The three actors have starred in the films since 2001

Dark clouds are gathering over Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

The fifth film to be adapted from JK Rowling's books - released on 11 July - is the grittiest yet, as Harry battles with the angst and growing pains of teenage life.

And while the film echoes the growing age of the young cast, actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be wearing school uniforms for at least another two years.

Rowling brings the magical saga to an end in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, published on 21 July.

It will mark the finishing line for the trio, who have played Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley since 2001.

Radcliffe, 17, says he has no idea what to expect from the final book, but has pre-ordered a copy.

"We can sit here and talk about it but Jo is coming to come up with something far more interesting or exciting than anything we can predict and imagine," he says.

I hope Hermione doesn't die - I really didn't have that in my plan for what she would achieve Emma Watson

Rowling has already hinted that two main characters will die in final instalment, but has not revealed who.

Watson is tempted to take a sneaky peek to see if it is Hermione who meets a sticky end.

'Beautiful babies'

"I hope Hermione doesn't die - I really didn't have that in my plan for what she would achieve," she says.

"I want to see her putting her intellect and her very caring nature to some very worthy cause - going around the country protesting for the rights of house elves, or continuing with SPEW and generally making the world a better place. Being married to Ron and having beautiful babies."

Grint, 18, is more succinct: "If Ron had to die it wouldn't be so bad - it's the last one anyway."

The latest Harry Potter film is the fifth in the series, and sees the franchise's fourth director at the helm, with David Yates following in the footsteps of Christopher Columbus, Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell.

Daniel said he enjoyed portraying Harry's troubled teenage years

Yates, best known for TV dramas such as The Girl in the Cafe and State of Play, has combined aspects of previous films with his own take on Harry's character, explains Radcliffe.

"I think this is the film I'm most proud of and we had a great time working with David," he says.

"He has taken the charm of the films that Chris made, the visual flair of what Alfonso did, and the thoroughly British bombastic nature of the fourth film, and added his own sense of grit, and realism to it that perhaps wasn't there so much before."

Watson, 16, says it is the most "genuine" of all the films.

"The word I connect the most with David Yates is 'truth'," she adds.

"He always wanted to find truth in all the characters. We really relished that and it stopped us getting complacent."

Reflective

Radcliffe says one of his greatest challenges was tackling the more troubled and complex side of the teenage Harry.

"I talked to Jo (Rowling) about it, and she said if people say they don't understand why he is angry then they have not understood what he has been through in the last five years," he explains.

"He has a right to be angry. For me it was just as interesting to play the reflective side of the anger, where it comes from like the loneliness and feeling misunderstood, than the out-and-out shouting that people may have interpreted from the book."

It was Gary Oldman, who plays Harry's godfather Sirius Black, who inspired him.

"Me and Gary got to do some really emotional and heartfelt scenes together, which was great," Radcliffe says.

Hermione and Ron sign up for Dumbledore's Army

"I have been a fan of his for a long time, and I think anybody would be hard-pushed to name another actor whose body of work covers so many different areas. I think he is incredible."

On-screen kiss

The Order of the Phoenix also stars Oscar-nominated Imelda Staunton as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge, and Helena Bonham Carter as the demented Bellatrix Lastrange.

It also sees Radcliffe share his first on-screen kiss.

But kissing Katie Leung - who plays fellow Hogwarts pupil Cho Chang - was easy compared to stripping off on stage, as he did in the West End play Equus.

"Once you've been on stage naked in front of 1,000 people you really feel you can do almost anything without inhibition," he laughs.

"Being naked was possibly not as complicated as kissing - although belt buckles can give everybody a bit of trouble at times - but kissing Katie was a very, very comfortable experience, especially when compared to being naked on stage and blinding horses."

Leung, 19, who won the part of Harry's girlfriend after an open audition, says he was a "good kisser".

"I only watched the film yesterday and I thought I'd be cringing, but I'm very pleased with it. It's a very endearing and sweet scene," she says.

"I'm not sure how my mum and dad are going to react. Hopefully they will find it really sweet as well."

SOURCE : BBC NEWS

Wands at the ready: Harry leads his Dumbledore's Army cohorts

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which opens in cinemas in July, sees Harry's school friends taking a more central role in the battle against the evil Lord Voldemort.

Calling itself Dumbledore's Army, the group meets in secret to learn how to battle the Dark Arts.

Actors Bonnie Wright, 16, (Ginny Weasley), Matthew Lewis, 17, (Neville Longbottom), Katie Leung, 19, (Cho Chang) and newcomer Evanna Lynch, 15, (Luna Lovegood) are all members of the Army.

