Harry Potter (character)

**Harry James Potter** (born July 31, 1980) is the protagonist in J. K. Rowling's *Harry Potter* fantasy series. The books cover seven years in the life of the orphan who, on his 11th birthday, learns he is a wizard and the son of magical parents Lily and James Potter. He goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn magic. Harry soon learns that he is already famous in the world of wizards. He also learns that his fate is connected to Lord Voldemort. Voldemort was an evil wizard who killed Harry's parents, but was believed to have died when he tried to use the Killing Curse on the baby Harry. Rowling said that the idea for the Harry Potter character came to her while riding on a train from Manchester to London in 1990. She decided to make him an orphan after the death of her mother.

## Concept and creation
According to author J. K. Rowling, the idea for both the *Harry Potter* books and the character came while waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. J.K. Rowling said that in the hours she waited, her idea for "this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me." Rowling also decided to make Harry an orphan at a boarding school called Hogwarts. She explained, "Harry HAD to be an orphan - so that he's a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them … Hogwarts HAS to be a boarding school - half the important stuff happens at night! Then there's the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that's what Hogwarts offers Harry."

The death of her mother on 30 December 1990 led Rowling to write Harry Potter as a boy longing for his dead parents. His pain became "more deeper, more real" than in earlier versions because she related to it herself. She also said that Harry was born on 31 July and has the same birthday as herself. However, she says, Harry is not directly based on any real-life character, "he came just out of a part of me".

## Appearances
### First book
Harry first appears in ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'' as the book's protagonist, or main character. When Harry was a little over one year old, his parents were killed by the powerful Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort. Harry survived Voldemort's Killing Curse after his mother died to protect him. The Curse was turned back at Voldemort and ripped his soul from his body. Because of this, Harry has a lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. Rowling has said that creating the story about Harry Potter's past was a matter of reverse planning: "The basic idea [is that] Harry … didn't know he was a wizard … and so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was… When he was one-year-old, the most evil wizard in hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry - he tried to curse him… Harry has to find out, before we find out. And - so - but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead, and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard who has been in hiding ever since".

Harry is an orphan living unhappily with his only family left, the cruel Dursleys. On his eleventh birthday, Harry finds that he is a wizard when Rubeus Hagrid tells him that he is to go Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he learns about his parents and his connection to the Dark Lord. He is *sorted* into Gryffindor House by the Sorting Hat and becomes friends with classmates Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Near the end of his first year at Hogwarts, he stops Voldemort's attempt to steal the Sorcerer's Stone via Quirinus Quirrell. He also forms rivalries with  Draco Malfoy, a classmate from an elitist wizard family, and the Potions teacher and head of Slytherin House, Severus Snape. Both feuds continue throughout the series. In a 1999 interview, Rowling stated that Draco is based on several schoolyard bullies she had known and Snape on a teacher of hers who abused his power. Harry's developing maturity becomes apparent when he becomes interested in Cho Chang, a pretty Ravenclaw student. Tension mounts, however, when Harry is mysteriously chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament, even though another Hogwarts champion, Cedric Diggory, was already selected. It is actually an elaborate scheme by Lord Voldemort to lure Harry into a deadly trap. During the Tournament's final challenge, Harry and Cedric are teleported to a graveyard. Cedric is killed, and Lord Voldemort, aided by Peter Pettigrew, uses Harry's blood in a gruesome ritual to resurrect Voldemort's body. When Harry duels Voldemort, their wands' magical streams connect, forcing the spirit echoes of Voldemort's victims, including Cedric and James and Lily Potter, to be expelled from his wand through Priori Incancatem. The spirits shortly protect Harry as he escapes to Hogwarts with Cedric's body. For Rowling, this scene is important because it shows how Harry is brave, and by finding Cedric's corpse, he demonstrates selflessness and compassion. Says Rowling, "He wants to save Cedric's parents additional pain". At Hermione's urging, Harry secretly teaches his classmates real defensive magic to thwart Umbridge and the Ministry, but their meetings are found and Dumbledore is ousted as Headmaster. Harry suffers another emotional blow, when his godfather, Sirius Black is killed during a battle with Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries, but Harry ultimately defeats Voldemort's plan to steal an important prophecy and helps uncover Umbridge's sinister motives. Rowling stated: "And now he [Harry] will rise from the ashes strengthened."

In the sixth book, *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince* Harry enters a tumultuous puberty that, Rowling says, is based on her and her younger sister's own difficult teenage years. Rowling also made a statement about Harry's personal life: "Because of the demands of the adventure that Harry is following, he has had less sexual experience than boys of his age might have had". This inexperience with romance was a factor in Harry's failed relationship with Cho Chang. Now his thoughts concern Ginny Weasley, Ron's sister, a vital plot point in the last chapter when Harry ends their budding romance to protect her from Voldemort.

