FANDOM


"They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger bars and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand."
—Harry Potter's first time in London[src]

London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom, and one of the largest and most famous cities in the world. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain, it have long stood as an important centre of British commerce and government for both wizards and Muggles.

History

17th century

Eldon Elsrickle

Eldon Elsrickle, the "Spectral Thief of Old London Town"

In the early 17th century, wizard thief Eldon Elsrickle returned to London after having fled to Africa for a time to evade imprisonment. In Africa, he learnt about the Unlocking Charm (which was, at the time, an unheard of spell in the western world) from an ancient African sorcerer.[1]

Elsrickle terrorised London with his new spell, burgling Muggle and wizarding homes alike. It was only when fellow Londoner Blagdon Blay invented the Anti-Alohomora Charm (in response to having his house broken-into nineteen times in the course of two weeks) that Londoners found safety again, and a frustrated Elsrickle stopped.[1]

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the City of London, beginning on Sunday, 2 September, 1666. The Muggles say the Great Fire of London started in a bakery on Pudding Lane, but there is debate among the wizarding community whether it began in the bakery or in the basement of the house next door, where legend has it a young Welsh Green was being kept.[2]

19th century

SirHerbertVarney

Sir Herbert Varney

In the late 19th century, the conditions on the relatively impoverished neighbourhoods of London worsened: robbery, violence, prostitution, social disturbance and alcohol dependency were commonplace.[3]


As a climate of crime and fear flourished in the 1880s, Sir Herbert Varney, a vampire, started to prey on London women. He was eventually hunted down and killed by a specially-assigned task-force from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.[4] Around the same time, a Boggart, popularly known as the Bludgeoning Boggart of Old London Town, prowled the back streets of London and, feeding on people's fears, took on the form of a "murderous thug", before having been reduced to a hamster with one simple incantation[5] — these two seem to account for the "serial killer" that Muggles dubbed "Jack the Ripper".

20th century

In 1926, The New York Ghost reported that European Aurors were searching for Gellert Grindelwald all across Europe, including London.[6]

On 1 April, 1979, Caractacus Phelps exploded no less than eight-hundred Stink Pellets, by dropping them en-masse from the roof of the Daily Prophet building in Diagon Alley. The resultant gas cloud caused untold discomfort throughout London, and approximately five-hundred cases of Stinkitus were reported. The Muggle authorities explained the stinking cloud away as an unpleasant emission from a nearby factory.[7]

London felt the effects of the Second Wizarding War severely. Many buildings and homes were destroyed or ransacked, and many people were attacked within the City during Lord Voldemort's rise of power: Emmeline Vance was found dead near 10 Downing Street,[8] Diagon Alley was attacked, leading to Garrick Ollivander's kidnapping and Florean Fortescue's murder.[8]

Important locations

Governmental locations

Ministry Visitors Entrance

The visitors' entrance to the Headquarters of the Ministry of Magic on a London street

London is an important city because it is where the Government of the whole United Kingdom is located. Some of its governmental locations include:

Commercial locations

London is a centre of commerce for both the Muggle and the Wizarding community. Some of its commercial sites include:

Institutions

London is the location of many important institutions, including:

Gringotts bank

Gringotts Wizarding Bank's main offices

Other locations

Behind the scenes

Appearances

Wiki
The Harry Potter Wiki has 34 images related to London.
Death Eaters attacked London and kidnapped Ollivander

The Dark Mark and Death Eaters apparating appeared in the sky over London

External links

Notes and references
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/London
harrypotter.fandom.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-09
184872
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:GNPEBEYLQRWDZFCNHBWZKB7DQQIUHVHA
<urn:uuid:ba6a409a-f023-4d29-bd13-1d7bfe2a117a>
2019-02-21T08:01:53Z
151.101.128.194
text/html
sha1:XWQS6IVJCTW5ED7BXFCUVLUDX6JRPFOP
<urn:uuid:31ff51c3-75c8-4508-9adc-9420003c78ba>
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/London
response
<urn:uuid:0403f0a9-9c31-4c7d-9029-8a16553a62ef>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-09
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for February 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-140-176-207.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/