What's New?

"Ladies and gentlemen, what an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I've been sitting on for some time!"
     -- Gilderoy Lockhart (CS4)

You'll also find any news about the Lexicon. Our goal is to make this web site the most complete and thorough resource about the Harry Potter universe available anywhere, in any format. You can help us reach that goal by filling out a feedback form. Let us know how we're doing and give us your suggestions for improvement.

Thanks for visiting the Harry Potter Lexicon!

December 29, 2005
Just thought I'd keep y'all up to date on what we've been working on. Aside from the usual (and fairly boring) site management stuff, Michele and I have been exapnding the Reader's Guides for various chapters of the books. I have been working my way through Philosopher's Stone lately and just added quite a few notes for chapter ten. Our goal is to have the Guides entirely complete before book seven comes out, which we expect will be sometime in 2007. I wish I could tell you about the really cool project John has been working on or the almost-ready-to-launch surprise which Clint is preparing, but I can't. Soon...

I would also like to welcome two new staff members to the Lexicon.

Clint Hagen and I have corresponded for a couple of years. He is quite a remarkably talented guy and he knows Latin, which I think qualifies him as an apprentice wizard. I do know that he's a wizard at coding, so he's been working on some behind-the-scenes things for the Lexicon. The project that's been occupying his time is almost ready to go live, but frankly it's been "almost ready to go live" through no fault of his own for a month or two and I didn't want to wait endlessly to welcome him to the staff. I'm sure you'll all see a lot more of him soon, but in the meantime, take a moment to welcome Clint on board. His Lexicon email address isn't working yet (same reason why his project isn't live yet!), so for now send a hello to Clint via the info@hp-lexicon.info email address and Penny will forward it to him.

Paula Isola has taken up the position of Essay Editor for the Lexicon. Penny and I turned over quite a backlog of essay submissions to her and she has started editing and preparing them for publication. The first three of these essays have been uploaded, although I don't know if they've been linked into the index yet. Here they are:

The Marks of a Villain by Beth Welsh
Snape's Change of Allegience by Cherry
Shaken, Not Stirred by CheshireCat

I am delighted to have Paula on staff here. She is knowledgable about Harry Potter canon, a skillful writer and editor, and best of all, a great person to work with. Unfortunately, like Clint she doesn't have her own Lexicon email address yet, so if you want to welcome Paula and thank her for being willing to take on this huge job, send email to info@hp-lexicon.info and Penny will forward it to her. Very soon she'll be ready to accept essay submissions -- we'll let you know when.

December 27, 2005
Today marks the birthday of my fellow Floo-network webmaster, Melissa Anelli. If you get a chance, wander over to the Leaky Cauldron and add a birthday wish comment there for her. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MELISSA! - Steve (whose birthday it also happens to be, but who is a LOT older than Mel).

Happy birthday as well to Sonja (on her 40th!), Adrian, and Vanessa.

December 24, 2005
Take a look at our Lexicon Christmas Card, which I uploaded this afternoon. Everyone hasn't had a chance to sign it, but I decided to make it live anyway because it's almost Christmas and I wanted all of you to see it.

December 20, 2005
I posted the revised Christmas main page yesterday. Thanks again to Laura Freeman for her amazing artwork.

December 14, 2005
No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. Laura's fabulous Marauders artwork has been temporarily removed. We realized that the main menu page has changed a lot in a year and the old Christmas page didn't include all the new links and buttons. So we're working on adding Laura's artwork to the new main page and should have it back up in a few days. Sorry for the confusion.

December 2, 2005
Michele here - happy holidays, and we hope you enjoy the artwork created for us by Laura Freeman.

November 6, 2005
Michele here. We've been working on updating the reader's guides lately (particularly those for Goblet of Fire, for some reason), and areas referenced by them. Strictly British is now a section rather than a single page, and is gradually acquiring new material. You also may have noticed that Which Wizard's links have been undergoing some maintenance lately (adding more links, for one thing, and a few more characters).

Incidentally, Lisa added a very nice page for wizards with no surname a while back to help anyone looking for information on wizards and witches who are mentioned in canon but not named in full; don't forget to look there instead of on the Which Wizard A - Z pages (which are organized by surname) for people like Rita's photographer partner Bozo.

