courtesy Scholastic
There was a time when Harry Potter fans sincerely could not imagine a world without more Harry Potter stories. During her seven-book, 13-year run, author J.K. Rowling consistently delivered one great tale after another to her faithful disciples. But after the run ended in 2007 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, fans were enveloped in a bleak period of mourning. Some even wept.
I should know. I’ve been a hardcore follower of the series from the minute I got my hands on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the fifth grade. I’ve stood in line for hours—in cosplay, no less—to snatch up and immediately devour the next installment of Harry’s seven-year stint at Hogwarts. But today, as the internet goes nuts over the fact that Rowling has released a new wizarding world short story, a pallor has settled over the franchise that just can’t go unaddressed any longer. I say this with every ounce of Potter love that is possible for a human being to express: J.K., please let it die.
I say this with every ounce of Potter love that is possible for a human being to express: J.K. Rowling, please let it die.
For years Rowling devotees—generations of now-adults hanging onto her every Hogwarts-related breath—lived in hope that she might bend on her promises that Deathly Hallows would be the last Harry Potter book she’d ever write. Fulfilling those hopes is (probably) why she published the supplement The Tales of Beedle the Bard and sold that 800-word Potter “prequel” for charity in 2008. And presumably, it’s why over the last few months the author has been writing short stories for her Pottermore fan site about the 2014 Quidditch World Cup finals, with the latest one featuring an appearance by the “no longer fresh-faced teenagers” of Dumbledore’s Army: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna, all accompanied by their children (and in Harry’s case, his godson Teddy).
Written in the shade-heavy voice of tabloid reporter-slash-gossip-queen Rita Skeeter, the report is essentially an epilogue to the epilogue in Hallows, detailing the ensemble’s return to the Quidditch stands, this time in Patagonia. (If you want to skip the whole tedious Pottermore registration process, the whole story is reprinted here.) It’s hilarious to hear news of the old gang through the bitchy mouth of magical journalism’s biggest liar—Ginny got a job at the Daily Prophet (because she’s famous, of course)! Neville and his wife are (definitely not, but OK) alcoholics!—but nothing actually happens in this story. It’s merely a tableau confirming that, yes, in 2014 Harry and the gang, though graying prematurely in their mid-thirties, are indeed still alive. Nobody says anything, save Skeeter, and it only serves to confirm things we already knew were going to happen when we devoured the original epilogue. Of course Lupin and Tonks’ son Teddy and Fleur and Bill’s daughter Victoire are hooking up. Of course Hermione is a professional tank steamrolling her brilliant way to the top of the Ministry of Magic. Of course Ron went to help George run Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes in the absence of Fred (sniff). It’s all just too familiar.
As desperately as every Potter fan has clung to every word Rowling uttered in the past few years about the wizarding world she created nearly two decades ago, there’s a reason they were all so sad when turning that last page: She said it was the end. At that moment—or perhaps when fans left the movie theater in 2011 after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2—they were forced to grieve and move on, to accept that something that meant so much was now over. While interactive fan sites like Pottermore and Hogwarts is Here are there to help them reminisce about exploring basilisk-filled dungeons and dangerous forbidden forests, Rowling giving fans what they “want” now is like giving them unbirthday presents every day: it just cheapens the sanctity of the thing they loved so dearly.
Like so many half-baked sequels, these (extremely) short stories are starting to read like fan-fiction (no offense to fanfic authors), but unlike those writers Rowling created this story. Drawing it out with totally uneventful tidbits that serve to give lifelong diehards heart attacks for no reason is starting to feel disingenuous. New stories seem fun, but these aren’t really stories; they’re blog posts that devalue not only the magic that made Harry Potter so special, but also the mourning process with which fans already made peace. If the wizarding world is done, let it be done—at the very least so the tears my friends and I shed almost a decade ago weren’t just the overemotional snifflings of hopeless dorks.
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