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Are you tired of catching flack from hardcore Harry Potter fans about how you’ve never sat through all eight of the movies?

Do you want to check out all the films without committing more than a minute of your time to the task?

Is watching a recap of Harry going from apprentice wizard to defeater of Voldemort the only way you can start your day?

Well then this snack sized video should satisfy any/all of these requirements as quickly as possible.

–via The Mary Sue

Logospilgrim is just a bit interested in the character of Severus Snape from Harry Potter. She has Snape tattoos, dresses like Snape, and has written two books about him. Her home office is a shrine packed with objects and decorations that would please him, including potion bottles that are presumably empty. You can view several more pictures at the link.

Link | Logospilgrim’s Website

Uh oh! Don't tell Harry Potter but He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has been reincarnated! Via Nerd Approved

Previously on Neatorama: 10 Strangest Names EVAR!

(YouTube Link)

Recently we brought you the first edition of the Feast of Fiction recipe series-a recipe for Sunshine Souffle from the video game Skyrim. That recipe looks delicious, and easy to make, but their newest recipe for Butterbeer looks utterly repulsive.

That’s right, I said Butterbeer, but before all you Harry Potter fans get too excited, you need to know: this recipe contains neither beer nor butter, and it contains artificial butter flavoring, which makes any food (except movie theater popcorn, for some reason) gross and way too buttery.

Maybe this recipe is a dream come true for HP fanatics, but to me it sounds like a good idea gone terribly wrong. But what do you think: are you going to be trying out this recipe for yourself?

–via GeeksAreSexy

It appears J.K. Rowling was more than a little inspired by Tolkien’s classic  fantasy series the Lord Of The Rings when writing her Harry Potter series, and this cute chart aims to prove it by illustrating the similarities between the characters and plot points in both series.

Check out all 4 sections of the chart at the link below, and see for yourself how Harry Potter literally owes his life to J.R.R. Tolkien.

Link

If you love Jell-O and Harry Potter, these might just be the ultimate adult party treat. The recipe sounds delicious, as it includes amaretto, vanilla ice cream, Bailey’s and chocolate liquor. If that’s not enough for you, they also have a link to a butter beer Jell-O shot recipe with cream soda and butterscotch schnapps.

Link Via Craftzine

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It takes a true Harry Potter fan to commission a carpenter to build a nine foot tall cat house that looks just like the Weasley family Burrow. That and a crazy cat lady.

Via BuzzFeed

Who would famous literary characters be best friends with, if they could select other characters from across works of fiction by other authors?

Flavorwire imagined 8 such pairings, starting with this one of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye and Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter series:

At one point, Caulfield was the paradigmatic teenager, but now his star has fallen as kids munch on antidepressants and try to be absorbed by, rather than rebel against, the growing ranks of other-directed kids in the lonely crowd. Which is why he would probably get along with another unloved character, Draco Malfoy. If Holden and Draco were friends, however, Draco probably would have already failed out of Hogwarts and ended up somewhere in the bowels of London, smoking cigarette after cigarette and drinking out of of a pocket flask as they discussed their stupid classmates and even more ignorant parents. Phonies! The lot of ‘em.

Link - Thanks Russ!

BrittLiv, the crafting maestro who brought us the dead Kenny doorstop and the pixelated trashcan, is now making edible art. She’s created wands like those in the Harry Potter movies, but these are made out of fondant and flavored with chocolate. Yummy!

Link -via Craft

Link via Flavorwire

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A lot has been made about all the actors in Harry Potter growing up, but what about the characters? This video explains what happens now that the evil has been wiped away. Warning: you probably shouldn’t watch this one at work.

I can understand a writer making this mistake in the midst of writing dozens of questions a day, but shouldn’t an editor have caught this?

Link

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If you liked the heavy metal version of the Batman theme that Zeon posted earlier, you’ll probably dig this great Harry Potter theme converted to the same rocking genre.

Via Geeks Are Sexy

Geeky-themed weddings are always fun and I have seen my share of superhero, Renaissance and Star Wars weddings around the blogosphere, I hadn’t seen many Harry Potter weddings until now. Fortunately, The Mary Sue has a great round up of these adorable occasions and the photos are simply adorable.

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I don’t know about you guys, but I absolutely love trailer mash ups and this Harry Potter one is one of the best I’ve seen in a very long time.

Via Geeks Are Sexy

There is probably no greater revenge on a teacher that you hated then becoming one of the world’s most successful authors and using them as the basis for your epic villain. Although fighting them to the death with magic would be cool too.

