Welcome

I have been thinking about making something this for a very long time, because I am a bit annoyed with the currently available wiki putting any and all Harry Potter-related content on the wiki as fact. The HP Lexicon was my faithful companion for many years but I have my own interpretations of the text (obviously, everyone does) and as such, I sometimes disagree with it as well. The only way to fix this, however, is to make my own, so voilà, here it is, my very own Harry Potter encyclopaedia ... thing I have decided to call it my Canonopaedia, because I am unoriginal like that. Just for the sake of clarity, that means that this is the Canon version, which contains just the content from the seven Harry Potter books, as well as other canon (the sources will be clearly marked, see below), but I also have a Headcanon version available, with content from my fanfiction-universe, so that I can keep my own ideas and canon fully seperate. At least, I intend to. Feel free to use either as much or as little as you want!

Using This Canonopaedia

Unforturnately, I have not (yet) been able to make this site searchable in a way that wouldn’t include my fanfics as well, so you’ll have to make do with this. Hopefully this little guide will help you on your way. So, on the left side (or top, if on a small screen), I have made a list of, well, lists, to help you navigate to the page you need. For example, if you want to know how old Lucius Malfoy is, you go to ‘Characters’ and search for ‘Lucius Malfoy’, or manually scroll down until you find him. On his character page you’ll find his age and possible date of birth, among other things. All these individual pages are searchable through your device, and I have made the lists searchable as well.

Now, you will soon see that every individual page/article has the same format. First you will get a short overview/fact-file à la Pottermore, where you can see date of birth, parentage, hobbies, but also where the character (or object, or location, or whatever) was first mentioned, defining characteristics, etcetera. Below that is a short overview and then a timeline of events canonically involving the subject of the page. Every list also has the same layout, with most sorted alphabetically for your convenience. Timelines all follow the same structure as well, so you should be familiar enough with the way this site works before long.

(If you’re reading this, chances are you know who I am, so if you want anything in particular added, just let me know!)

Canon

‘The Dark Arts,’ said Snape, ‘are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible.’

What Snape said could easily apply to the concept of ‘Canon’ as well. It’s a well-chosen name, ‘Canon’. It comes from the books of the Bible, and this has led to some serious infighting over the course of history. How similar is the fandom world sometimes! How many people spend their days arguing for order against something being ‘Canon’! And yet here I am doing just that, although I don’t mean to say this is the one absolute definition of Canon. I am not interested in determining a definitive canon for the entire fandom (that would be impossible). Instead, I'm going to be outlining my personal canon hierarchy tier list, which I personally adhere to and which this Canonopaedia will largely be built on. I will also link to sources wherever possible so that you can read where the information came from, or refer to the book and chapter number.

Now, these are the tiers:

Tier One: Core Canon

To this tier belong all seven novels published between 1997 and 2007, in their corrected Bloomsbury editions. This needs the least amount of explaining, I hope, but the books (and the abbreviations used on this site) are as follows:

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — PS
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — CoS
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — PoA
  • Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — GoF
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — OotP
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — HBP
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — DH

Everything else is filtered through these books. Nothing can override them. If something directly contradicts them, the books win. But if it isn’t a clear contradiction (and most things aren’t), I will always search for ways to make both statements be true.

Tier Two: Extended Canon

In this tier I include all supplementary, in-universe materials written by J.K. Rowling herself during or shortly after the publication of the original series. This matters because the tone, worldbuilding logic, and intent are still consistent with the books, since they were written alongside them, and not yet so influenced by other materials/outside pressure.

The Extended Canon consists of:

  • The Hogwarts Library books:
    • Quidditch Through The Ages (including the audiobook) — QTTA
    • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (both the original 2001 edition as well as most of the current 2017 edition*) — FB
    • The Tales of Beedle the Bard — TBB
  • The ‘Prequel She Isn’t Working On’, an 800-word short story featuring James and Sirius — PREQUEL
  • The Ballad of Nearly Headless Nick — BALLAD
  • The Daily Prophet Newsletter articles — DP
  • The original Famous Wizard cards — FW
  • Her original sketches and drawings, including the Black Family Tree — BFT

This tier is considered canon as long as it does not contradict the Core Canon/tier one. But, as said above, if there is no absolute contradiction, then I will put in effort to reconcile the two.

(*The problem with the current/post-2017 edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the textbook) is that it contradicts the 2001 edition on several thingsin order to make the film work with canon. Therefore I ignore the new 2017 foreword. But for the sake of this site, I will note references to it where necessary (mostly Newt Scamander-related items, I imagine.))

Tier Three: Supplementary Canon

This tier consists of official content that J.K. Rowling has written about the wizarding world, so out-of-universe texts (even if they contain in-universe elements). This tier is canon as long as the content doesn’t contradict tiers one and two.

The Supplementary Canon consists of:

  • Content from J.K. Rowling’s old website — JK
  • Pottermore, but only the stuff actually written by J.K. Rowling herself* — PM
  • The Pottermore Presents e-books:
    • Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide — PP1
    • Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists — PP2
    • Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies — PP3
  • Original Pottermore artwork

(*Pottermore is tricky because today’s ‘harrypotter.com’ isn’t the same as the Pottermore that once was. That is why you’ll find all my Pottermore links link back to older Pottermore articles on the Wayback Machine or elsewhere. Old Pottermore lined up much better with the series.)

Semi-Canon

Some texts are partially useful but contradict the books or each other in other ways, or, in the case of the Fantastic Beasts series, are unfinished (and still canon-breaking...). They’re mostly fun for character explorations or creature lore, but not plot or worldbuilding (but YMMV, which is why they will be on here, but clearly marked).

In my opinion, these include:

  • Interviews and online chats with J.K. Rowling, as well as tweets, etc.
  • The Fantastic Beasts films:
    • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
    • Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
    • Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
  • The Cursed Child
  • Pottermore content not written by J.K. Rowling, The Book of Spells, and The Book of Potions

Some of this will still be on this website, but it will be clearly marked.

Not Canon

The following things I do not consider to be canon at all. They can be a useful way to get more background characters and names, or spells, or whatever, but the lore, and visuals, are not considered canon by me (and in extension, by this site, since this site is run solely by me).

In my opinion, this includes:

  • The Harry Potter films and upcoming TV show
  • Any and all games, including but not limited to:
    • The original film-based videogames
    • The LEGO Harry Potter games
    • Mobile games like Hogwarts Mystery, Wizards Unite, Magic Awakened, ...
    • Hogwarts legacy
    • All other games not mentioned above, for any device, whether they are already made or yet to release
  • Fanart, fanfiction and other fanmade things
  • Just everything not by J.K. Rowling/official content

This section should honestly not be too hard to understand. These things will not appear on this site.