Harry Potter (character)
| Harry Potter | |
|---|---|
| Harry Potter character | |
|
|
| First appearance | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone |
| Last appearance | Harry Potter and the Cursed Child |
| Created by | J. K. Rowling |
| Portrayed by |
Daniel Radcliffe (films) Jamie Parker (play) |
| House | Gryffindor |
| Information | |
| Family |
James Potter (father) Lily Potter (mother) |
| Spouse(s) | Ginny Weasley |
| Children |
James Potter (son) Albus Potter (son) Lily Potter (daughter) |
| Relatives |
Petunia Dursley (aunt) Vernon Dursley (uncle) Dudley Dursley (cousin) |
Harry James Potter is the title character of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard. Thus, he attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to practise magic under the guidance of the kindly headmaster Albus Dumbledore and other school professors. Harry also discovers that he is already famous throughout the novel's magical community, and that his fate is tied with that of Lord Voldemort, the internationally feared Dark Wizard and murderer of his parents Lily and James.
According to Rowling, the idea for both the Harry Potter books and its eponymous character came while waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. She stated that her idea for "this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me". While developing the ideas for her book, she also decided to make Harry an orphan who attended a boarding school called Hogwarts. She explained in a 1999 interview with The Guardian: "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."
Her own mother's death on 30 December 1990 inspired Rowling to write Harry Potter as a boy longing for his dead parents, his anguish becoming "much deeper, much more real" than in earlier drafts because she related to it herself. In a 2000 interview with The Guardian, Rowling also established that the character of Wart in T. H. White's novel The Once and Future King is "Harry's spiritual ancestor." Finally, she established Harry's birth date as 31 July, the same as her own. However, she maintained that Harry was not directly based on any real-life person: "he came just out of a part of me".
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Wikipedia