October 31, 2005
Lisa here. I had a blast doing the fan interview for this week's Pottercast! If you're curious about the Lexicon's fine artists, please visit our "Artists" page that has links to biographies, mini-portfolios and their websites.

October 27, 2005
Congratulations to artist Makani (Heather Campbell), who is now a staffer for our sister site The Leaky Cauldron. Makani's artwork has been drawing quite a lot of attention due to her drawing skills and laugh-out-loud cartooning. See the entries below (September 11 & 18) for links to some of Makani's portraits that we've been showcasing here on the Lexicon. --Lisa

October 26, 2005
I hope you noticed the boooo-tiful new Hallowe'en artwork created for us by Laura Freeman! Poor Myrtle looks like she's about to dive into the U-bend! Can you guess that book this scene is from?

October 24, 2005
John here, with a new essay. It's written by Ravenclaw Rambler, and is called "In Search of Little Whinging." It's a look at the location of Little Whinging and Privet Drive, with a different interpretation from the one previously presented by Nik the Hermit in an equally wonderful essay, "Surrey: Showing the Location of Little Whinging."

October 19, 2005
Lisa here. Two new artist mini-portfolios are finished: Taelin and Laura Freeman. Enjoy!

October 15, 2005
John again. We have a really cool new addition to the site, and a fantastic reference tool at that. Mrs Muggle has given us permission to post her detailed compilation of Potterwords, which is a usage guide to all of the abbreviations, capitalizations, punctuation, and spellings used throughout the books. Even if you aren't a nut for fine detail, it's worth a look. She's done a marvelous job. Thanks, Mrs Muggle!

October 7, 2005
John here. I've just finished a reorganization of the Bestiary, along with giving it a bit of a face lift. The old pages will stay up for a little while as we work to update links across the site. We also have a new page with lots of information on giants.

September 25, 2005
More newly revised timelines: Hagrid and Draco.

September 24, 2005
Lisa here. I am beginning to redesign and revise the character timelines! So far Dumbledore's and Snape's are pretty much finished. My goals with these revisions is to make the timelines easier to use, more complete, and as precise as possible on the dates.

September 21, 2005
We have four more artist mini-portfolios to tell you about: Sebastian Theilig, Tea with Voldy, Jeannine Delleré, and Cassie Songer all now have pages about them and their artwork.

September 18, 2005
More art news! As you know, we have agreements with many different artists who allow us to display their stunning artwork. Until now, there has been very little information about them, so we have begun creating "biography/mini-portfolio" pages for the artists who want them. So far there are pages for Riikka Jäntti, Edgar Torné, Lisa Rourke, Makani and Hala Zabaneh. If you are a Lexicon artist and you didn't hear from us, we may have a bad e-mail address for you. Please write me at lisa@hp-lexicon.info. Also, Makani has sent us two new drawings, a dapper Kingsley Shacklebolt, and a wicked Bellatrix Black Lestrange. Nice work, Makani!

September 11, 2005
Yup, me again. I am very pleased to announce the addition of a new artist's work to the Lexicon! Her name is Makani, and I have just finished adding her paintings and drawings of: Young Arthur & Molly Weasley, Dumbledore and Fawkes, Remus Lupin, Hestia Jones and Emmaline Vance, Fenrir Greyback, Rodolphus Lestrange, Amycus & Alecto, an animation of McGonagall transforming into a cat, Neville, Rufus Scrimgeour, and Trelawney. --Lisa

September 7, 2005
Lisa again. The reorganization project is complete! Information-wise, I have added new research into Trelawney's name: Sibyll (Sybill) Trelawney, and thanks to Santiágo Peresón, we have our first quotes for Book 6: Quotes by and about Sibyll (Sybill) Trelawney

September 6, 2005
Lots of updates all over the site. The Lexicon is constantly changing. One thing we added was our statement of editorial policy, which is on the page about the Lexicon and its staff.

On a staff-related note, it is my sad duty to announce that Josh Santilli, my stalwart assistant editor for the past year or so, has decided to take an extended leave of absence to pursue his schooling. We're going to miss him around here, I can tell you that. Josh, we wish you the best of luck. Drop by and say hello when you get a chance.

