Muggles

As the twentysomethings nursed their post-Harry Potter feelings of emptiness with Butterbeer rum concoctions at McNally's tavern on Germantown Avenue, a more brutal form of Harry Potter-opothy was playing out farther up the hill. "It's all about the physical contact," said Olga Iodko, 22, of the SUNY Geneseo quidditch team, one of 15 teams competing - broomsticks between legs - in Saturday's second annual Brotherly Love Quidditch Tournament at Chestnut Hill College. "One of the concussions happened because someone took a broom between the eyes," Caitlin Hepps Keeney, 19, of the Johns Hopkins team, recalled from an earlier competition.

The highly popular children's books and a coming movie featuring an orphan boy wizard named "Harry Potter" has spawned a trademark infringement suit in federal court in Philadelphia. Nancy K. Stouffer, an author from Camp Hill, Pa., filed the suit Monday against Scottish author J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter books have sold more than 18 million copies in the United States alone in the past two years. Stouffer contends that Rowling stole ideas for characters in her series from her book, "The Legend of Rah and Muggles.

Long before there was a Harry Potter, there was a Larry Potter. He lived in an enchanted land called Aura, with muggles and Nevils. Harry Potter, as any well-read adolescent will tell you, lives in a magical place with muggles and a character named Neville. To children's author Nancy K. Stouffer, the characters are "suspiciously similar. " Stouffer, of Camp Hill, Pa., filed a federal lawsuit March 6 in Philadelphia against Scottish author J.K. Rowling, whose three books about a young orphaned wizard named Harry Potter have sold 19 million copies in the United States alone.

Poor muggles. We've got to wait until the weekend to buy the new Harry Potter book. And foolish muggles that we are, we've begun putting our names on waiting lists, or making plans to stand in line at midnight, because the book goes on sale officially at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Sad, hapless muggles. What would Harry Potter do if he wanted an advance copy of his own book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? He wouldn't wait, that's for sure. Harry Potter is a wizard, a delightful boy living in the supernatural world created by author J.K. Rowling.

As the 20-somethings nursed their post-Harry Potter feelings of emptiness with Butterbeer rum concoctions at McNally's tavern on Germantown Avenue, a more brutal form of Harry Potter-opothy was playing out further up the hill. "It's all about the physical contact," said Olga Iodko, 22, of the SUNY Geneseo Quidditch team, one of 15 quidditch teams competing - broomsticks between legs - in Saturday's second annual Brotherly Love Quidditch Tournament at Chestnut Hill College. "One of the concussions happened because someone took a broom between the eyes," Catilin Hepps Keeney, 19, of the John Hopkins team, recalled from an earlier competition.

Sid Zilber is no fan of Harry Potter. He's never read the enormously popular series of children's books about the junior wizard. He doesn't know a Muggle from a Martian or a Nimbus 2000 from a Nissan 300ZX. But he does know a good idea. "A great idea," the 53-year-old businessman and former lawyer says, happily, in his plush Bala Cynwyd offices. Hoping to cash in on Potter mania, Zilber is selling sweatshirts, T-shirts and baseball caps with Potteresque logos, on the Internet.

The book ban-ners finally may have met their match in Harry Potter. We can only hope. Over the years, in many school districts, fundamentalist parents have challenged the "Wizard of Oz" because it includes a "good witch," and so runs counter to their religion. Just reading about Glenda apparently would send the youth of America straight out to bubbling cauldrons. And since they can't trust their own kids to know that it's only a story, nobody else's kids should have the book in school, either.

Only big dumb ugly Muggles will refuse to queue up tomorrow to land the latest installment of Harry Potter for their children (or themselves). Tomorrow's 5-million-copy rollout of Harry Potter IV ("The Goblet of Fire") promises to be the fairy godmother of all publishing events, with lucrative concepts like "strict embargo" and "crack-of-dawn bookstore openings" - despite the non-lucrative concept of "752-page children's book. " We weren't born under a toadstool, so we know that much of the hoopla is hype, but there's also a real hunger for more Harry.

A version of this review appeared in Tuesday's editions. 'Ah, Harry, you need to shave, my friend," Albus Dumbledore says to his Hogwarts proteg? Harry Potter. And, indeed, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, puberty is in full bloom, addled adolescence all the rage. Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing.

There are many reasons why Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the three Harry Potter pics to date: It's shorter (though not by enough), it seems less like a theme-park ride and more like a real movie, and its heroes (and several assorted rogues) are beginning to feel familiar, like old friends. It is also, happily, not directed by Chris Columbus. For all his fidelity to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe, Columbus - the one-time protege of Steven Spielberg - never captured the soul of the books, just their special effects.

