So, who is Harry Potter?

He is an orphan, who lived with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon and cousin Dudley until he started at Hogwart’s School of Wizardry. He has a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt which he got from baddie Lord Voldemort, who killed his parents, Lily and James Potter. When he arrived at Hogwart's, he was sorted into Gryffindor house, along with Ron Weasley.

Harry’s friends

Harry has two very good friends at Hogwart's. They are Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and they very different from one another. Ron is clumsy, but always means well. Unlike Harry, Ron has always known of the world of wizardry, and his whole family practices it, with varying degrees of success. Ron's home is 'The Burrows', a rather raggle-taggle place full of bits and pieces that will someday be used. He has a pet owl called Pigwidgeon, or 'Pig' for short, and his spells sometimes work, but not often, and not always with the desired effects.

Hermione Granger, on the other hand, is extremely smart, and doesn't come from a family of wizards like Ron. Her parents are both dentists, and are very proud of their daughter. She always gets her spells right, and has a soft spot for the oppressed. For example, she bought her pet cat, Crookshanks, because nobody else wanted to.

Muggles

Quite simply, a muggle is a person who can't do magic. Essentially, muggles are blissfully unaware of the world of wizardry. The people of the 'Wizarding World', as the wizards like to call it, also go to great lengths to keep the muggles unaware of all things wizardly. Who knows what could happen if they knew what was going on all around them?

Lord who?

You already know that Lord Voldemort (pronounced Vol-duh-more) was responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, but surely he wasn't always evil and bitter?

He started out as Tom Marvolo Riddle, with a witch for a mother and a muggle for a father. His father, however, wasn’t fond of magic, and left his mother when he found out she was a witch. She, unfortunately, died after giving birth to baby Tom, whom she named after his father, with the middle name Marvolo after her grandfather. Who knows? He might have been a nicer person had she lived.

As it stood, he was sent to live in a muggle orphanage. He went to Hogwart's, where he was placed in Slytherin House, where he found the Chamber of Secrets, built by Salazar Slytherin, his ancestor.

The chamber was said to contain something terrible that would rid the school of those unworthy of studying magic. Anyway, to make a long story short, Tom unleashed the terrible thing, a 'basilisk', and succeeded in injuring several students. One died. He then framed Rubeus Hagrid for the whole thing, and received an award for "services to the school". He went back to Little Hangley, where he was born, to seek revenge against his father who, years before, had rejected his mother. Then he went back to Hogwart's. He graduated, and did some really bad things that transformed him from what he was into something unrecognisable. He lost his body when he tried to kill Harry Potter, and had to inhabit the bodies of animals, waiting for the day he'd have one of his own. He sees young Harry as his greatest enemy, and would dearly like to destroy him, but hasn’t been able to so far.

Sirius Black

Sirius was best man at James and Lily's wedding. He is also Harry’s godfather, and escaped from Azkaban, where he was wrongfully imprisoned for killing 13 people with one curse, to protect Harry from Peter Pettigrew, a baddie and one of Voldemort's henchmen.

Draco Malfoy

Draco is a snotty boy who hates Harry. He comes from a family of wizards, and got his position as seeker in the Slytherin Quidditch team after his father made a big donation of Nimbus 2001 brooms to the team. He’s generally not a very nice person, and Harry doesn’t like him very much.

Quidditch

This is a game, a bit like polo, where you have to chase a 'ball', called a 'Quaffle', while riding a broom, simply put. There is another ball, called a 'bludger', that attacks any player nearby, and finally, the third, smallest and most important ball, the 'Golden Snitch', that evades capture as long as possible, and, if caught, earns the team 150 points.

The Phoenix

Description: As big as a swan, with red feathers and a long, yellow tail. Its beak and claws are gold, and its eyes are black.

This is a magical bird. It has the ability to appear and disappear at will. The tears of the phoenix have the ability to heal wounds, and it can lift very heavy weights with its tail. Albus Dumbledore, headmaster at Hogwart's, has a pet phoenix called Fawkes. The song of the phoenix can give you hope and strength. The phoenix is not immortal, and, when it nears its end, it becomes quite unattractive. It bursts into flames, and, from those ashes, a baby phoenix will rise, very ugly at first. It later develops into a beautiful creature, usually within a few days.