Harry Potter and the Order of Events in the Series Quiz

Harry's Hogwarts letter originally comes in a very mundane way: as a letter through the Muggle post. His Aunt Petunia is aware that his parents are a witch and wizard, and that Harry is one too, given the strange occurences that tend to happen around him. Instead of giving him the letter, they hide it from him, making the further deliveries become more and more dramatic, even resorting to the magical means of using owl post. The Dursleys, frightened by all of this, think that if they all leave the house, the deliveries will stop, but this doesn't happen: Hagrid simply delivers the letter in person anyway.

Harry's initial letters all refer to his living in the cupboard under the stairs, which nobody ever mentions or seems concerned about: this is because the address on the envelope is written magically by the Quill of Acceptance, and not by an individual who could see and question this information.

The Mirror of Erised is so named due to it showing a person's desires, with Erised being "desire" backwards. Harry becomes transfixed on the mirror when he encounters it. When he looks into it, he sees himself and his dead parents, and his desire to see them becomes an obsession. He wants to share this excitement with Ron, so brings him to share the excitement, but instead of seeing his family, Ron sees himself as the head boy, and holding up the Quiddich World Cup.

Eventually the mirror gets moved to be part of the protections for the philosopher/sorceror's stone. Dumbledore explains the mirror to Harry prior to moving it, and this understanding likely helps to contribute to the way Harry is able to use it to thwart Voldemort's plans.

Harry first meets Dobby (the Malfoy's House Elf) trying to prevent him from returning to Hogwarts and therefore causing trouble at his house. Harry is very frustrated about this and feels he needs to get back to school, but Dobby has heard of some concerning plans and is, in his own way, trying to protect Harry. Throughout the school year, Dobby's attempts to help get more and more desperate and dangerous, including tampering with a bludger, which led Harry to injure his arm; he eventually had to have all the bones in his arm re-grown due to the disastrous interference of Professor Lockhart.

A House Elf cannot act against its master, and in trying to protect Harry and thwart those plans, Dobby is being disobedient, so he often resorts to hurting himself as a punishment for this. At the end of the book, Harry puts Tom Riddle's diary inside his now very disgusting sock, and when Lucius Malfoy throws it in disgust, it ends up in Dobby's hands: his master had given him clothes, so now he was free.

Visiting Diagon Alley before beginning their third year, Hermione buys Crookshanks, a half-kneazle cat, from the Magical Menagerie. When she hears that nobody seems to want Crookshanks, this spurs her on to buy him. Ron is very cross with this as Crookshanks keeps targeting Scabbers, Ron's rat, and this is a constant source of conflict throughout the book.

Part way through the year, Ron becomes convinced that Crookshanks has eaten Scabbers, and is very angry about this. In reality, Scabbers has faked his death (again) and fled. Crookshanks actively helped Sirius Black throughout the book, and presumably is targeting Scabbers due to sensing that something is off with him - he's not actually a rat at all, but an Animagus by the name of Peter Pettigrew, one of Harry's father's friends who ultimately betrayed him.

Animagi (the plural of Animagus) are an important plot point in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". We first encounter Scabbers in the first book, as Ron's rat: this is really Peter Pettigrew. Towards the beginning of the third book, Harry encounters a large black dog which terrifies him: he (and others) later misidentify this as the Grim, an omen of death. This makes Harry's Divination professor convinced that he will die, but in actuality, this dog was another Animagus called Sirius Black. Toward the very end of the book, Harry spies a figure casting a patronus, which is a large silver stag. He later learns that this stag is the form that his Animagus father, James Potter, took.

Together, Peter, Sirius and James make up the Marauders, alongside their other friend Remus Lupin, a werewolf: he is the reason they decided to become Animagi in the first place, to keep him company when he was transformed.

Harry is very excited to get to see the Quidditch World Cup, which he attends along with the Weasleys and Hermione. They use a portkey to travel there, which introduced the concept of the portkey, which is also an important part of the book's conclusion. A number of important events are kick-started at or immediately prior to travelling to the Quidditch World Cup, including the Weasley twins' bets with Ludo Bagman (who later pays them in leprechaun gold which disappears), meeting Cedric Diggory (who will have an important role to come), and introducing the Dark Mark, which is found glowing ominous and large in the air when the Quidditch World Cup gets attacked by Death Eaters, Voldemort's followers.

Viktor Krum is also first introduced at the Quidditch World Cup as the excellent, young Bulgarian seeker. He will later travel to Hogwarts as part of the Durmstrang cohort, become their champion, and become close to Hermione, much to Ron's annoyance.

Another important event at the Quiddich World Cup was Hermione getting to properly see the treatment of House Elves, in particular with Winky. Seeing Dobby now working happily at Hogwarts, Hermione concludes that more House Elves need to be free, but rapidly runs into problems because they don't seem to want to be free. Undeterred, Hermione tries tactics such as trying to leave clothes around that can't obviously be seen, to trick them into accidentally picking up those clothes and freeing themselves, which proves to be a controversial tactic. She eventually stops acting in this sort of way, but she remains very fixated on the topic of House Elf welfare, which the series also remains very interested in, in particular in relation to Kreacher and Sirius (who both despise each other, and which ultimately culminates in Sirius's death).

Hermione creates S.P.E.W. badges for her organisation, too.

During the course of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", Harry experiences visions of Lord Voldemort's actions. He has a terrible nightmare of Arthur Weasley being attached by Voldemort's snake, Nagini, which turns out to be happening right at that moment. Dumbledore, who has spent a lot of time ignoring Harry this year, much to his frustration, is very interested that Harry saw this vision through the eyes of Nagini. This leads to fears that Harry may be possessed.

Dumbledore, still avoiding Harry, instead directs Snape to tutor Harry in Occlumency, but their mutual dislike gets in the way of this; Harry makes little progress and eventually completely betrays Snape's trust by viewing some of his most humiliating memories in a pensieve. At this point, Snape refuses to teach him anymore; as a result of never mastering Occlumency, Harry does eventually get possessed for a brief period at the end of the book and is wracked in absolute agony.

With a new Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn, Harry has a fresh start in the class. The textbook that he has been provided is marked as belonging to the Half-Blood Prince, and is filled with helpful notes, annotations, and what seems to be some of his own spells. Finding himself doing the best he ever has in Potions, with excellent grades, Harry is very confident and trusting in the information he receives from the book.

When attacked by Draco Malfoy, Harry uses the spell "sectumsempra" which he found in the book, simply marked as "for enemies". He does not expect how violent the spell is, which seriously injures Draco, and he feels guilty about this. Snape, the Half-Blood Prince, recognises the curse and knows that Harry must have acquired his old textbook, but fails to acquire it back from Harry due to some subterfuge concerning Ron's textbook.

In "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Harry, Ron and Hermione stop attending Hogwarts for the school year. They are on a hunt for the Horcruxes, a task which was left to them by Dumbledore. When Bill and Fleur's wedding is attacked, they slip away, and do their best to remain out of the public eye thereafter.

The Wizarding World has ended up in a dire state, with the Ministry of Magic under the control of Voldemort, and the wireless will only broadcast propaganda rather than any dissenting voices; to counter this, Potterwatch is started. It is designed to be very secret, requiring a password (which is frequently changed) to listen to, and provides information, morale and support in the fight against Voldemort.

Potterwatch is hosted by Lee Jordan, who was previously known in the books for his role as providing colourful Quidditch commentary.