For those of you who’ve ever dreamed of turning your childhood enemies into objects of ridicule and hatred, with a side of jackass to boot, this list is for you. These iconic fictional characters were based on real-life people, and their creators couldn’t give the least bit of a damn who knew it.

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Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – $2.95

Attention Harry Potter fans!  Are you looking for a great after movie treat?  You need Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans from the NeatoShop.  The complete mix (may not be present in all boxes) includes:

• Banana
• Black Pepper
• Blueberry
• Booger
• Candyfloss
• Cherry
• Cinnamon
• Dirt
• Earthworm
• Earwax
• Grass
• Green Apple
• Lemon
• Marshmallow
• Rotten Egg
• Sausage
• Soap
• Tutti-Frutti
• Vomit
• Watermellon

Are you brave enough to eat a whole box? Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Mints & Candies!

Link

With the biggest opening weekend in history under its belt, the Harry Potter franchise has just about everything it needs; except baby doll versions of its main characters.. until now. One enterprising artist has made baby dolls the likes of which are either extremely cute or extremely freaky (Baby Voldemort pictured.)

Potter Babies! One skilled newborn babydoll artist has made ultra-realistic versions of Harry Potter characters as newborns. Behold the twisted limbs of baby Dobby, the furry face of Baby Remus Lupin, and stare into the snake eyes of Baby Voldemort!

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Carnivorous trees have popped up now and again in various superstitious texts, including one outrageous tall tale invented by a 19th-century German explorer named Carl Liche who claimed to have seen an eight-foot-tall plant with long hairy tendrils pick up a woman—supposedly belonging to what was later deemed a fictional Malagasy tribe—and devour her whole. Liche’s story, which was written up as a non-fiction travel account in the South Australian Register, was later found to be completely false.

An entire list of plants from the series are examined in this article. Link -Thanks, Claire!

Ingredients:
1 part Liqueur, raspberry (Chambord)
1 part cranberry juice
1 part orange juice
1 Maraschino cherry
1 twist (of peel) orange Instructions:
‘Mix juices and Chambord with ice, strain. Garnish with an orange twist wrapped around a cherry with a sword-pick through it. Serve in a hurricane glass.’

Would you try any of these magically tasty treats?

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Diorama artist Lori Nix created this fantastic artwork for Wired about Harry Potter's last movie. She detailed the process in her blog My 8x10 Life:

After we got the green light we headed off to Barnes and Noble in search of hardback Harry Potter books. We then took a ruler and eyed how large the creepy tree should be, and also what scale figures would work best standing around the grave. I started immediately making the tree form out of wire, lots and lots of twisting wire.

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Simply the best bathroom wall graffiti EVAR! Via Accordion Guy

The total cost for the first year at Hogwarts comes out to £26,816 or US$42,752 at today’s exchange rates. This of course is the bare minimum and doesn’t consider the cost of pets, Quidditch robes and other incidentals that every student invariably faces. Nor does this analysis account for the premium paid for magical items.

Link -via Marginal Revolution | Image credit unknown, via Diary of a Death Starlette

There is, in fact, an ACTUAL National Quidditch League and an International Quidditch Association. They even have a World Cup (like in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). The International Rules are based on a game devised at Middlebury College in 2005, and it’s now the basic model used throughout the United Kingdom, the United States and much of the rest of the world. Obviously, no magical Golden Snitches (which are supposed to be quasi-sentient, flying balls) are available, so instead individual players take on the role. Everyone is still required to run around on brooms, however.

Yes, that’s right. People are running around on brooms in this sport, kind of like our grandparents used to do with those toy horses that freakishly were just a creepy-looking, lifeless, severed horse head at the end of a broom handle.

Read about the other things from Harry Potter that have become a part of the real world at Ranker. Link -Thanks, Brian!

This in part may stem from my undiagnosed ADD, but watching Part I of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows left me abused and confused.  To me it seemed like lots of random stuff that looked expensive was happening but a coherent plot wasn’t one of them. How could I enjoy the new HP flick without remembering all the details of the first six films?  That’s when I discovered The Fine Brothers seven minute recap of the Harry Potter franchise that will bring diehard fans and newbies (like me) up to speed.

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 comes to theaters this week, so we present a recap of the 7 Harry Potter films, so you can be fully caught up to watch and enjoy the final film with your friends, and make them think you actually know the series when in reality you just spent 7 minutes watching this video.

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Warning: May contain spoilers. It only takes these cats a minute to run through all the Harry Potter movies. I think they skipped some plot points, but what do I know… I haven’t seen any of the films. -via Buzzfeed

This is my last Harry Potter post for the day, I swear. Looks like some pranksters in Lexington, Kentucky, used the ol’ road sign hacking trick to warn Muggles about Death Eaters ahead. Sure hope they have enough Galleons to get bailed out of jail if they’re caught!