They talk to BBC News about being fans of the schoolboy wizard, and what it is like being part of the Potter phenomenon.

Bonnie: I am definitely as fanatical as many of the other fans out there. I really enjoy the books and I can't wait for the last one.

Evanna Lynch beat 15,000 hopefuls to land the part of Luna Lovegood

Evanna: When I was about eight I was stuck in a phase of reading Tintin books but my mum wanted me to read something else. She said "there is this great book called Harry Potter", but I said I didn't want to read about a boy with glasses - I just thought it sounded silly.

Then she read me a chapter and I took it from her, because I loved it - and Tintin took the bottom shelf.

Matthew: I've been acting since I was five, doing Heartbeat and that kind of thing, and when I got to the age of 11 I had already read the books - I was a massive fan.

I heard they were making a film and I just wanted to be in it in some way. Even just as an extra, it would have been perfect.

Bonnie: I heard they were auditioning, and I think it was more a case of "why not go for it?".

Matthew (r) is one of the original cast members

I always really enjoyed being in school plays, and the teamwork involved, but when I went I suppose I never really thought I'd get the role. After I got it there was a moment when I thought "can I do this?".

Evanna: I saw a poster advertising open auditions for Luna. Also I had sent tapes to the casting agent saying that I wanted to play her.

When they told me I had it, I couldn't believe it... I was waiting for her to call back and say: "I was only joking!"

I had to keep it quiet for a few days, but when I told my friends they were very, very excited.

Matthew: I took a day off school to go to the open audition in Leeds.

I was in there about two minutes and read a paragraph from the book. About two or three months later they asked me to come down to London for a recall for Neville Longbottom.

From getting to meet Chris Columbus [director of the first two films], to having a screen test, to actually getting the part happened in the space of about two or three days. To get that call was just great. I was jumping up and down on the sofa going crazy.

Harry has to deal with his emotions as well as evil wizards

Matthew: I love comedy, I love making people laugh - but what I really loved this year was tackling the emotional side of Neville.

That was a big challenge for me because Neville has always been a light-hearted, humorous character and I have never had to do anything as deep and emotional as that before.

Katie: Kissing Harry! I was so worried it was going to go wrong and that we would bang heads or something.

I think it was more awkward beforehand knowing it was going to come up, but we had a chat beforehand and had a laugh, asking each other if we'd brushed our teeth.

Bonnie Wright has starred in all of the Harry Potter films

Bonnie: It has definitely made me more confident. When I was younger - I started when I was nine - I was very timid and shy. We have all grown up in it together and are really comfortable with each other.

Matthew: Some of us shave now! We come in and the make-up ladies say 'I'm sick of shaving you, will you just do it before you come in?'.

Even if it's just a little bit of bum fluff they have to get rid of it.

Bonnie: Sometimes I get recognised and I don't think you can ever get used to that.

Katie Leung's character Cho is Harry Potter's girlfriend

It is always in places you don't expect. You can be on holiday and someone randomly comes up to you. It has made me aware of how big the audience is for Harry Potter.

Matthew: The things I have experienced and the places I have been are just incredible.

I have to spend a lot of time away from home, so I miss my friends a lot. I get quite homesick, but the pros just outweigh the cons.

When I go to parties back home, my friends say "guess what, he's in Harry Potter" because it's a great good way of getting in with girls.

It's a good way to start a conversation but I like to quickly get away from it. There's a little bit more to me than just Harry Potter.

Katie: I had a lot of positive feedback, fan-mail and stuff. I don't get recognised very often, if anything I'm just more confident now. I used to be really shy so it's a really good thing.

SOURCE : BBC NEWS

In April of 1987, a woman in Westchester County gave birth to a little girl. Among the traits she passed on to her baby were curly black hair and a wide, toothy smile, with an upper lip shaped like the double arches of a child's drawing of a bird in flight.
She also passed on a deadly disease that had been named only a few years earlier: AIDS. The mother, a prostitute, had probably contracted it from a dirty heroin needle. More than 4,000 Americans died of the disease that year. Within a few years, the annual death toll in the United States would quintuple.

This baby, sickly and premature, seemed to have no future.
April 2007
"Woot woot! I'm going to be twenty!" Lindsey Skellie wrote in an e-mail on the day before her birthday.
Despite all her doctors' dire predictions, Lindsey had not only lived through infancy and childhood; she was now about to leave her teens.
She was one of the lucky few. Since the beginning of the epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control estimates, 8,775 children who contracted HIV from their mothers have developed AIDS. Nearly 5,000 of these children have died. Thanks to treatments that have dramatically reduced the chances of a mother passing on HIV to her fetus, only about 145 children in the U.S. got HIV from their mothers in 2004.
Lindsey is among the first generation of "AIDS babies" to reach adulthood.