September 4, 2005
Lisa here. The pages for Lily and James have been expanded, and I am about halfway in my reorganization of the character pages.

August 30-31
Well, this has been interesting.

And it gets more interesting by the moment.

August 30, 2005
Michele here. A few essays have been connected/reconnected to the essay index lately in the midst of all our site maintenance. Most of them predate the publication of Half-Blood Prince (and thus appear earlier in the essay index than visitors might expect) but are none the less interesting for that. We hope you enjoy them. More will be forthcoming.

• The Early Life of Tom Riddle and the Second World War by Faisal M. Ahmad
• Hermione's Family by Scott
• The Number Seven by me
• Parallels, Shipping, and Betrayal by Calliope (which was being processed at the same time as Angua's essay, but several hurricanes intervened on my end and just generally interfered with my plans for essay processing)

August 29, 2005
Lisa here. Lots is new! Mrs. Black and her son Regulus have their own pages now, and Mundungus' page has been re-worked. My big project this weekend was to redo the way the wizard pages are grouped, and I'm almost done. I'll post later with links when it is out of beta.

August 29, 2005
Michele here. The Encyclopedia of Potions has been partitioned into sections while undergoing maintenance. These and other pages on various magical disciplines are still undergoing updates. There may be occasional hiccups when attempting to follow links to specific potions pages as those links are being moved from the (formerly) single main potions page to individual potions pages. We apologize for any inconvenience encountered during the transition process; if you have difficulty finding a specific potion, just go to the main potions page and click on the letter leading to the page of potions beginning with that letter (e.g. clicking on "F" on the index within the main Potions page if you want Felix Felicis). The Guide to Magic is also undergoing updates at this time, as are the pages of the Encyclopedia of Spells.

Thank you for your patience and your interest in the Lexicon.

August 26, 2005
This morning's update of the Lexicon brought to you by Michele and The Quibbler, which now has its own page. Other updates to the Communication-related pages have also taken place.

August 21, 2005
Me again. Lucius now has his own page, and Arthur Weasley's and James Potter's pages have been re-organized so that they should be easier to refer to (quick facts on top, in-depth profile below).

August 20, 2005
Lisa here. We now have an icon (see above -- thanks, Steve!) and a page for the Slug Club. It is difficult to definitively identify early members , so if Slughorn mentioned someone was one of "his" students, received gifts from them, or socializes with them, they made it on the tentative list. For example, Blase Zabini's mother did not make the list because Slughorn never spoke of having personal contact with her.

August 20, 2005
I'm doing some site maintenance today. A lot of links will change. If you encounter a link error before, say, 2:30 pm EDT, please accept my apology but don't worry about it. It takes a while to upload all the revised files. If you still find a broken link after that, please let us know so we can fix it straightaway.

August 19, 2005
Michele here. I hope you enjoy our new page on Horcruxes. This weekend I'll be continuing to update various parts of the Encyclopedia of Potions, Encyclopedia of Spells, Definitive Directory of Magical Items and Devices, Guide to Magic, and a few other things.

August 17, 2005
Many, many people help on the Lexicon. We have the finest staff in the history of the web, that's true, but a lot of folks help out in other ways, from error checking to making suggestions for essays, artwork, or new pages. I want to take a few moments to thank two people who have contributed a lot in the last months: Trish Drasnin and Marie Quigg. Trish and Marie have been working very hard to scan the images from the books (Trish the Bloomsbury editions and Marie the Scholastic) so that we can include them in the Lexicon. As you can see, the scans they've provided have been of exceptionally good quality. Each of them have made our work here a lot easier, especially our work on the Reader's Guide pages for the books.

August 14, 2005
Lisa here. Well I've finished my first survey of book 6, and think I have added all the new characters, both wizard and Muggle. Next I will be double-checking and adding dates, researching name meanings, and hunting for new artwork.

August 14, 2005
I've been analyzing the timeline and I've made a few discoveries and revisions. The dates of events of fifty years ago, when Riddle was at Hogwarts, have had to be changed to match new material in HBP. I've updated the timeline and also added a new table of those years to make things as clear as possible. This information directly impacts the writing on the tombstone in the GF film, so hopefully the filmmakers take a look at the revised and corrected timeline before they do their computer wizardry to fix the names and dates.

