Sixth-year Hogwarts student Harry Potter gains valuable insights into the boy Voldemort once was, even as his own world is transformed by maturing friendships, schoolwork assistance from an unexpected source, and devastating losses.

Vega Jane and her friend Delph have taken the map that Quentin Harris left them and set out from the town of Wormwood, determined to brave the Quag and find freedom on the other side--but the Quag was designed to keep the town people in, and it is filled with bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic, and it is not going to let them escape unscathed.

Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.

In their continuing adventures, magician's apprentice Nathaniel, now fourteen years old, and the djinni Bartimaeus travel to Prague to locate the source of a golem's power before it destroys London.

High school sophomore Rachel and her younger sister Miri, both witches, are introduced to a wider community of witches while grappling with the problem of whether or not to reveal their powers to their school friends, father, and step-mother.

Whit and Wisty Allgood have led the resistance against a totalitarian regime that has banned all forms of creativity and executed their parents, but even the growing strength of the siblings' magic has not been able to stop the evil dictator, and they must somehow prepare for an imminent showdown.