English actress Emma Thompson has reportedly joined the cast of the new Harry Potter movie. She will make a guest appearance as the eccentric Professor Trelawny in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is currently filming in London.
via Ananova.

English actress Emma Thompson has reportedly joined the cast of the new Harry Potter movie. She will make a guest appearance as the eccentric Professor Trelawny in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is currently filming in London.
via Ananova.

“The Science of Harry Potter,” is a three-credit honors seminar new this fall at Frostburg State University.
Could antigravity research produce a flying broomstick? Can Fluffy, the three-headed dog, be explained by genetic engineering?
Those are some of the questions physics professor George R. Plitnik is exploring with 15 students, mostly juniors and seniors. He says the class is not all fun and games, despite his penchant for dressing up as Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Via The Washington Times: Metropolitan

The titles of the final two Harry Potter books may no longer be a secret after two new trade marks were registered with the UK Patent Office. Harry Potter And The Mudblood Revolt and Harry Potter And The Quest Of The Centaur are reported to have been registered by a company called Seabottom Productions six weeks ago.
The key word here is, of course, may: Potter fans pointed out that other titles had been registered over the years - such as Harry Potter And The Pyramids Of Furmat - which have never seen the light of day.
UPDATE: The official title has been released, and it’s Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. You can preorder it from Amazon now.

Superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti is such a huge fan of Harry Potter, he wants to turn the wizard adventures into a kid’s opera. The Italian singer and his 33-year-old partner Nicoletta - the mother of his baby daughter - are hooked on JK Rowling’s fantasy series, and Pavarotti confesses he’d love to take the bespectacled boy wizard to the stage.
(via HPana)

Vicki Marson, of Christchurch Lane in Lichfield, has created a Harry Potter-themed garden, featuring witch and wizard-shaped willows and a willow spider. There is also an atmospheric castle ruin, gothic arches, stone owls and floating candles.
Dobby the house elf appears as a water feature and there is a large pentagram in the middle of the garden.
The garden - complete with ghostly lighting - will be open to local children on Halloween to raise cash for the Burton Breast Fund.
Via Express & Star News.

Of course we’ve known this for a long time now, but it’s good validation nevertheless! The word “Muggle” has earned a place in the Oxford Dictionary of English.
Read more on Sky News.

According to Ain’t It Cool News, John Cleese won’t be appearing in the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. From the interview:
QUINT: IN “HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN.”
JOHN CLEESE: Oh, I’m not in it.
QUINT: YOU’RE NOT IN IT?!?
JOHN CLEESE: No… or at least I don’t think I am. The producer tried to get a hold of me at some stage, but I think he got embarrassed. I heard that I wasn’t in the third one, but that I was going to be back in again for the fourth. I haven’t spoken to anyone involved in the HARRY POTTER movie about it.
QUINT: WELL, I’M GLAD YOU’RE STILL IN “GOBLET OF FIRE…”
JOHN CLEESE: Well, I haven’t heard from them for ages, but I was told I was going to be in the fourth one.
Read the whole interview.

The Order of the Phoenix has been knocked off the top of the book charts by Dr Robert Atkins’s Diet Revolution, according to The Times. (via Ananova)