August 7, 2005
Character pages progress: The character pages have been updated with new info through chapter 15.

They aren't finished yet, but I have started whole pages on Rufus Scrimgeour and Horace Slughorn. Voldemort's page has new sections: "Followers," and "Victims". --Lisa Bunker

August 3, 2005
New page! Neville has his own page now, so hopefully it will be easier to find information on him. --Lisa Bunker

July 31, 2005
Happy birthday to JK and to Harry! I wish you both a long future of health, love and laughter!

I am pleased to say that I have added some stunning new artwork by four longtime Lexicon contributors: Red Scharlach (The Crouches), Riikka Jäntti (Ron, Draco, Snape), and Laura Freeman (Scrimgeour). I think you'll agree that they are fitting additions to the Lexicon!

July 24, 2005
We're still adding new information from Half-Blood Prince. Lisa has the new characters added and Michele has been adding new spells and magic items. John has been working on the Reader's Guide pages for the new book, listing all the new information in chapter-by-chapter format.

You've been very helpful as well. I've received a lot of good suggestions for the etymology of the word "horcrux" and Michele is working on a page about them which will be posted soon. I have received a number of emails with suggestions for various edits and things to add. Those emails are always appreciated. I might not get around to answering every one of the emails, however. There are a lot of them and I have limited time. Please accept my thanks for your interest and my apologies for not being able to answer everyone. At the moment I don't have my communications manager, so I'll be doing the best I can on my own.

I am looking for someone to work on a graphics project for the Lexicon. I'd like to redo some of the maps in the atlas section in more of a wizard style, so I need someone who would be interested in what we might call "Wizarding Cartography." If you feel that this is something you'd like to work on, please send me an email with a little about yourself and a small (.jpg) example of the style you'd use to draw the maps. Send your emails to this address: steve@hp-lexicon.info and put "maps" in the subject header. Please note that any maps used by the Lexicon cannot include any copyrighted images but must be original work by the artist.

The Lexicon is being edited constantly by the best staff of researchers and writers in the world. I can't tell you how grateful I am to Lisa, Michele, John, Josh, and Belinda for their outstanding work, especially over the last week. I've been away from the computer for most of that time, camping by Lake Michigan, and now I'm heading off to Britain on Wednesday to attend Accio. What a great feeling, knowing that the Lexicon is in good hands.

July 22, 2005
I need to add a follow-up to my comments of July 20. I wrote that in response to a horrible, sickening post on a Harry/Hermione website. I still feel exactly the same way about what I read there. I am still appalled at what someone wrote in the name of H/Hr shippers.

I wrote what I wrote, however, before the interview transcript was posted on TLC and MuggleNet which resulted in a lot of hurt feelings. As Penny pointed out to me, how would I feel if Rowling had laughed and said that the Lexicon (and similar websites) were just grownups with obviously too much time on their hands and had half the stuff from canon mis-interpreted. How would I feel? I would be devastated.

I know there are a lot of fans who feel that way today. These people are my friends. They didn't write that nasty stuff on that website. They're just hurting a lot right now.

Let me lay it on the line here. To those of you who are in that unfortunate place, I am truly sorry and I wish there were something I could say to lighten the burden. I promise you that I never would have intentionally said anything to make you feel worse. To everyone else, hey, stop and think about how YOU would feel. These are our dear friends we're talking about here, and they're hurting. Some of them are ready to leave, to pack it up and say good-bye. I don't know about the rest of you, but to me that seems like a very bad thing. How can we, as friends and fellow fans, reach out and reverse the damage?

I'll start. Please don't go. I love you all and things just won't be the same if you leave. Please accept my apology if I added to your pain. With very few exceptions, my comments were definitely not aimed at you. Take whatever time you need, but don't leave forever. I'll miss you all way too much.

July 20, 2005
More updates all over the site. I have had a few notes from people who have been spoiled when they Googled something like 'Death Eaters' and hit the Lexicon's page. I am truly sorry if that happens. We talked about the whole problem of spoilers before the book hit the stores and decided that we simply had to move ahead and update. The scale of this task is just too huge to try to do in part, such as putting spoilers in a different color text. We would essentially have to do each edit twice then. I realize that it doesn't help for me to say this now, but honestly, what are you doing on the web when you're still reading the book? When 7 pm EDT hit last Friday night and I knew that the book had been released in Britain, I logged off and didn't log back on until I'd finished reading. If spoilers are so important, STAY OFF THE WEB!

