players off their broomsticks.
Blyton, Enid
People sometimes denigrate Rowling by saying her books are little more than Enid Blyton on broomsticks. She says herself that she was never really a fan of that author, though she’s read the Famous Five books, and certain elements of the solidarity of Harry, Ron and Hermione are similar as they go about their fact-finding missions and suddenly end up in life-threatening situations before all comes out well in the end.
The difference, of course, is that there’s a Peter Pan element with the Famous Five. They remain the same age throughout all the books, unlike Rowling’s characters, who go through hormonal changes in adolescence, like ‘real’ children. Rowling originally intended to bring out one book a year but interruptions of one sort or another gave rise to delays; this has affected the timescale of the films as well, which means that her characters have aged more quickly on the screen than in the books.
Boarding schools
Rowling seems to celebrate these in her books, but says she’s not exactly a fan of them. (She never went to one, and nor did Enid Blyton, another author who liked writing about them.) Rowling’s critics say this element of her work makes it a thinly disguised lament for ye olde England, but that hasn’t stopped readers lapping it up, even (especially?) if it has a certain anachronistic element.
Even though Harry is a wizard, he has to worry about things like homework, exams, practical jokes, teasing, detention, boring classes (Professor Binns take a bow!), one-upmanship, punctuality, peer group pressure, not wandering out of bounds, succeeding at games, etc. Rowling weaves these details seamlessly into all the chapters dealing with spells, potions, trolls, owl posts, centaurs, boggarts, sphinxes, Basilisks, werewolves, secret passageways, passwords, flying broomsticks, death curses, giant spiders, speaking snakes and so on.
Hogwarts is a co-ed, multicultural school of learning with Head Girls, Head Boys and prefects. It doesn’t have flogging, like, say, the institutions of the Tom Brown’s School Days era of literature—point deduction is the preferred mode of censure—nor does it have ‘fagging’, i.e. the practice of new pupils becoming older ones’ gofers, though the house elves seem to some extent to serve this function. Like Tom Brown, however, Harry is bullied, he’s good at sports, he breaks rules when he feels he has to, he has a wise headmaster—Brown’s was Dr Arnold while his is Professor Dumbledore—and he eventually becomes a hero to his class.
What Rowling has done is to serve up old wine in new wineskins, as well as throwing in some occult villainy for good (or bad) measure, and we relish the unique mix.
Boggarts
These chameleon-like creatures can take the form of anything they wish, depending on what the person looking at them is fearing. Rowling probably based the word on the bogeyman. You can get the better of them by imagining diverse things at once and making them assume shapes one finds amusing.
Book signings
Rowling’s have been compared to Rolling (Rowling?) Stones concerts for their hysteria and hype. At one in Boston in 1999, she signed no less than 1400 books in a single day. She must have wished for a magic signature wand that day to stave off a stinging wrist.
Borgin & Burkes
Shop on Knockturn Alley where one can buy items relating to the Dark Arts.
Branagh, Kenneth
The actor who plays the sensationally narcissistic Gilderoy Lockhart…with sensational narcissism.
Bryce, Frank
The caretaker of Riddle House.
Bubble-Head Charm
A spell that encloses the caster in a bubble of air. Cedric Diggory uses it to travel underwater without drowning in The Goblet of Fire.
Buckbeak
This is the hippogriff that Hagrid brings to his Care of Magical Creatures class. Harry approaches him gently winning his confidence and succeeding in flying him. Draco Malfoy, however, annoys him and Buckbeak slashes his arm. Malfoy exaggerates the injury and Buckbeak is sentenced to death. Hermione rescues him posthumously with her trusty Time-Turner, and Sirius Black rides away on him, thereby sparing both of their lives.
Budleigh Babberton
The village where Horace Slughorn lives as a recluse before Dumbledore prevails upon him to return to Hogwarts.
Burnings
It’s hard to believe that reactions to Rowling’s work would be so emotive that her books would actually be burned by those who felt they exercised unhealthy influences on impressionable children, but this is exactly what happened in New Mexico in 2001 when Jack Brock, a pastor of the Alamogordo Community Church, organised a communal burning of the texts, his congregation singing ‘Amazing Grace’ as the volumes went up in flames. Another burning took place in Pennsylvania around about the same time. Ironically, such incidents only increased Rowling’s cult status. (Banning of books often has the same effect.)
Caine, Michael
Rowling’s favourite actor.
Camp-outs
Activities performed by diligent fans of Harry Potter, who sometimes queue late at night to be first in line for the latest title to appear on the shelves at midnight. The ‘witching hour’ would seem to be an appropriate time to sell books about witches.
Carroll, Lewis
Another major influence on Rowling, particularly if we liken her work to the ‘beautiful nonsense’ of Alice in Wonderland. Like Carroll, Edward Lear, Dr Seuss and others, Rowling likes the idea of mirrors leading to magic portals.
Carrow, Alecto
The Death Eater who invaded Hogwarts in 1997 with her brother Amycus.
Cassettes
Over a million cassettes and CD recordings of Harry Potter books have been sold at the time of writing.