The plot of the seven-book series chronicles seven years in the life of the orphan Harry, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard.

He attends Hogwarts, a school of magic, where he receives guidance from the headmaster Albus Dumbledore and becomes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

Harry is regarded as a fictional icon and has been described by many critics, readers, and audiences as one of the greatest literary and film characters of all time.

[2] While developing ideas for the first book, she decided to make Harry an orphan who attends a boarding school called Hogwarts.

[4] Although Rowling gave Harry her own birth date of 31 July, she maintained that he is not directly based on any real-life person.

On his eleventh birthday, Harry discovers he is a wizard when Rubeus Hagrid brings him an acceptance letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

At the end of the summer, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express, where he befriends Ron Weasley and meets Hermione Granger.

He develops animosity towards a fellow first-year named Draco Malfoy, and becomes increasingly wary of the Potions professor, Severus Snape.

Awakening in the school infirmary, Harry and Hermione learn that Sirius is being held captive in Hogwarts and is awaiting the Dementor's Kiss.

She said that Harry's effort to prevent Cedric's body from falling into Voldemort's hands was based on the scene in Homer's Iliad where Achilles retrieves the corpse of his friend Patroclus from his enemy Hector.

Harry, Hermione and Ron subsequently form a secret group called Dumbledore's Army to teach students defensive spells.

He suffers another emotional blow when his godfather Sirius is killed by the Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange during a battle at the Department of Mysteries.

Harry decides to leave the Elder Wand in Dumbledore's tomb and the Resurrection Stone hidden in the forest, but he keeps the Invisibility Cloak.

[14][15] In a 2007 interview with MTV, Radcliffe described the development of his character during the course of the series: "That's what the films are about for me: a loss of innocence, going from being a young kid in awe of the world around him, to someone who is more battle-hardened by the end of it.

"[16] Radcliffe said that after the death of Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire, Harry experiences survivor's guilt and feels immense loneliness.

[18] In the novels, Harry is described as having his father's perpetually untidy black hair, his mother's bright green eyes, and a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead.

According to Rowling, one of Harry's pivotal scenes came in the fourth book when he protects his dead schoolmate Cedric Diggory's body from Voldemort, because it shows he is brave and selfless.

"[25] For the most part, Harry shows humility and modesty, often downplaying his achievements; though he uses a litany of his adventures as examples of his maturity early in the fifth book.

However, these very same accomplishments are later employed to explain why he should lead Dumbledore's Army, at which point he asserts them as having just been luck, and denies that they make him worthy of authority.

After the seventh book, Rowling commented that Harry has the ultimate character strength, which not even Voldemort possesses: the acceptance of the inevitability of death.

He has a particular talent for flying, which manifests itself in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the first time he tries it, and gets him a place on a Quidditch team one year before the normal minimum joining age.

One is the Marauder's Map, given to him by interim owners Fred and George Weasley, which endows Harry with comprehensive knowledge of Hogwarts' facilities, grounds, and occupants.

The first, a Nimbus Two Thousand, was procured for him by Professor Minerva McGonagall when Harry was added to Gryffindor's Quidditch team despite being a first-year student.

(Regulus Arcturus Black), the Snitch bequeathed to him by Dumbledore, containing the Resurrection Stone that had previously been set into Voldemort's grandfather Marvolo Gaunt's signet ring, which Harry discovers is actually the second Hallow, a letter from his mother to Sirius with part of a photo (of him and his father, James), and eventually, his own broken wand (which Harry later repairs with the Elder Wand).

[3] However, after her mother's death, Rowling wrote Harry as a child longing to see his dead parents again, incorporating her own anguish into him.

[2] James Potter is a descendant of Ignotus Peverell, the third of the three original owners of the Deathly Hallows, and thus so is Harry, a realisation he makes during the course of the final book.

[32] In The Irish Times, Ed Power called Harry an "anointed cherub" who is "told he is special from the very outset" before he has any "winning attributes".

A puppet protagonist is a main character with dull, limited personality, enabling the audience to step inside the role and use their imagination to fill in the rest.

Wizard rock is a musical movement dating from 2002 that consists of at least 200 bands made up of young musicians, playing songs about Harry Potter.

On his homepage, Gerber describes Trotter as an unpleasant character who "drinks too much, eats like a pig, sleeps until noon, and owes everybody money".