Okay, that's my little rant. Now my big rant.

I have read some truly awful things online, specifically from Harry-Hermione shippers. Some of the things that have been written are so completely out of line and repulsive that I am ashamed to be associated with the people that wrote them. If you can write things like that, you are no fan of Harry Potter. You are simply a fan of your own ego. I'm not saying you can't be disappointed. Heavens no! I certainly was when I read some of the continuity errors in the book (those are my version of 'shipping,' you see). But to write the kind of garbage that I have read on some websites...I am utterly sickened. Shame, shame, shame on you.

I am going to steal a line from Sebatian Redl, who wrote an very eloquent Live Journal posting on this subject. Sebatian signs his name and then adds this tag:

"Rowling's man, through and through."

Sebastian, I stand with you.

July 18, 2005
This is Steve reporting in. I've been on vacation and offline for a few days, but I've been busy anyway. I just uploaded some revised pages and I'll be adding more soon. John has been busy working on the Reader's Guide to the new book.

I think it's worth mentioning that we all have plenty of theories and ideas about what happened at the end of the book. Yes, I think R.A.B. is Regulus Black, and yes, I think there's more going on than meets the eye. At the moment, we're not accepting any essays on the subject, so if you're hankerin' to talk out your ideas, please wander over into the Forum. You'll find a lot of folks who would love to share their thoughts and yours.

Also I think it's worth mentioning that updates will not happen in just one week. I have already received several emails from people complaining because some page or another is no longer correct since the new book came out. Hey, give us a chance! I promise you that we'll get to it all as fast as we possibly can, but it will take a while to find and edit every page that has changes. We don't need anyone to send us lists of new characters or spells, either. We've already got those. If, on the other hand, you've discovered a nice clue to something like the location of the library or the real meaning of the word 'horcrux' ('time cross'?), please send those emails our way! Those kinds of tiny details that come from careful deduction and reading are terrific, but really tough to tease out.

July 18, 2005
Michele here. If you want to see my notes prior to my making updates, I've been putting them out on my livejournal. I warn you that they contain massive spoilers (that's what they're for!) I've made some small updates to the Spells Encyclopedia and the wands page already (more to come) and will be updating the devices index, the Potions Encyclopedia, and the wizarding world books pages.

July 17, 2005
I am in the process of adding new characters: Alecto; Amycus; Aubrey, Bertram; Belby, Marcus; Belcher, Humphrey; Benson, Amy (Muggle); Bishop, Dennis (Muggle); Burke, Caractacus; Cadwallader; Chorley (Muggle); Cole, Mrs. (Muggle); Coote, Ritchie; Cresswell, Dirk; Cuffe, Barabas; Damocles [Uncle]; Flume, Ambrosius; Gaunt, Marvolo; Gaunt, Merope; Gaunt, Morfin; Golpalott; Greyback, Fenrir; Harkiss, Ciceron; Higgs, Bertie; Hokey (house-elf); Malfoy, Abraxas; McLaggan, Cormac; Merrythought, Prof. Galatea; Montgomery sisters; Odo; Ogden, Bob; Peakes, Jimmy; Pepper, Octavius; Peverell; Philpott, Arkie; Prince, Eileen; Proudfoot; Robins, Demelza; Sanguini (vampire); Savage; Slughorn, Horace; Smith, Hepzibah; Snape, Tobias; Tiberius [Uncle]; Twycross, Wilkie; Vane, Romilda; Verity; Worple, Eldred. --Lisa Bunker

July 14, 2005
I've been adding spells and other things from the last few chapters of Order of the Phoenix over the last couple of days, finishing up the cataloging of book five. Our new editor, John Kearns, has been working through the Reader's Guide pages, organizing them with index material and making sure they're all consistent in format and so on. After all, in a day and a half we'll have a lot of new spells and a whole new Reader's Guide to work on!