But her excitement about her birthday, like so many things in her life, was double-edged. A few days earlier, she had learned that she was probably going to be sent to a residential treatment facility -- not for the HIV, but for the eating disorder she has developed over the last year and a half.
After a lifetime of defying the grim odds of a virus she had no control over being born with, it is ironic, perhaps, that she is now battling an illness born of her own psyche.
If she doesn't get it under control, her doctors have told her, it will be the anorexia and bulimia, not AIDS, that kills her.
She celebrated her birthday at the Queensbury home of her sister, Courtney Smith, and Courtney's husband, Bob Smith. Because Courtney was 11 when her family brought Lindsey, who was almost 2, to Glens Falls, her relationship to her has often been as much maternal as sisterly.
Lindsey blew out the candles on the cake Courtney had baked. It was marble cake -- at Lindsey's request -- decorated with rainbow sprinkles and colorful paper umbrellas, special touches Courtney and Bob's 3-year-old daughter, Lela, had insisted on.

"I don't know how to cut a cake," Lindsey said, tentatively poking a knife into the rectangular cake pan. Her big, kohl-lined eyes darted up, looking for reassurance, and she smiled sheepishly. "I really don't think I'm doing this right."
"Just cut the cake!" Bob said, laughing.
Birthdays are a big deal to Lindsey, and to her sister, too. Courtney has always tried to make them as special as possible, she said, because she never knew how many she had left.
Lindsey ate a small square of cake, a diet soda and some spiedies Bob had grilled, also at Lindsey's request.
A little later, Courtney had to remind Lindsey several times to drink her Boost -- doctor's orders -- but Lindsey tried to get out of it.

"I had a doughnut for breakfast!" she whined. Finally, she relented, guzzling from the bottle with the wincing expression of a child forced to swallow cod liver oil.
Much about Lindsey is still childlike -- the soft, lilting register of her voice; her fondness for stuffed animals and pink, sparkly things; her tendency to pout at real or perceived slights. She has always had a coterie of people caring for her, in one way or another, and her combination of vulnerability and playfulness seems to invite people into her sphere.
Yet she is also remarkably spirited. Despite her hardships and physical frailty, she does not act like a victim; she is anything but meek. Her voice, though soft, is also throaty and her tone frequently sassy. And, she is the first to admit, she can be stubborn, especially about doing what she knows is good for her.
At a recent family therapy session, the therapist told Courtney not to allow Lindsey to go to the bathroom after she eats, so she can't make herself throw up.
"I don't want to be her warden," Courtney said. "I'm just really worried she's slowly killing herself."

A Glens Falls couple, Will and Kathy Skellie, adopted Lindsey after Kathy read an article about AIDS babies in a magazine, according to Courtney. Lindsey has a rocky relationship with her adoptive parents, who declined to be interviewed.
Courtney recalled that the family took precautions to make sure they didn't contract the virus, like wearing gloves when they changed Lindsey's diapers. "My grandfather said (to my parents), 'How could you jeopardize Courtney like that?'" she said. "AIDS was so new."
She also recalled Lindsey's frequent stays in the hospital when she was sick. Many times she appeared to be close to death, and the family steeled themselves for the worst.
"But she is so strong," Courtney said. "She kept fighting."
Every day of Lindsey's life she has had to take dozens of pills and other medications. Some nauseated her; others tasted bad. She would hide them in plants or in the radiator to avoid taking them. To this day, she said, she can't stand applesauce, which her parents used to help make the medicines more palatable when she was very young. They turned monthly visits to Albany Medical Center for treatments and check-ups of her viral load into family field trips.

