Character Spotlight: Harry Potter

Before we begin, I want you all to answer a question for me. Do you believe in and love the concept of magic, wizardry, and the supernatural? If you answered yes to this question, then I am pretty sure this is a character you will love reading about, and I must also warn you that there are spoilers lurking throughout this post, as was the case with Jean Valjean in the previous installment of Character Spotlight. This character's backstory... is a bit tragic, even more tragic than being arrested for stealing a loaf of bread and being imprisoned for almost twenty years. This character was orphaned at merely a year old, and forced to live with his abusive aunt, uncle, and cousin. His parents sacrificed themselves to protect him and to this day, he wears the mark of their murderer which also serves as a radar to detect when the latter is near, a powerful sorcerer who cast an unforgivable curse who is known simply as "He Who Shall Not Be Named..." as even his supposed name is a taboo among the citizens of the Wizarding World. This character, like Valjean in the previous spotlight, is known by many names such as "The Boy Who Lived" and "The Chosen One". Who do I refer to him as, you may ask? I simply refer to him by the name his parents gave him at birth, Harry Potter.
Harry Potter was born to parents Lily, a muggle (or non-magical person) and James Potter (a wizard) on July 31st, 1980 in the small town of Godric's Hollow, named after Godric Gryffindor, one of the founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While his first year and three months were simply magical (no pun intended), the next decade was filled with sorrows and misery, as he was left with his only biological and brutally abusive relatives, the Dursleys. However, that would soon change when his uncle's house became flooded with letters from Hogwarts and an encounter with the half-giant who would become a lifelong friend of his, (and one of my favorite characters in the entirety of the series) Rubeus Hagrid. It was here where young Harry Potter learned he was a wizard, and not just any wizard, but the wizard who defeated Lord Voldemort in his infancy. Throughout his adventures over his tenure as a student at Hogwarts, Harry faces hordes of enemies such as trolls, basilisks, dementors, dragons, and Voldemort's army of dark wizards, the Death Eaters. However, in those battles against Voldemort, there have been some losses as well. Along with his parents, Harry has had to face losses such as that of his headmaster and mentor Albus Dumbledore at the hands of Professor Severus Snape, the loss of his godfather Sirius Black, and the loss of his friend and late brother in law, Fred Weasley. Later on, he married his best friend's sister, Ginny Weasley, and became Head Auror of the Ministry of Magic. I enjoyed reading about this character's adventures in my childhood, and was deeply saddened to see it end when I closed the final book after reading it, and I was equally saddened when the film series concluded after the events of Deathly Hallows Part II. The book series sparked my love of reading and literature, and the movie series was one of my many inspirations as an animator and filmmaker. Like Valjean, Quasimodo, and Tarzan, I will always hold Harry Potter in high regard, and I am eagerly looking forward to when The Cursed Child is released at the end of the month.