July 4, 2005
I've added a few more maps to the Atlas of Hogwarts. I think there are enough there now to satisfy just about anyone's wishes. But there is much bigger and better news. If you follow the links to Sources of Lexicon information, you'll find pages giving details about the various canon sources which we use for the Lexicon. One of those sources is Jo's website, http://www.jkrowling.com. The pages about her site have been under the care of Belinda Hobbs, who has taken it upon herself to make the Lexicon's guide the best in the whole world. I think she's succeeded. She's just added quite a few new pages with details about every tiny little thing on Jo's site. She's had help from Michael Young, aka "roonwit," who managed to archive all the door openings so that we could show them here. Folks, this section is nothing less than amazing. Have a look! It's the world's best guide to Jo's site, thanks to Belinda.

July 1, 2005
Just added new maps to the Atlas of Hogwarts and a new essay by Cornelia Remi which is simply outstanding. There will be more to come. We're hard at work getting things ready for the 16th...which is barely two weeks away!

June 26, 2005
Over the past few years I've received an occasional e-mail pointing out the spelling error in the title banner of the Lexicon. Penny just forwarded another one to me today. So this afternoon I created a page which will let you all in on the secret.

June 26, 2005
I just added a new link to the resources page. It's been a while since I've added any new resource links, and as I added this one it occurred to me that it would be worth mentioning why I don't add more links. As a policy, the Lexicon does not include links to any other sites on its pages. We don't do link exchanges, we don't put buttons or banners for affiliate sites, and we don't even tell you when we've been nominated for an online award that you're all supposed to vote for (which means we don't ever win, sadly). It's not that we're stuck up or don't want to be neighborly. It's just that we get so many requests that it would be impossible to include everyone. Any link page which we did create that way would be so huge that it would be basically useless as a research tool. Instead, we carefully select sites that we find to be particularly well done and which a serious Potter scholar will need to use in research. That means, for example, that we include links to sites like the The Akashic Record, which is a stunning achievement in Potter scholarship. We also include sites which present Potter information in particularly engaging ways. The new link I've added, 12 Grimmauld Place, falls into that category.

There is even bigger news, however. After a few months of working out details, the Lexicon is proud to announce a whole new section, the Hogwarts Library. Some of you might recognize the Library as being the resource website of the alt.fan.harry-potter newsgroup. The Hogwarts Library site has always stood proudly as an independent voice in Harry Potter fandom. Over the years, they have cheerfully and convinvingly taken contrary positions to those of the Lexicon and never feared to offer their own take on Potter research. When it became impossible for the Library to continue as a separate site, I contacted Troels and offered space on the Lexicon to keep the site and that alternative voice alive. I assured him that I didn't expect the Libray to change one iota because of being affiliated with the Lexicon and the Floo Network and that he and the other staff members would have complete freedom to develop their site in any way they chose. In my opinion, there is nothing more exciting and engaging for a scholar/fan than a variety of viewpoints and an open discussion of ideas. I am thrilled to welcome The Hogwarts Library to the Lexicon and I can't wait to see where they take their site.

NOTE: The opinions expressed in the Hogwarts Library are those of the individual writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Lexicon or the Floo Network...which is what makes this just so cool, don't you think?

June 18, 2005
We've just passed the 30-day point, waiting for the publication of the sixth book. Here at the Lexicon, we're gearing up for the massive task of integrating all the new information from Half-Blood Prince into the 700+ pages of the site. Between now and July 16, we're trying to make sure we've added every detail from the previous books and also tidied up the site. The recent rounds of file maintenance are part of that process. I realize that there are still a few broken links around because of some files being renamed and I apologize. We appreciate the feedback that you send when you find one of those broken links and we assure you that we're getting to them as quickly as we can.

Another important part of the process as we work up to the new book is to pull in the guest editors who have contributed in the past. For example, I have been in email conversations with Amy Z. and Joywitch, asking them if they would do the calendar page for the new book. Over the next weeks I'll be trying to contact other folks who have worked on similar projects for previous books.

I have been asked by a few people where I'll be the evening of July 15. Ive been invited to be part of the celebration at Schuler Books and Music, a local bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you're in the area, come on down and say hello. They'll be cooking up a terrific party, I'm sure, and I would love to meet you. The store is located at 2660 28th Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49512. I've also been asked why I've been away from Lexicon work so much lately. The reason is that I've been directing the show The Wizard of Oz, which opened June 17. It's a fantastic show with a lot of cool special effects and flying monkeys and everything. Check out that link for pictures.