Link via PostSecret

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Got Potter-mania yet? Next Movie Blog came up with this clever post of 9 classic album covers re-imagined with the characters from Harry Potter. Snape as the King? We’re all shook up.

Link – Thanks Andie Taylor!

Charm City Cakes prove themselves to be true wizards of cake decorations with this fantastic Hogwarts cake for the Harry Potter premiere in New York City.

I so would’ve scarfed down the whole thing, had I not already been victimized by the evil "chubbify" spell

That’s Nerdalicious blog has the pic: Link

There’s a ton of Harry Potter stuff floating around the interwebs this week – this one’s a couple of months old, but it’s still pretty sweet. Reddit user Trehlo hollowed out a book to hold the engagement ring he was going to present to his now-fiancee – but the tome was only partially carved out. As you can see, he stopped at a very specific chapter. Pretty clever.

Link via Geeks Are Sexy

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Just in time for the release of the new Harry Potter movie, enjoy artist Brittney Lee’s great artwork made from paper trimmings. She’s made other works based on popular movies out side of the series too, just in case you aren’t a fan of the wizarding school series.

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Muggle Quidditch (that’s Quidditch for non-magical people) has been growing in popularity, and now a high school in North Texas is trying to get it recognized as an official sport. The eighty members of the club take their sport from the Harry Potter novels seriously and think that the University Interscholastic League, which regulates thirteen sports, should add muggle Quidditch. George Polaski, the Quidditch coach at Keller High School, explained how it’s played:

“It’s basically the same game you see in the movies, with a few tweeks. First off, no flying. However, everyone has to ‘ride’ a broom. In other words, the can only handle the ball with one hand.

They use the same balls: the quaffle, the bludger, and the golden switch. But, part of the fun of the snitch is it’s unpredictability. So, they strap it on a player. Tuesday, that was sophomore Brian Haywood.

“Our snitch is a person running around in all gold with a tennis ball in a sock tucked into a flag football belt,” explained Polaski.

Then two ‘chasers” try to catch him. You could probably say those three get the most cardio.

News Story and Official Website -via The Mary Sue

Best answer to a geometry quiz question ever. It would almost be worth missing the question just to use this clever answer.

Link via Geekologie

I’ve mentioned Lucy Knisley’s awesome comic book-style interpretation of the Harry Potter books before, but now she’s back with the latest installment of the series: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. My favorite Knisley-ism from this one? “Pensieve it up!”

p.s., Lucy also did a drawing of Kurt from Glee in his Warblers blazer, which made me squee a little (yes, I’m a total Gleek).

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Back in 2008, Stacy posted a roundup of wonderful quilts that included this Harry Potter quilt by Jennifer Ofenstein. This week, Jennifer was shocked to find that the Harry Potter quilt she completed years ago has gone viral. Better late than never! This quilt certainly deserves another look. Each block of the pattern is available if you want to make one yourself. Link

Artist Lucy Knisley has recreated the series (up through Order of the Phoenix) in comic book form, making it much easier to read for people who maybe just want to skim the plot lines instead of reading all seven books word-for-word. And for those of us who loved reading all seven books word-for-word, repeatedly, the comics are just plain funny. “Snakey talky” and “Yur Krumbelievable” are my favorites.

Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire

Order of the Phoenix

Link via Flavorwire

Well, fast forward to 2011 and our pal Nerd Approved has got the T-shirt in their new online store (on pre-order for May 19). Notice how it pays homage to the 1989 movie while referencing the most famous boy wizard ever? Clever!

Check it out: Link – Thanks Sean!

They can’t all be wizards and witches, even in the magical world of Harry Potter, someone’s got to do the PR, marketing and social media work in Diagon Alley … BuzzFeed’s Amy Sly imagined what the business books of Harry Potter (I wonder if they teach these subjects in Hogwarts): Link

Montreal artist Kim Gadbois created three minimalist but adorable pillows depicting characters from the Harry Potter series. This one, of course, is Harry. See the pillows depicting Ron and Hermione at Pantoufle de Verre, and buy them at Etsy. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

This picture shows a school restroom stall on which someone has written the entire first chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Schools have much nicer restrooms now than when I was a student. Link -via The Daily What

“The Burrow” is the name of the Weasley family home from Harry Potter. CraftSter user mezcraft made this impressive gingerbread house that looks quite like the one shown in the movies. She writes:

I made the shingles out of shreddies than sprayed them with colourmist icing colouring, then I did some undershading with brown icing.

