The Harry Potter book series’ main story consists of seven books.
J. K. Rowling wrote seven novels following Harry Potter from his discovery of the wizarding world through the defeat of Lord Voldemort. The sequence begins with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published in 1997, and concludes with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published in 2007.
The seven-book structure follows Harry through seven stages of his education at Hogwarts, although the narrative does not treat every school year in exactly the same way. Each novel introduces a major mystery or conflict while advancing the larger struggle between Harry and Voldemort.
Readers sometimes count companion works differently. Books such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard expand the fictional world but are not part of the seven-novel main sequence. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a stage play script, not one of the original seven novels.