An in-depth reference guide to nearly everything in the Harry Potter universe.

Harry's Story: Pre-Hogwarts

Hary Potter was born on July 31st in the year of 1980. His parents, Lily and James, were members of the Order of the Phoenix, a group formed to stop the dark wizard Voldemort and his followers of Death Eaters. Lily and James in particular had escaped Voldemort on three seperate occasions, which proved crucial in a prophecy made by Sybll Trelawney. It stated that,

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

One of Voldemort's followers, who we later find out to be Severus Snape, overheard the first half of the prophecy at the Hog's Head bar, where Dumbledore and Sibyll had a meeting to discuss the post of Divination teacher at Hogwarts. The prophecy referred to two people: Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Voldemort chose the half-blood in Harry, like himself, and thus set out to kill him. Dumbledore suspected this, and told Lilly and James to go into hiding at Godric's Hollow. To ensure their safety, he suggested they use the Fidelius Charm, and Sirius, harry's godfather, was supposed to be the Charm's Secret Keeper. Yet Sirius though that this would be to obvious, so another close friend, Peter Pettigrew, took the burden. Unfortunately, Peter betrayed them and revealed the hiding place to Voldemort. On October 31st, he came to their house, killing James and Lily with the killing curse. Yet when he turned to Harry to kill him, the curse backfired, and Voldemort was an inch away from death. With no body, less than a spirit, he fled, leaving most to think he was dead. The wizarding world as a whole rejoiced, and Harry Potter became famous.

The Dursley family, being Harry's only known relatives, agreed to take Harry in as an orphan and raise him after the night of his parents' death. Yet Harry knew knothing of this as he grew up. His Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who was Lily's sister, made sure he would never find out about the fate of his parents, telling him they died in a car crash. And they above all kept secret the information of what he truly was: a wizard.

Vernon and Petunia gave Harry a cupboard under the stairs for sleeping quarters at their house on Number 4, Privet Drive in Little Whinging (a fictional village), Surrey (a real city). Harry's cousin Dudley, often took pleasure in bullying him along with his gang of friends.

Yet Harry always knew something was strange. He would wake up in the morning after a bad haricut, and his hair would be grown back as it was before. Or when trying to escape Dudley and his gang at school, he would find himself sititng on the roof, having no idea how he had gotten there. And who could have forgotten the incident where Harry had made the exhibit glass of a sleeping snake vanish causing his cousin to fall in? All of these odd happenings culminated when Harry recieved a mysterious letter that immediately caught the attention of Vernon and Petunia. They took the letter away from Harry and ripped it up. But when more and more letters arrived, it drove Vernon to the point where he took his family to a hotel, where no letters could arrive. But, of course, they did. And with this, the Dursleys and Harry rented a hut out in the sea to sleep in. While there, in the middle of the night on Harry's eleventh birthday, a huge man breaks into the hut. After introducing himself to a confused Harry and a terrified Dursley family, he explained to Harry that he was a wizard, and he had been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. The next morning, they took off.

The half giant, called Hagrid, took Harry to Diagon Alley to get his school supplies, and then to King's Cross Station, where he would board the Hogwarts Express on Platform 9 3/4. A wizarding family at the station helped him enter the Platform, telling him to run straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. A child of that family, Ron, would eventually become Harry's best friend. And thus Harry's schooling career had begun.

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