My favourite part of the whole thing was these little sweaters on a laundry line that I added. I wanted to make something to reflect how much of an awesome D-I-Y-er Molly Weasley was by making all her kids monogrammed sweaters for Christmas. So each one of them is a like a wee tiny Gingerbread cookie.

Link via Geek Crafts

The number is visible on the south side of 14th St., just around the corner from the Regal Cinemas Union Square 14, which shows the seventh installment of the wizard films based on author J.K. Rowling’s books, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1,” at least 16 times daily.

The charmed sticker is slapped in the slot that featured a “W” until June when that line went out of service. The design mimics standard Metropolitan Transportation Authority signage and at first glance could pass for a relic from the defunct No. 9 line.

It’s such a close match, in fact, it might lead wizard fans to suspect an inside job. An MTA spokesperson said the agency had no ties to the subtle Potter promotion. More likely, it was the work of a design savvy fan.

Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Johnson/New York Daily News

CakeWrecks is celebrating the release of the new Harry Potter movie with two posts: one is a collection of terrible Harry Potter cakes, the other a celebration of awesome Harry Potter cakes. If you’ve never seen a Harry Potter cake at all, you’re in for a treat! Link to the wrecks. Link to the best.

To create this world within our world, Rowling had to do a lot of research into an array of mythologies and stories from all over the globe. She once explained, “children know that I didn’t invent unicorns, but I’ve had to explain frequently that I didn’t actually invent hippogriffs.” So what are some of the mythologies incorporated into her stories? Lets take a look, starting with those hippogriffs.

Hippogriffs:

Image via Ben Dodson [Flickr]

Fans of the series are undoubtedly familiar with Buckbeak, the hippogriff that Harry and Hermoine saved from execution, but as Rowling pointed out, many people don’t realize that hippogriffs have been around much longer than the book series. The creatures entered the public consciousness in medieval times, where they were said to be a cross between a griffin and a horse. The cross breed creature was said to be even stronger, faster and more intelligent than either of its parents and could travel as fast as lightening. Fortunately, they were said to be much easier to tame than griffins, which is why Buckbeak was so willing to be ridden in the novels.

Hippogriffs were exceptionally rare beasts, largely because griffins considered horses to be food. In fact, the concept was considered to be so outlandish that “to mate griffins with horses” was a similar expression to “when pigs fly.” For this reason, hippogriffs were considered a symbol not only of impossibility, but of intense love.

Grindylows:

Grindylows were one of the many dark creatures Harry had to face during his competition in the Triwizard Tournament. The nasty little creatures are known to live in the bottom of Hogwarts Lake and try to pull anyone who comes into their territory down to the bottom of the lake.

These creatures originally started being talked about in the English counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire, but their myth spread throughout England and Ireland, where they were used to scare children from pools, marshes and ponds in order to prevent drowning. Stories said that if a child came too close to the edge, the grindylows would grab them and pull them down to the water’s darkest depths.

Basilisks:

Image via Giovanni Dall’Orto [Wikipedia]

The basilisk that almost took down Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets was monstrously large, stretching almost 50 feet, and at least 50 years old. Rowling credits the creation of the basilisk to Herpo the Foul, who hatched a chicken egg under a toad.

Classic tales of basilisks vary quite a bit from those of the Harry Potter universe. While both of the creatures can kill with a single glance and are exceptionally poisonous, Rowling’s 50 foot serpent is quite a bit larger than traditional basilisks, which were no more than five feet long (although they seemed to get longer as the stories aged). Notably, the creation of a basilisk in classic stories is through a rooster hatching a toad egg, if a toad hatched a chicken egg, a cockatrice (a similar creature with wings) would be born.

Boggarts:

Rowling’s boggarts are entirely different from the boggarts of mythology. While Harry Potter’s boggarts are quiet terrifying, taking on the form of the victim’s worst fear, folklore tells of boggarts being more troublemaker than fearmonger. English tales of boggarts describe them as stealing things around the house, souring milk, ripping bedsheets from sleeping victims and tugging on people’s ears. It’s hardly the terrifying image of boggarts that require the “riddikulus” spell to conquer.

Dementors:

Image via San Diego Shooter [Flickr]

While Rawling claims to have had no inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings, it seems unlikely given certain similarities between the two epic tales. The Forbidden Forrest’s giant spider, Aragog, has a very similar personality to the spider of the Ephel Dúath Mountains, Shelob. Lord Sauron and Lord Voldemort also have quite a bit in common, to the extent that many characters of both stories refuse to use their name and are occasionally referred to as “The Dark Lord.” While the horcrux’s themselves are largely different than anything seen in Lord of the Rings, it is notable how the locket used as a horcrux is similar to the One Ring as it makes the wearer behave in a negative fashion.