May 22, 2005
This evening I've been doing a lot of file maintenance throughout the Lexicon. In the process, a lot of filenames and links have been changed. Dreamweaver does a marvelous job of managing that sort of thing, but it takes a while to re-synch everything. If you happen to encounter a bad link tonight, that's probably why. Sorry about any inconvenience.

May 14, 2005
Every so often I get an e-mail from someone who is dismayed because nothing new has been added to this page. I completely understand. I don't post here nearly often enough. If you really want to know why that is, you can refer to any number of apologetic entries in this What's New over the past few years.

Basically, here's the deal. During the school year here in the US, I just don't have a lot of time to work on the Lexicon. Most of what I do for the Lexicon during those months is management, which keeps the site running smoothly and helps the editors to do their job. The school year runs from September through May. So big updates and new pages just don't get done during that time.

That doesn't mean that nothing's happening, however. The editors are working constantly in their assigned areas, adding facts, rewriting and updating information, and so on. They don't typically post on this page, however, since it's always been sort of my territory. That means that the work they're doing doesn't often get announced here on the What's New page. They are working, though, all the time. The last time I re-synched the site using Dreamweaver, there were about 80 pages which had been edited since the last synch. That's 80 pages in less than three weeks.

This summer is going to be a big one for us, of course. I've been working on the plans for how we'll handle the glut of new information as well as planning my trip to Britain for Accio. To be honest, we haven't even finished cataloging Order of the Phoenix yet, so we have a lot to do in just a few months. I'll try to post here a bit more often and I'll encourage Michele and Lisa to do so also.

Thanks so much for your support and enthusiasm for the Lexicon.

April 2, 2005
Our Spanish language partner site, Eldiccionario.org celebrates its first anniversary tomorrow! ¡Enhorabuena Pablo! ¡Feliz cumpleaños!

April 1, 2005
Lisa here. And now... announcing a page with Peeves quotes, just in time for April Fool's Day. Come join the fun over at the Leaky Lounge where Peeves has gotten loose and is raising quite a ruckus!

March 22, 2005
Lisa here. We now have a "bookquotes" page for Petunia and the Dursley family, and more complete listings for Neville and Draco, all due to Asphodel (aka Lori Damerell, she of the magic fingers)! Coming soon: a more complete listing of quotes by Lord Voldemort, courtesy of Lady Stratford.

March 10, 2005
Lisa again. Happy birthday, Lupin! I have updated his pages to show his new birthdate.
Thanks to Leaky Lounge member Asphodel Wormwood there are 2 more quotes pages: Fred & George and Sybill Trelawney. Enjoy!

March 7, 2005
Lisa here. I have created 13 new pages listing book quotes for most of the major characters. Also, the pages for Draco, Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Ginny have all been reorganized and enlarged! New sections include information on the actors who play the characters in the movies and new artwork. I hope they are easier to navigate.

Michele here. The following essays have been hooked up to the essay index that were previously missed:

Why Do All the Kids Have to Go to King's Cross? by some bloke named Steve Vander Ark (a.k.a. the Supreme Mugwump of the Lexicon)

have a look

March 1, 2005
Lisa here. I have been working on expanding the pages for the main characters. I am adding interior navigation (similar to a Table of Contents), quotes pages, expanded name research, new artwork, and more that I can't think of right now. So far the Dumbledore, Hagrid and Snape pages are done.

February 28, 2005
Michele here. The following essays have been hooked up to the essay index that were previously missed:

The Ethics of Rowling

Luna's Place in the Expanding Circle of Friends by Antosha

Quirrell's Leave of Absence by Melissa Erin Friedline

Where Does the name "Knight Bus" Come From? by Morag Traynor

January 26, 2005
Michele here. First, congratulations to JKR on the birth of her daughter.

And for the rest of you out there... the following essays have been hooked up to the essay index that were previously missed:

• Battle of the Department of Mysteries by Kendall Smiley

• George Weasley by Jana Tucker

• Is Dobby a Communist? by Morag Traynor

• Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone by Brian Dorband