As the twentysomethings nursed their post-Harry Potter feelings of emptiness with Butterbeer rum concoctions at McNally's tavern on Germantown Avenue, a more brutal form of Harry Potter-opothy was playing out farther up the hill. "It's all about the physical contact," said Olga Iodko, 22, of the SUNY Geneseo quidditch team, one of 15 teams competing - broomsticks between legs - in Saturday's second annual Brotherly Love Quidditch Tournament at Chestnut Hill College. "One of the concussions happened because someone took a broom between the eyes," Caitlin Hepps Keeney, 19, of the Johns Hopkins team, recalled from an earlier competition.

As the 20-somethings nursed their post-Harry Potter feelings of emptiness with Butterbeer rum concoctions at McNally's tavern on Germantown Avenue, a more brutal form of Harry Potter-opothy was playing out further up the hill. "It's all about the physical contact," said Olga Iodko, 22, of the SUNY Geneseo Quidditch team, one of 15 quidditch teams competing - broomsticks between legs - in Saturday's second annual Brotherly Love Quidditch Tournament at Chestnut Hill College. "One of the concussions happened because someone took a broom between the eyes," Catilin Hepps Keeney, 19, of the John Hopkins team, recalled from an earlier competition.

A version of this review appeared in Tuesday's editions. 'Ah, Harry, you need to shave, my friend," Albus Dumbledore says to his Hogwarts proteg? Harry Potter. And, indeed, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, puberty is in full bloom, addled adolescence all the rage. Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing.

'Ah, Harry, you need to shave, my friend," Ron Weasley says to his Hogwarts schoolmate Harry Potter. And indeed, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, puberty is in full bloom, addled adolescence all the rage. Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing. If it weren't for all the bearded wizards and whooshing Death Eater vapor trails, this could be just another modern-day high school melodrama.

"Ah, Harry, you need to shave, my friend," Dumbledore says to his Hogwarts protege Harry Potter. And indeed, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, puberty is in full bloom, addled adolescence all the rage. Slower and talkier than the five Potters that came before - but not necessarily in a bad way - Half-Blood Prince is a bubbling cauldron of hormonal angst, rife with romance and heartbreak, jealousy and longing. If it weren't for all the bearded wizards and whooshing Death Eater vapor trails, this could be just another modern-day high school melodrama.

By late morning, the line seemed to stretch for miles, with Potter-philes waiting for their cue to rush inside and scramble for seats. With the debut of a new film, and the final episode in the book series due later this month, Potter excitement is at fever pitch. And at an advance screening of the movie at the Ritz Five recently, nervous excitement bubbled over. Important-looking people clutching important-looking papers pounded the pavement, vetting those hoping to be among the few hundred who would gain admittance to the special screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , the fifth and latest of the movies based on J.K. Rowling's wildly successful books.

Jeff and Heidi Sims thought their oldest son, Andrew, would become a computer tech. After all, he's taken apart the family computer more times than they can count. Then they thought the Shawnee High School senior might become a television producer. "We used to call him Gelman, like on [Live With] Regis and Kelly, because he spent so much time at the school's television studio," Heidi Sims said, referring to the show's ever-present producer, Michael Gelman. But now Andrew Sims is testing a new career possibility: professional podcaster.

There are many reasons why Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best of the three Harry Potter pics to date: It's shorter (though not by enough), it seems less like a theme-park ride and more like a real movie, and its heroes (and several assorted rogues) are beginning to feel familiar, like old friends. It is also, happily, not directed by Chris Columbus. For all his fidelity to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe, Columbus - the one-time protege of Steven Spielberg - never captured the soul of the books, just their special effects.

Suddenly kids were jumping out of their seats and running to the sink, where, as fast as they could, they grabbed paper towels to spit into. Ah, the magic of Harry Potter. It's powerful enough to get a class of fifth graders to try Two of the Nastiest Jelly Bean Flavors in Candy History. Sardine and horseradish. "Booger was good, though," said Courtney Gilfillian, 10, one of the students in Lauretta Blackson's class at Wedgwood Elementary School in Williamstown. They were taste-testing a sweet spin-off from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first of J.K. Rowling's best-selling novels about a lad learning to be a wizard.

Only big dumb ugly Muggles will refuse to queue up tomorrow to land the latest installment of Harry Potter for their children (or themselves). Tomorrow's 5-million-copy rollout of Harry Potter IV ("The Goblet of Fire") promises to be the fairy godmother of all publishing events, with lucrative concepts like "strict embargo" and "crack-of-dawn bookstore openings" - despite the non-lucrative concept of "752-page children's book. " We weren't born under a toadstool, so we know that much of the hoopla is hype, but there's also a real hunger for more Harry.