One the most notable creature similarities is the way the dementors seem so similar to the Nazgul. Both are tall, thin hooded figures with faces that generally cannot be seen. Aside from their terrifying appearances, both of the creatures are said to affect those in contact with them by making them feel cold and scared. Prolonged contact with either creature can even result in unconsciousness filled with abhorrent nightmares.

Horcruxes:

Lord Voldemort has split his soul into seven parts with the use of horcruxes in an attempt to become immortal. Each fraction of his soul is held in a different magical item and the items must all be destroyed before he can die. This concept of immortality via the storage of the soul in an inanimate object is not Rowling’s, but a concept that originated in Slavic mythology in the tale of Koscei the Deathless.

Koscei evades death by trapping his soul in the eye of a magical needle, which is inside of an egg, inside of a duck, inside a hare, inside an iron chest buried under a great oak tree, on the magical island of Buyan. While Koscei does not have seven different horcruxes to protect his soul, the idea is that if the chest is ever opened, the hare will run away. If the hare is killed, the duck will try to fly away. If someone gets their hand on the egg though, they control Koschei and if they break the egg or the needle, he will die.

Liches:

Image via Wikipedia

Similarly, liches are sometimes said to be magicians who use spells to attach their soul to an object. After they die, they will continue to live as corpses until the object is destroyed. In many stories, they also have armies of slaves and servants similar to the Dark Lord. The fact that Voldemort doesn’t look entirely human indicates that he may be a lich.

The Philosopher’s Stone:

The first novel of the series was released as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. But when the book was set to be released in America, Rowling was asked to change the title and all references to the stone to the “Sorcerer’s Stone” because publishers worried American children wouldn’t want to read a book with the word “Philosopher” in the title. Unfortunately, changing this word didn’t just affect the book title, it also made the novel lose the connection between a legendary part of alchemy and the Harry Potter book.

Many readers don’t realize that the philosopher’s stone and its creator Nicholas Flamel (also mentioned in the book) are not just figments of Rowling’s imagination. The stone is said to be able to turn metals into gold and silver and to help create an elixir of life that could keep someone alive forever. Even Sir Isaac Newton tried to uncover the secret to creating the stone during his lifetime.

Flamel’s actual biography is questionable. He died in the 1400’s, but it wasn’t until the 1600’s that a book was published connecting him to the philosopher’s stone and other alchemy-related quests. He was known to be a manuscript-seller and his posthumous biography claimed this is where he had run across a mysterious 21-page book that he was told was a copy of the original Book of Abraham the Mage. Stories say that he and his wife then worked to translate the book, which taught them how to make the Philosopher’s stone. While some critics doubt that this story, there is little doubt that Flamel has some interest in alchemy, as he designed his own tombstone, which was adorned with alchemical signs and symbols.

While Flamel and his wife both lived into their eighties, many stories claim they are still alive thanks to the stone. In Harry Potter, the couple survived until the 1990s, living over 600 years.

Are you a fan of Harry Potter? Are you going to see the film when it comes out?

Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11 (And of course, the books themselves)

[W]riter and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi is the author of the popular series The Spiderwick Chronicles has integrated augmented reality into his latest book.

Earlier this week, The Search for WondLa hit bookshelves in U.S., and within it – it features an extraordinary interactive augmented reality experience that readers can unlock using their Web browsers. The book, published by Simon & Schuster, is one of the first of its kind and could be a glimpse into how kids will enjoy reading in the future.

Link

Behold, A Very Potter Sequel:

The StarKid twenty-somethings, most of whom met at U-M’s musical theater department, became an Internet sensation last year when they uploaded their hilarious original production, ‘A Very Potter Musical’, to YouTube for their friends and family to see. What they thought would reach maybe a few hundred people in their extended social networks has been literally uploaded millions of times by Harry Potter fans around the world.

Written by U-M friends and fellow ‘Harry Potter’ fans Brian Holden, Matt Lang and Nick Lang (script) and Darren Criss and A.J. Homes (score), the musical, which became one of the viral videos of 2009, catapulted the young performers, especially the ones who played Harry (Darren Criss), Ron (Joey Richter), Hermione (Bonnie Gruesen) and Draco (Lauren Lopez, yes, Draco is played by a girl), into a level of fandom stardom that’s only slightly lower than the actual film actors. Considering the fan response, it’s no surprise that Team StarKid regrouped and developed ‘A Very Potter Sequel.’

Link – Thanks Brian Childs!

Behold, Dangerous Wands, where a grown-up Hermione Granger went to teach in an inner-city magic school. Screenplay by Ben Joseph (sound track lyrics here),
directed by Sam Reich.

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