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Welcome to Beyond Hogwarts, the only ongoing online Harry Potter fan conference.
Beyond Hogwarts is an academic resource, unraveling and discussing the clues as we near the dramatic
climax of the Harry Potter saga, and beyond into the future of Harry's Wizarding world.
Beyond Hogwarts Featured Articles:
Dumbledore Is Not ! Well... maybe not. At least, I don't think he is. Snape's betrayal and the of Dumbledore caught me completely by surprise. Dumbledore was , and on top of that, Snape had done it. And all of the clues point to two possibilities, that Dumbledore's not really , or at the very least, that Snape's not really a Eater, and he Dumbledore because Dumbledore ordered him to, as part of a grand plan. [More...]
Magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable At the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore describes the life that Peter Pettigrew owes Harry as "magic at its deepest, it's most impenetrable". But who else the in Harry Potter books might owe Harry a life ? And are life and Unbreakable Vows related? [More...]
Mischief Managed... Not! I believe there is a small mistake in the movie script of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The error is when Lupin says "Mischief managed" to the marauder's map just after saying goodbye to Harry at the end of the movie. Fred and George stole the map from Filch. They would have no way of knowing the original incantations used to operate it. But Lupin uses the same incantation in this scene. [More...]
Who is R.A.B. and where is Slytherin's Locket? In the dramatic climax of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry recover a locket from Voldemort's secret cave. Only after Dumbledore "dies" does Harry open the locket and find the note from R.A.B. But who is R.A.B., and where is the locket now? [More...]
Why did Dumbledore have James' cloak? On a new post on her official web site, J.K. Rowling admitted she made a mistake in New York when she was asked, what question have you never been asked that you ought to have been asked? She now says the question should have been, Why did Dumbledore have James' invisibility cloak at the time of James' death, given that Dumbledore could make himself invisible without a cloak? [More...]
An Introduction to Arithmancy Arithmancy is one of Hermione's favorite subjects at Hogwarts, because it is a very precise, measurable and almost scientific method of predicting the future. Arithmancy is a method of divination by numbers first used by the ancient Greeks. Today, Wizards can use arithmancy to help predict trends in the future. [More...]
Wands from a Muggle Perspective The wand is a very important tool in the lives of witches and wizards of the Harry Potter universe. I believe the magical wands of Harry Potter's world could actually be tiny hand-held computers. This is a look at those wands, from the perspective a muggle computer programmer, using actual examples from the Harry Potter books. [More...]
Wand Basics 101 As long as there have been Witches and Wizards, there have been magical wands. No part of Harry Potter's magical heritage goes back further. The ancient Celtic Druids who lived in what is now called Scotland employed wands all the way back to 500 BC. As a matter of fact, "Druid" actually means "man with the wisdom of the wood". [More...]
Character changes in Goblet of Fire In the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie, there is a scene in the Gryffindor common room, where Harry is lamenting that they still don't have dates, the Patil sisters walk by, and in unison they say, "Hi, Harry!" But wait! What is Padma Patil doing in the Gryffindor common room?! [More...]
Foreshadowings in Prisoner of Azkaban In an interview released around the time of the theatrical premiere of Prisoner of Azkaban, an interview which is also on the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD, J.K. Rowling said, "Alfonso Cuaron had very good intuition about what would and wouldn't work. He's put things in the film that, without knowing it, foreshadow things that are going to happen in the final two books." [More...]
Spot The Stuntman There's a scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone where you can clearly see a stuntman double in the place of Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley. But, the stuntman is only in the movie for four frames, so it's literally impossible to see him unless you freeze-frame the DVD. [More...]
