Harry James Potter (31 July 1980) was a half-blood wizard, the only child and son of James Potter and Lily Potter (née Evans), and one of the most famous wizards of modern times. In what proved to be a vain attempt to circumvent a prophecy that a boy born at the end of July of 1980 would be able to defeat him, Voldemort tried to murder him when he was a year and three months exactly after murdering Harry's parents as they tried to protect him. This early, unsuccessful attempt to vanquish Harry led to Voldemort's first defeat and the end of the First Wizarding War. One consequence of Lily's protection is that her orphaned son had to be raised by her only remaining blood relative, with her Muggle sister Petunia's family, where he was neither welcomed nor nurtured, but would stay alive, at least until he was seventeen years old. As the only known survivor of the Killing Curse up to that point, Harry was already famous before he arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Early on his eleventh birthday, Harry learned from Rubeus Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, that he was a wizard. He began attending Hogwarts in 1991 and was Sorted into Gryffindor house. While at school, Harry became best friends with Ronald Weasley andHermione Granger. He became the youngest Quidditch Seeker in over a century and eventually captain of his house's team, winning two Quidditch Cups. He became even better known in his early years for protecting the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort and saving Ron's sister Ginny Weasley from the Chamber of Secrets. Inhis fourth year, Harry won the Triwizard Tournament, although the competition ended in tragedy with the death of Cedric Diggory and the return of Voldemort. The next school year, Harry reluctantly founded Dumbledore's Army and fought in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries, during which he lost his godfather, Sirius Black, who was a father figure to him.
Harry played a significant role in many other battles of the Second Wizarding War and hunted down and destroyed Voldemort'sHorcruxes with Ron and Hermione. During the Battle of Hogwarts, he personally witnessed the deaths of Severus Snape (the "Half-Blood Prince") and Fred Weasley, and learned that Remus Lupin,Nymphadora Tonks, Colin Creevey, and many others had fallen as well. He encountered Voldemort and sacrificed himself, knowing that his doing so was the only way to destroy the fragment of Voldemort's soul that was inside him. In Harry's near-death experience after Voldemort cursed him in the forest clearing, Dumbledore gave Harry advice and background information on Voldemort. When told he could choose to live or to "move on," Harry chose to live, and after he awoke he confronted Voldemort, and defeated him.
Harry is also notable for being the only known Master of Death, having united the three Deathly Hallows.
After the war, Harry became an Auror and married Ginny, with whom he had three children: James Sirius who he named after his father and godfather, Albus Severus, named after Snape and Dumbledore, and Lily Luna, named after his mother and good friend Luna Lovegood. Harry was also named the godfather of Ted Lupin. He became Head of the Auror Office in 2007, and occasionally travelled to Hogwarts to deliver Defence Against the Dark Arts lectures.
- "Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head Boy an' Head Girl at Hogwarts in their day!"
- —Rubeus Hagrid talking about Harry's parents
The Potters were an old, very wealthy pure-blood family, and Harry inherited much of his wealth from his parents. The Potters descended from thePeverell family, an ancientwizarding line, through Ignotus Peverell, who passed the Cloak of Invisibility on to his descendants. The Gaunts, descendants of Salazar Slytherin, also descend from the Peverells, through Ignotus' brother Cadmus, who passed on the Resurrection Stone as a family heirloom in a signet ring which turned out to be one of the seven Hocruxes of Voldemort, making Harry and Tom Riddlevery distant relatives.
It is also probable that Harry was distantly related, on his father's side, to the Blacks, Malfoys, Weasleys, and the Longbottoms, and almost all other pure-blood families, making him distantly related to various other wizards and witches, including Bellatrix Lestrange,Sirius Black, Nymphadora Tonks, and even his wife Ginny Weasley, though the degree of consanguinity is not known.
Childhood
- "Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up inthe village where you was all living, on Hallowe'en ten years ago. You was just a year old."
- — Hagrid on James and Lily's deaths
Harry Potter was born on 31 July1980, to Lily and James Potter, members of the first Order of the Phoenix at the height of the First Wizarding War. From birth, he lived in hiding with his parents after Voldemort marked them for death. They lived in the village ofGodric's Hollow in a home put under the Fidelius Charm to keep them hidden. As part of the charm, they had planned to make Sirius their Secret-Keeper, but acting on his advice, they changed this designation to Peter Pettigrew, as they thought he would be less suspicious. In a terrible turn of fate, it happened that Pettigrew was a spy for Voldemort. He betrayed James and Lily, faked his own death, and framed Sirius for both.
At an unknown time, James and Lily held a Christening for Harry. It was quiet and quick, and only James, Lily, Harry and Sirius were there. For Harry's first birthday Sirius bought him a toy broomstick. The Potters owned a cat but it is unknown what happened to it after Voldemort's attack.
