Harry Potter

Hogwarts letters flood the Dursley house until Rubeus Hagrid shows up in person at a shack in the middle of the sea to deliver the invitation. Harry learns his parents, Lily and James, didn't die in a car crash: Voldemort killed them, tried to kill him too, and vanished when the curse turned back on him. In Diagon Alley, Harry gets a holly wand with a phoenix feather core, and Mr. Ollivander tells him the same phoenix gave the feather in Voldemort's wand.

On the Hogwarts Express he makes friends with Ron Weasley and meets Hermione Granger. The Sorting Hat considers Slytherin, but Harry asks for another house and lands in Gryffindor. He becomes Seeker on the Quidditch team as a first-year, the youngest in a century, and finds the Mirror of Erised, where he sees his parents standing beside him.

The trio learns that Fluffy, a three-headed dog, is guarding the Sorcerer's Stone, and they suspect Snape. In the end Harry gets past the traps and finds Professor Quirrell, who carries Voldemort on the back of his head. The Stone ends up in Harry's pocket, and Harry's touch alone burns Quirrell. Dumbledore explains that Harry's mother died to save him, and her love left a protection in his skin.

Dobby the house-elf tries to keep Harry from going back to Hogwarts, and he and Ron end up arriving in Mr. Weasley's flying car. At school, students turn up petrified, and a message in blood says the Chamber of Secrets has been opened. At the dueling club, Harry talks to a snake in its own language, and half the school decides he's the Heir of Slytherin.

Harry finds a blank diary that belonged to a student named Tom Riddle. When Ginny Weasley is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron go after her. There, Riddle reveals he is the young Voldemort, preserved in the diary. Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, brings the Sorting Hat, and Harry pulls the sword of Godric Gryffindor out of it to kill the basilisk. Wounded by the snake's fang, he stabs the fang into the diary and destroys Riddle; Fawkes's tears heal him. Before leaving, Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy with a sock and frees Dobby.

After blowing up Aunt Marge, Harry runs away from his aunt and uncle's house on the Knight Bus. Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban, and everyone believes he wants Harry dead. The Dementors guarding the school make Harry pass out, and the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, teaches him the Patronus Charm.

In the Shrieking Shack the truth comes out: Sirius is Harry's godfather and he's innocent. The one who betrayed the Potters was Peter Pettigrew, who spent years hiding as Scabbers, Ron's rat. Pettigrew gets away. With Hermione's Time-Turner, the two go back a few hours. Harry realizes the Patronus that saved him by the lake was cast by himself, and the silver stag drives off the Dementors. They save Buckbeak the hippogriff, and Sirius escapes on his back. At the end, Harry gets a Firebolt as a gift.

The Goblet of Fire picks three champions for the Triwizard Tournament and then, out of nowhere, spits out a fourth name: Harry Potter, who isn't even old enough to compete. Ron thinks he cheated and they fall out. With hidden help from Professor Mad-Eye Moody, Harry gets past a Hungarian Horntail dragon and the lake task, where he rescues Ron.

In the final task, Harry and Cedric Diggory grab the cup together. It's a Portkey, and it takes them to a graveyard. Wormtail kills Cedric on Voldemort's orders and uses Harry's blood in a ritual that gives the dark wizard a body again. The Death Eaters return to him. During the duel, Harry's and Voldemort's wands connect, and echoes of Harry's parents and Cedric come out of the enemy wand and buy him time to escape with his classmate's body. Back at Hogwarts, it turns out Moody was Barty Crouch Jr. disguised with Polyjuice Potion, the one who put Harry's name in the goblet.

Harry uses magic to save Dudley from Dementors and nearly gets expelled. The Ministry of Magic denies Voldemort is back, and the Daily Prophet paints Harry as a liar. At Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge bans practicing spells in class, and Hermione talks Harry into teaching in secret. Dumbledore's Army is born and trains in the Room of Requirement.

Harry starts seeing through Voldemort's eyes and saves Mr. Weasley from a snake attack. Snape tries to teach him Occlumency, with no luck. Voldemort uses the link to plant a vision of Sirius being tortured in the Department of Mysteries. Harry rushes there with his friends and walks into a trap: the Death Eaters want the prophecy about him and Voldemort. The Order of the Phoenix arrives, and Bellatrix Lestrange kills Sirius. In the Ministry atrium, Dumbledore faces Voldemort, who tries to possess Harry and fails. Minister Fudge finally sees Voldemort with his own eyes.

Harry becomes the favorite student of the new Potions professor, Horace Slughorn, thanks to an old textbook scribbled with notes by someone called the Half-Blood Prince. Dumbledore takes Harry through memories stored in the Pensieve to show him Tom Riddle's past and asks him to get the real version of an old conversation out of Slughorn. Harry pulls it off with the luck potion Felix Felicis. The memory reveals the Horcruxes: pieces of Voldemort's soul hidden inside objects.

Meanwhile, Harry suspects Draco Malfoy has become a Death Eater, nearly kills him with the Sectumsempra spell copied from the book, and starts dating Ginny. He and Dumbledore go after a locket in a cave; the headmaster drinks the potion guarding it and comes back very weak. On the Astronomy Tower, Draco disarms Dumbledore but can't bring himself to kill him. Snape does it. As he flees, Snape reveals that he is the Half-Blood Prince. The locket was a fake, with a note signed R.A.B.

Harry drops out of school to hunt Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione. During the escape from the Dursleys', Hedwig and Mad-Eye die. The trio breaks into the Ministry to steal the real locket and spends months camping. Ron walks out, then comes back guided by a light, just in time to save Harry in the frozen pond where the sword of Gryffindor was hidden, and destroys the locket. In Godric's Hollow, the snake Nagini almost gets Harry, and his wand breaks. Xenophilius Lovegood tells them the story of the Deathly Hallows. Captured at Malfoy Manor, the three are rescued by Dobby, who dies in Harry's arms.

In the final film they steal Hufflepuff's cup from Gringotts and head back to Hogwarts for Ravenclaw's diadem. The Battle of Hogwarts begins. In Snape's memories, Harry learns that he himself carries a piece of Voldemort's soul, and he walks into the Forbidden Forest alone, holding the Resurrection Stone from the Golden Snitch. Voldemort hits him with the Killing Curse, but it only destroys the part of Voldemort living in Harry. After a talk with Dumbledore in a white King's Cross, Harry comes back. Neville kills Nagini, and in the final duel the Elder Wand obeys Harry and Voldemort falls. Harry snaps the wand. Nineteen years later, he and Ginny take their kids to Platform 9¾.

In J.K. Rowling's books, Harry has his mother's green eyes, a detail repeated constantly; in the movies they stayed blue because Daniel Radcliffe reacted badly to the contact lenses. The books give much more room to Harry's anger in fifth year and to Quidditch, which the movies only show in pieces. "The Boy Who Lived" is the title of the first book's first chapter.