Aside from her AIDS-related symptoms, which include fatigue and frequent bouts with pneumonia and other illnesses, Lindsey was born with a number of other physical challenges. She used to take steroids for her breathing problems, but she quit taking them a year and a half ago because they made her put on weight. Before she started purging, she weighed 260 pounds.
She was also born with mild cerebral palsy, which gives her an uneven, see-sawing gait. She didn't learn how to walk until she was 4 or 5, and still sometimes uses an electric wheelchair. Everyone at school knew who Lindsey was, she said, because she was "the black girl in the wheelchair."
Although she was a bright student, school was difficult for her, not only because she stood out but because she had to miss so many classes due to illnesses. She estimates that she probably has spent more of her life in hospitals and doctor's offices than in a classroom; many of her high school assignments were done over e-mail.
Lindsey learned quickly that her classmates would like her more if she put on a cheerful front, regardless of how she was feeling physically or emotionally. Only her closest friends knew that, starting at 13, she battled depression.
"If I got in a fight with my parents I would go to school just happy," she said, putting on a big, fake smile and a sing-song voice. "No one wants to be around someone who's a downer."
In adulthood, her demeanor is still usually upbeat. She is frequently smiling or giggling, even when what she is saying is dark or shocking.
She readlily admits to "masking," though, when it's pointed out. Then, her sunny smile fades. Sometimes, in unguarded moments, she bites her lower lip or chews her fingernails. She often sits with her hands tucked into her knees and her shoulders sloped in, as if she is trying to make herself smaller.
A few days before her birthday, while her best friend, Kealy Whiting, was visiting, she mentioned, nonchalantly, that she recently had to go to the emergency room because she hadn't eaten for 36 hours.
"Now I'm on Boost once a day -- well, it was supposed to be three times a day but I manipulated the doctor into changing it to one," she said, sounding at once triumphant and embarrassed by her deviousness.
A few touchstones, aside from her family and close friends, helped her get through her difficult childhood.
She has attended religious services at the Glens Falls Salvation Army since a friend brought her there in her teens. There, she has found acceptance and purpose.
She plays cornet in the band, helps serve meals at the Tuesday evening soup kitchen, and volunteers with the children's program. For the last few summers, she has worked as a counselor at the summer camp. She loves kids, especially her niece. Her energy for playing with Lela seems to never flag, nor does her patience.
One evening at Courtney's house, she hugged Lela close as she napped on her lap.
"I want a baby," she said, plaintively. But, although AZT therapy can now help prevent about 98 percent of maternal transmission of the virus to the fetus, she worries that even that small chance is too much to risk.
"It's just serious," she said. "It doesn't seem fair."
Still, she harbors no anger toward her own biological mother, who infected her.
"I just feel bad because she had to live with that the rest of her life," she said. Before her mother died from AIDS-related illnesses, when Lindsey was 8, she was able to have about three short visits with her. Her mother told her how pretty she was, and apologized repeatedly.
Every summer, from the first year it opened, Lindsey attended Double H Hole in the Woods camp.
It was such a relief, she said, to be around other children who understood what it was like to be sick and who weren't afraid of her illness.
Her pediatrician since she came to Glens Falls, Dr. Kathleen Braico, was (and still is) the medical director of the camp and is one of the most important influences in Lindsey's life.
"She has saved my life so many times," she said.
This time, though, Dr. Braico is trying to save Lindsey from herself.
Even if she succeeds at helping her control her eating disorder, though, she will only be her doctor for another two years. On Lindsey's 22nd birthday, a day she views with dread, she will have to switch to a doctor who treats adults.
"I'll just refuse to go to the doctor!" she said, in the teasingly rebellious voice of the teenager she no longer is.
Courtney said that Dr. Braico, who is both caring and a straight-talker, is one of the only people whose advice her sister will follow.
It pains Lindsey to feel that she is letting Dr. Braico
down and not fulfilling her potential.
After a recent appointment to check on her progress with the eating disorder, Dr. Braico explained that many AIDS babies were developmentally disabled.
"Why not me?" Lindsey asked.
"Because God was on your side, Lindsey," she said.
After a moment, she added, "But the IQ only takes you so far."

CONT.....

New Delhi: The five HIV positive children who were forced to stop their classes at a school in Pampady in Kerala due to objections from parents of other students, have been re-admitted them following public outcry.

The children, aged between five and 11, had to make do with private lessons at their charity home after the school turned them away.

"There were some opposition for these children from Asha Kiran to go to school,” says Father T C Yohanan Rampan of Asha Kiran Orphanage.

But now after a public outcry and a state government warning threatening to derecognise the school, the children have been allowed to return.

"They have started attending classes. There is no problem here,” says Principal, Mar Dionysius Lower Primary School, Elsamma Maani.

There was a similar case in Sangli in Maharashtra where 40 HIV positive students had been denied admission by four local schools. But after the local education officer intervened, 27 of them have been admitted.

"We were not aware of this ourselves. When we came to know of it we went to the NGO and they told us their problems. We have solved the problem together,” says Education Officer, Namdev Mali.

Meanwhile, the children are very happy to be back in school.

"I am really happy today, because this is my first day at school. They have treated us really well today. I hope they will take care of us in future as well,” says one of the students who was re-admitted.

SOURCE : Yahoo.News