On the evening of Hallowe'en, Voldemort arrived at Godric's Hollow and killed James and Lily; he started with James, who tried to stand up to him; unfortunately he did not have his wand with him and was killed immediately. Lord Voldemort then advanced on Lily, who died protecting Harry. Hersacrifice prevented the Killing Curse from working on Harry. Herlove for Harry became a barrier protecting her son; when Voldemort attempted the curse on Harry, it backfired, and instead of killing Harry, Voldemort lost all his powers and his physical form was obliterated, but was saved from death by the five Horcruxes he had made up to that point. These included his diary, Marvolo Gaunt's Ring, Salazar Slytherin's Locket, Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, and Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, (Nagini was not made a Horcrux until Voldemort's return, when he killed the old Muggle caretaker of the Riddle home just prior to the Triwizard Tournement, and Harry himself did not contain part of Voldemort's soul until the time of the failed Killing Curse.) This event made Harry the only person to have survived the Killing Curse. The failed curse left a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead. The scar would be a bane and a blessing to Harry in the years to come, as it opened a telepathic link between Voldemort and himself.
The house at Godric's Hollow was destroyed in the attack, and Hagrid rescued Harry from the ruined house. Hagrid was given specific orders to take him to hisAunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, but he was intercepted by Sirius, who pleaded for Hagrid to give the baby to him. Hagrid refused, saying that he was under orders from Dumbledore to get Harry toPrivet Drive as quickly as possible.
- "This boy will be famous, a legend. I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in future. There will be books written about Harry, every child in our world will know his name."
- —Minerva McGonagall
Sirius, though reluctant, relented and gave Hagrid his flying motorcycle to take Harry to Privet Drive. Dumbledore left a letter of explanation to the Dursleys, but they never relayed it to Harry. Instead, Harry spent the next decade of his life in their strict and miserable home without knowing he was a wizard.
Life at Privet Drive
- "I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"
- —Vernon Dursley refusing that Harry was a wizard
Living with the Dursleys, Harry thought, was the worst thing in the world. As they were Muggles, they had no understanding of magic, and even though his aunt and uncle knew about his lineage, they wanted nothing to do with it. The Dursleys considered themselves a "normal" family and hated anything out of the ordinary. They lied to Harry about his parents, claiming they had died in a car crash and that James was an unemployed drunk. When he tried to remember them, all he saw was a green flash. He tried to understand what it was, or if it was from the car crash, but he simply could not. Petunia and Vernon forbade Harry from asking questions, particularly those regarding his parents. They resented Harry for his magic, which was sporadic, but evident. They discouraged any sort of imagination insisting upon "stamping that rubbish out" and screamed at or punished Harry--sometimes by depriving him of meals--whenever something "unusual" occurred. In his youth, Harry could make strange things happen without understanding why he could, as no one had told him that he was a wizard. For instance, after Petunia sheared off all his messy hair in fury that it would not lay flat, leaving him almost completely bald with only the fringe at the front, it had grown all the way back, and to its previous messy state at that, by the next morning. Harry was punished, even though he had not done anything on purpose. Another time, Dedalus Diggle bowed to him in a shop, and Petunia ferociously interrogated Harry as to how he knew the man before leaving the shop very quickly.
The Dursleys spoiled and pampered their son Dudley Dursley and paid almost no attention to Harry; indeed, what little attention they did pay to him was entirely negative. All his clothes were hand-me-downs from Dudley and were far too large for Harry. He was forced to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, while his cousin got two bedrooms to himself. They ordered Harry around like a slave for most of his childhood. In time, Dudley started bullying Harry. The Dursleys took Dudley and a friend to spectacular places every year for his birthday, but the only thing Harry got for his birthday was one of Vernon's old socks. The Dursleys also hid evidence of Harry's existence by not having pictures of him in the house.
Harry's hardship, however, was necessary as by returning to live with his mother's only living blood relative, the protection that Lily gave Harry would continue. While Harry could call that place home, he could not be harmed. However, this charm would be broken when Harry turned 17 years old, or when he no longer called 4 Privet Drive his home. Furthermore, Harry's neighbour,Arabella Figg, was a Squib working undercover for the Order of the Phoenix to keep tabs on Harry's well-being. Unfortunately for Harry, to maintain favour with the Dursleys, she was forced to give him a lousy time whenever she had to look after him, as the Dursleys would never have let him go if they knew Harry was enjoying himself, a possibility that infuriated them.
On Dudley's eleventh birthday, the Dursleys went to the Zoo with Dudley's best friend Piers Polkiss. Unfortunately for the Dursleys, they had to take Harry with them, as Mrs. Figg had broken her leg and there was no one to take Harry, and they refused to leave him alone in their house. At the Zoo, Harry unintentionally made the glass of an enclosure containing a boa constrictor disappear. This allowed the snake to slither out of his cage which scared Dudley into thinking it was after him. Harry was able to communicate with the freed boa in Parseltongue, which thanked Harry briefly, then slithered out of the reptile house calmly. After this incident, the enraged Dursleys sentenced Harry to his cupboard until the beginning of the summer holidays.
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