moments ago. Harry subsequently returns to the living world and duels with Voldemort. Voldemort uses the Killing Curse again, but it rebounds and kills him. Harry, not Voldemort, was the true master of the Elder Wand, and the wand did not wish to harm its master. Harry decides to leave the Elder Wand in Dumbledore's tomb and the Resurrection Stone hidden in the forest, but he keeps the Invisibility Cloak. In the epilogue, set nineteen years after Voldemort's death, Harry and Ginny are a married couple and have three children:
James Sirius Potter,
Albus Severus Potter and
Lily Luna Potter. Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts, and is worried that he will be sorted into Slytherin. Harry explains to him that not all Slytherins are bad, and that his life will be shaped by his own choices. Rowling said the death of Harry's owl Hedwig in
Deathly Hallows represents a loss of innocence and security. She said that Hedwig's death upset many readers. In a 2007 interview with MTV, Radcliffe described the development of his character during the course of the series: "That's what the films are about for me: a loss of innocence, going from being a young kid in awe of the world around him, to someone who is more battle-hardened by the end of it." Radcliffe said that after the death of Cedric Diggory in
Goblet of Fire, Harry experiences
survivor's guilt and feels immense loneliness. Because of this, Radcliffe talked to a
bereavement counsellor to help him prepare for the role. In 2011,
Empire magazine ranked Radcliffe's Harry Potter as the 36th greatest film character of all time. The magazine published another character ranking in 2018, this time placing Harry at 67th.
Stage adaptation Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play written by
Jack Thorne from a story by Thorne, J. K. Rowling and
John Tiffany. It takes place nineteen years after the events of
Deathly Hallows. In the play, Harry is Head of the
Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. The story focuses on Harry's son, Albus Severus Potter.
Television adaptation Harry is set to be portrayed by Scottish actor
Dominic McLaughlin in the upcoming
HBO television series
Harry Potter. ==Reception==