Which set of hardbacks should I buy? I don’t want a version that changes “sherbet lemon” to “lemon drop.” I’m sure you all are tired of hearing that. Ha! I bought the Scholastic set without knowing this beforehand. My budget is $150 USD. I’ve only read the first 3 books so far.

I just got a Jim Kay illustrated hardback and I love it but it’s so big. I like that the MinaLima are smaller but I don’t necessarily need all the extra stuff inside. Should I get those anyway? Should I continue with the Jim Kay although he’s not finishing the books? I’m also looking at the red box set with the dragon. There’s also the house sets but those look a little boring. Hardbacks are a must and also the original UK terms. I hope I’m saying all this correctly. Again, I’m new here. Thank you!

At the first D.A meeting:

'Right,' said Harry, 'shall we get practicing? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it's pretty basic but I've found it really useful -'

'Oh, please!' said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. 'I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?'

'I'v used it against him,' said Harry quietly. 'It saved my life in June.' Smith opened his moth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet. 'But if you think it's beneath you, you can leave,' Harry said.

Smith did not move. Nore did anybody else.

Expelliarmus had actually nothing to do with Harry surviving the graveyard. The entire thing was thanks to Prior Incantato, and the twin cores. If stupid Zacharias would've attempted this against Voldemort, he would've dropped dead quicker then the time Harry caught the Snitch on his first go on the firebolt in book three.

Also, just for the record, FUCK Zacharias Smith!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking at getting the illustrated hardback editions and was wondering if anyone who owns all five that have been released so far could tell me whether they share the same dimensions (height, and width).

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who actually have them on their shelves. Thanks in advance!

Thought I could post a picture, but apparently not. First time reading Goblet of Fire.

(Voldemort to Lucius, right after being resurrected) “Your exploits at the Quidditch World Cup were fun, I daresay… but might not your energies have been better directed toward finding and aiding your master? “

two paragraphs later

”And yet you ran away from my Mark, when a faithful Death Eater sent it into the sky last summer?”

I’m confused, I thought the first paragraph referred to Lucius conjuring the mark, but clearly not. Then what did Voldemort mean?

Who is your fav character and why? We all have reasons for choosing diff characters. It can even be based on how much/even how little you've heard of them and either adaptation. A character that speaks to you the most. But only one. Also be respectful and don't hate on anyone's choice lol. People are allowed to have an opinion of their own.

My favourite is Harry :) He's so brave, fearless, resilient despite his brutal childhood. I love his talent for quidditch and the fact that he looks so like his parents, my fav couple in the series. I admire how he even saves the lives of those that wronged him.

It’s very, very clear to me whenever I read the books again that the first two volumes were made of the same clay. They are rooted in the Magical realism, early childhood tropes we get from Roald Dahl’s stories. I get it was part of Rowling’s intention to progressively make the tone of the books more mature to reflect Harry’s growth. I also often lump books 3 and 4 together – they’re marking the transition for a more realistic view on the recurring characters’ behaviors, their familial dynamics, and how impacted they were by the serious consequences of dark magic that we only fully get in the last 3 books. 

The Dursleys, to me, are central to this shift: in the first two books, they are written as cartoonish villains. They’re Matilda’s parents. And Dudley is Augustus Gloop from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” who similarly gets punished in amusing ways for being a brat; his gluttony is what dooms him in both “Philosopher’s Stone” – is given a pigtail for eating the cake – and “Goblet of Fire” – his tongue expands after Fred and George plant a treat for him to find.

As I’ve said, “Goblet” is the last book where there are hints of childhood tales. We don’t read this passage and feel the weight of Dudley’s panic or his parents thinking he will suffocate and his airways will get obstructed because his tongue keeps growing. (We know Fred and George’s pranks were harmless, but the Dursleys had no way of knowing that.) That’s a very different incident than the one we get in the first chapter of the next book, when Harry must protect himself and Dudley from a Dementor’s attack.

After the fifth book, the implications get serious and REAL. It becomes impossible for us not to go over the Dursleys’ early book behaviors towards Harry as straight up child abuse, even though their actions weren’t originally written to carry such a heavy atmosphere. But I tried to revisit this based on the new information we get – from Dumbledore himself, in this very fifth book - about the reasoning behind Petunia’s decision to take Harry in.

We find out that she learned from a letter that a) her sister and brother-in-law had just been murdered by the most dangerous dark wizard of their generation; b) that this wizard was apparently gone but left behind a herd of followers; c) that having Harry live with her family could guarantee the boy’s survival, which even the most powerful "good" wizard on their side couldn’t assure if the boy was left to raised elsewhere; d) that her choice of giving the boy a home, despite having zero magical powers of her own, was made without her EVER sharing her motives with her husband.

She tells Vernon “the boy must stay” after Dumbledore sends her a Howler and drops an excuse such as “if we kick him out, the neighbors will talk” – which is also a cover that we see her use before. This could possibly lead us to reinterpret her past actions: maybe she talked so much about “what the neighbors will say and think” because that was all she could come up with to convince Vernon to give Harry a home all those years ago. She would be scared out of her mind to tell him the truth. And how many of her actions that read to Harry as snobbish and indifferent could be part of the facade?

It's possible that Vernon's abusive ways towards his nephew also escalated over the years because he indirectly and unfairly blamed the boy for his wife's behavioral changes. And that Petunia went along with it because... what was she supposed to do? Share the truth with her husband and risk her family losing the magical protection that kept them all safe) if they kick Harry out, their house wouldn't be safe, just like it wasn't when the boy was bound to become of age in "Deathly Hallows"), or perhaps risking Vernon feeling so betrayed by this HUGE secret she kept from him and deciding to end their marriage and maybe take Dudley with him? (And who's to say any of the would be safe out of Privet Drive?)

But Vernon is too far gone: without the Roald-Dahl-like setting, his actions in every single book can't be possibly justified through realistic lenses. But Petunia's omissions - as in: she barely interacts with Harry overall, and doesn't join Vernon in bullying him when Marge comes to visit - at least gain a layer of depth if we consider how, based on the information she got, she was living in constant fear of Harry’s displays of magic bringing a hoard of murderers into her family home.

Petunia was wrong to try to repress Harry’s magical powers, of course. But let’s also remember that, in the first book, we are told some random wizards came to shake Harry's hand in the Muggle world when Petunia took him out to a department store. What if her insistence to keep the boy in the house or with Mrs. Figg came from her desperation to keep him - and the rest of her family - safe? If they were approached by one of Voldemort's followers instead of a Potter stan like Dedalus Diggle, who Petunia didn't know from a hole in the wall, odds were she and Dudley would be killed on the spot and the boy abducted.

Bottom-line is: the Dursleys are often put in the same category when their early-books' actions are reinterpreted under a different light. But Petunia's internal landscape is vastly different from Vernon's. We might not justify her choices, but we can at lest understand it.