Chapter 1 - PRIOR INCANTATO

Welcome to the A Novel Holiday travel guidebook, Harry Potter Places Book 1—London and London Side-Along Apparations, the first of five guidebooks designed to help Harry Potter Fans (Potterites) visit places found in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (the UK) that are associated with the Harry Potter Universe (the Potterverse). In the Potterverse, you’ll find:

● Real-life places mentioned within J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

● Real-life locations where Harry Potter movie filming took place.

● Real-life sites that significantly influenced Harry Potter movie studio set design.

The Prior Incantato section is the Harry Potter Places Travel Guidebook Introduction. As such, it contains important explanations of the symbols and terminology found within each of the five Harry Potter Places (HPP) travel guidebooks.

Harry Potter Places Portkeys

To assist Potterites using eBook-reading devices that don’t have a web browser—devices from which you cannot apparate—or Potterites using a printed HPP travel guidebook, we’ve created HPP Portkeys: Internet-posted PDFs containing all the Internet resource links provided in each section of every HPP book.

Go to HarryPotterPlaces.com. Click on the link for Book One, then click on the Supplementums link. There you can access the Portkeys.

Harry Potter Places Ratings Icon Guide

It took more than three years of research, but we managed to find sixty-eight (68) Potter Places in the UK—specifically on the island of Great Britain. However, not all of these sites are places every Potterite will enjoy. Thus, we assessed each for their reasonable importance to an average Potterite’s UK holiday, and created icons that provide an at-a-glance recognition of their rating.

The Great Site icon indicates a Potter Place you don’t want to miss. These are important sites mentioned in the books, or film locations readily recognized in real-life.

The Might Be Fun icon identifies places some Potterites might find disinteresting, or unworthy of the inconvenience required to reach them. Each Might-Be-Fun Site’s entry explains why it received that rating.

The Skip It icon is assigned to places we strongly suggest you avoid visiting, and the Site’s entry explains why. Although we provide SatNav/GPS coordinates and/or addresses for Skip-It-rated sites, we do not provide directions for finding them, nor are Skip-It sites included in any of the suggested Harry Potter Places itineraries. Potterites divinely inspired to visit any Skip-It site should investigate the location using the information provided in its Site entry, then create their own itineraries.

The Potterite Prime Directive

To POLITELY Go Where Potterites Need to Go

— without PERTURBING anybody —

So That Other Potterites Can Continue to ENJOY GOING THERE!

It is vitally important that all Potterites be as polite as possible when visiting any Potter Place. This rule is even more important when visiting a Site situated within a private Muggle neighborhood. It only takes one noisy or disrespectful fan to ruin the reception experienced by all Potterites who visit thereafter. Please be the very best Potterite Ambassador you can possibly be, everywhere you go.

Terminology Used within the Harry Potter Places Travel Guidebooks

Like any other author of fiction, J.K. Rowling (JKR) exercised artistic license when selecting or creating names, phrases, and terms for her Potterverse. Most often, she borrowed from Latin and Greek languages or mythologies. Occasionally, JKR’s Potterverse terminology was influenced by other languages, such as French, Irish, Italian—even Arabic. Below are links to two resources that comprehensively discus the origin of Potterverse names, phrases, and terms.

http://www.harrypotterfanzone.com/word-origins/

http://www.languagerealm.com/hplang/harrypotterlanguage.php

JKR also often used words that predate her creation of the Potterverse, such as Witch, Wizard, broomstick, and the like. Sometimes, JKR altered the previously-popular meaning of the words she used. For instance, Time Magazine reported in 1931 that “Muggle” was one of several slang names for a marijuana cigarette.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742157,00.html

The authors of Harry Potter Places have similarly exercised artistic license when using Potterverse terminology within our travel guidebooks. Some names, phrases, and terms used within HPP have the same meaning as they do in the Potterverse. Others have been redefined.

For example: Prior Incantato is a Potterverse incantation spoken to reveal the last spell performed by a wand. JKR created this phrase from the Latin word, prior, meaning former or previous, in combination with incanto, meaning “to enchant,” or incantate, meaning “to speak a spell.” However, in the Harry Potter Places travel guidebooks, Prior Incantato is the title of each books’ Introduction.

Potterverse names, phrases, and terms found within Harry Potter Places that may have been independently-created by J.K. Rowling are used only for the purpose of enhancing Potterites’ enjoyment of the travel guidebook. The authors of Harry Potter Places do not claim, nor intend to imply, ownership of, or proprietary rights to, any terminology found exclusively within Harry Potter books.

Some Potterverse—and Potterlike—Terms Used within Harry Potter Places

Ambulatus

Although Ambulatus sounds Potterlike, it isn’t found anywhere within JKR’s Potterverse. Ambulate is an English word derived from Latin origins, and means, “to walk from place to place” or “move about.” The Latin word for navigated, traveled, or traversed, is ambulatus. Ambulatus is used in the title of Harry Potter Places sections that provide directions for walking or traveling about within the cities of Oxford and Edinburgh. (London’s between-Potter-Places travel directions are found at the end of each site’s entry.)

Huffandpuff

Hufflepuff is one of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While Huffandpuff sounds like Hufflepuff, it is a term created by Harry Potter Places authors for use as the title of any particularly arduous itinerary or walking route—indicating that you may be huffing and puffing when you reach the end!

Lumos

In the Potterverse, Lumos is the spell-word uttered to cause a wand to emit light from its tip. Lumos is related to lumen, a Latin word for light. In Harry Potter Places, Lumos is used in the title of sections that shed a light on a particular location, providing Potter- and Non-Potter-related information important to planning or enjoying your trek to that place.

Muggle

Every Potterite knows the Potterverse definition of a Muggle. In Harry Potter Places, Muggle is a term used when referring to any Non-Potterites one might encounter while visiting a Potter place, particularly...