A new character appears when former Hogwarts Potions master Horace Slughorn returns to replace Severus Snape, who takes over the Defence Against the Dark Arts post. Harry excels in Potions by using an old textbook once belonging to a talented student known only as, "The Half-Blood Prince." The book contains many handwritten notes, revisions, and new spells; Hermione, however, believes Harry using it is cheating. Through private meetings with Dumbledore, Harry learns about Lord Voldemort's orphaned youth, his rise to power, and how he splintered his soul into Horcruxes to achieve immortality. Two Horcruxes have been destroyed, and Harry and Dumbledore locate another, although it is a fake. When Death Eaters invade Hogwarts, Snape kills Dumbledore. As Snape escapes, he proclaims that he is the Half-Blood Prince–Harry's admired mentor is actually his hated enemy. It now falls upon Harry to find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes and to avenge Dumbledore's death. In a 2005 interview with NBC anchorwoman Katie Couric, Rowling stated that [after the events in the sixth book] Harry has, "taken the view that they are now at war. He does become more battle hardened. He’s now ready to go out fighting. And he’s after revenge [against Voldemort and Snape]."

### Final book
In *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows*, Harry, Ron and Hermione leave Hogwarts to complete Dumbledore's task: to search for and destroy Voldemort's remaining four Horcruxes, and then find and kill the Dark Lord. The three put themselves against Voldemort's newly formed totalitarian police state, an action that tests Harry's courage and moral character. According to J.K. Rowling, a telling scene in which Harry uses *Cruciatus* and *Imperius* (unforgivable curses for torture and mind-control) on Voldemort's servants shows a side to Harry that is "flawed and mortal." However, she explains that, "He is also in an extreme situation and attempting to defend somebody very good against a violent and murderous opponent". J.K. Rowling said, the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry willingly accepts mortality, making him stronger. "The real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living." Ron, who helped George run the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes Joke Shop for a time, is also an Auror. In the end, Rowling said his old rival Draco Malfoy has overcome his animosity after Harry saved his life three times in the seventh book. The Harry Potter role has earned much money for Radcliffe. As of 2007, he had an estimated wealth of £17 million.

In a 2007 interview with MTV, Radcliffe stated that, for him, Harry Potter is a classic coming of age character: "That's what the movies 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." He also said that for him, important factors in Harry's psyche are his survivor's guilt about the death of his parents and his lingering loneliness. Because of this, Radcliffe talked to a bereavement counsellor to help him prepare for the role.

Radcliffe stated that the most often repeated question he has been asked is how Harry Potter has influenced his own life, to which he regularly answers it has been "fine", and that he did not feel pigeonholed by the role, but rather sees it as a huge privilege to portray the character of Harry Potter. After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, being able to do what even Voldemort can not: he is not afraid of death.

### Outward appearance
Rowling also gave Harry Potter an uncanny outward appearance. Throughout the entire series, Harry sports his father's perpetually untidy black hair, his mother's green eyes, and a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead because of his encounter with Lord Voldemort and round, thick eyeglasses. She explained that this image simply came to her when she first thought up Harry Potter, seeing him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy". Asked why Harry's forehead scar is lightning bolt-shaped, Rowling said, "to be honest, because it’s a cool shape," and joked, "I couldn’t have my hero sport a doughnut-shaped scar." Rowling said in the same interview that until about halfway through the third book, his good friend Hermione Granger –written as the smartest student in Harry's year– would have beaten Harry in a magical duel. From the fourth book onwards, Rowling admits Harry has become quite talented in the Defence Against the Dark Arts and would beat his friend Hermione in a magical duel. It forms a deliberate contrast to the wand of Lord Voldemort, whose wand is made of yew, which symbolises death. and also voted the 35th "Worst Briton" in Channel 4's "100 Worst Britons We Love to Hate" program. In addition, Harry Potter is spoofed in the *Barry Trotter* series by American writer Michael Gerber, where a "Barry Trotter" appears as the eponymous anti-hero. On his homepage, Gerber describes Trotter as an unpleasant character who "drinks too much, eats like a pig, sleeps until noon, and owes everybody money." The author stated "[s]ince I really liked Rowling's books […] I felt obligated to try to write a spoof worthy of the originals."

Wizard rock is a musical movement dating from 2002 that consists of at least 200 bands made up of young musicians, playing songs about *Harry Potter*. The movement started in Massachusetts with the band Harry and the Potters, who cosplay as Harry during live performances

## References
## Other websites 
*Harry Potter Quotes for a Braver You 
*Harry Potter: Quick facts from the HP lexicon
* Harry Potter quotes from Mugglenet 
* 123 Inspiring Quotes From The Harry Potter Series 
* Harry Potter Bibliography: Research and Criticism
* Harry Potter biography at The Harry Potter Encyclopedia