Yates finally explains why he didn't trust Rowling's ending

It was quite stunning, really. 

 I have wondered for several years what could possibly have possessed screenwriter Steve Kloves and director David Yates when they decided to change J.K. Rowling's practically perfect ending to The Deathly Hallows.

David Yates: Praying for inspiration

Now, after watching the recent Harry Potter 20^th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts special, I finally have my answer.

And it only makes me more incensed.

 

As you will recall, Rowling ends the Battle of Hogwarts in epic seventh novel with Harry and Voldemort, circling, circling, while the crowds of Hogwarts defenders and Deatheaters look on, mesmerised.

 

Molly Weasley had finally defeated Bellatrix Lestrange, the wizarding world has risen up to vanquish the Dark Forces and all that remains is for Harry to fulfill his destiny and bring down the Dark Lord once and for all.

It's a wonderfully tense and emotional scene. Harry distracts Voldemort from casting the final curse by telling him of Dumbledore's plans, both those that worked perfectly and those that didn't quite work out the way the Headmaster had intended. And then, as the sun breaks over the horizon, the two wizards cast their best spells and Voldemort, his own killing curse rebounding on him and the Elder Wand declaring its allegiance to Harry, its rightful owner, falls down dead.

Human. Finally and fully human.

All of the themes Rowling had been weaving so carefully through the books come to a point in this final scene, this final moment.

Perfect.

But not good enough for Kloves and Yates. Or, as it turns out, for Yates alone.

In the recent retrospective special, the director takes full credit (or blame, to be honest) for the ultimate filmic insult to Rowling's amazing work.

David Yates says this of the final battle between Harry and Voldemort:

Yates, fumbling the ending

When looking at the book, the final confrontation between Voldemort and Harry takes place in the Great Hall with a huge audience watching. And I really wanted something earthier and more intense and more visceral than that. Because these two adversaries were almost joined spiritually if you like in this strange Horcruxy way. I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Dan just grabbed Raif and pulled him off this tower?

 

As they apparate, they are merged together. That deep connection that we had sort of threaded through the stories and the films you’d visualise in that moment before they tumbled into the courtyard.

 

As well as the physical challenge of making the films, there was that small pressure of thinking: you’re the one who is going to finish this. It has to go out on a high. It has to be meaningful. It has to resonate. It has to deliver.

The problem, Mr. Yates, is that the final battle as written by J.K. Rowling was meaningful, it resonates, it delivers. You should have trusted her. You should have recognised the poet and simply followed the plan she so masterfully set out for you.

In making the ridiculous changes you made, you took the soul out of the ending. You made that final confrontation mano a mano, a macho combat between two individuals rather than the final, almost anti-climactic moment where the common good, the collective society won out and the great monster that had enthralled and terrorised the world for so long was revealed as nothing more than a human being, around much had been built.

Harry didn't defeat Voldemort by himself -- he, Hermione and Ron hunted down the Horcruxes and one by one destroyed them, bringing Voldemort step by step closer to his end; Neville played a role, killing the snake, as did Hagrid, and McGonagall, and Kingsley, the House Elves, the Centaurs, the Weasleys, the families of the Hogwartians, the people of Hogsmeade and so many others.

Mr. Yates, you failed to understand what Rowling had built, so poetically, so artfully, over the course of the seven novels and, in making the final battle between Voldemort and Harry an epic battle, filled with flashes and explosions, fought in front of no one, you proved yourself an exceptional technician but no artist.

 

And you did a disservice to the stories were you entrusted to bring to the screen.

Malfoy's murderous intent

Harry frees Dobby with a dirty sock

Lucius Malfoy attempts to murder Harry Potter at the end of the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

In what could be considered a significant departure from the original novel, script writer Stephen Kloves chose to expose Malfoy's deepest evil much earlier than Rowling did.

The passage from the novel, which follows Harry's clever way of tricking Malfoy into freeing Dobby, reads as follows:

Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf. Then he lunged at Harry.

"You've lost me my servant, boy!"

But Dobby shouted, "You shall not harm Harry Potter!"

There was a loud bang, and Mr Malfoy was thrown backwards.

"Avada" shouts Lucius Malfoy, wand in motion

Malfoy lunges at Harry, perhaps in an attempt to beat him, or even throttle him, but there is no evidence in the book that Malfoy intended to use the Avada Kedavera nor to kill him at all.

In the film, on the other hand, Malfoy draws his wand and very clearly utters the word "Avada" before Dobby intervenes. Malfoy's intention is clear: to kill Harry. In front of a witness.

Why the change?

I think it is important to note that, when Rowling published the second novel in 1998, she had not yet invented (or at least had not yet introduced) the concept of the "Unforgivable Curses" and, if my memory serves, the killing curse (the Avada Kedavra) had not yet been uttered in the books. Rowling does not mention the specific curse in The Philosopher's Stone when the murder of Lily and James and Voldemort's failed attempt to kill Harry are discussed.

Rowling introduced the Unforgivable Curses by name and incantation in the fourth novel (2000), The Goblet of Fire, when Moody/Crouch Jr. showed them to the students.

So it is possible that it was Rowling's intention that we read that scene at the end of The Chamber of Secrets as involving Malfoy attempting to murder Harry before she had invented the killing curse. And, as a result, Kloves isn't really changing anything when he added the Avada Kedavara to the scene when he wrote the script for the second movie around 2007.

But I am not sure that's true. I am not sure Rowling's scene depicted a possible attempted murder -- killing someone with one's bare hands is an incredibly difficult, violent act, not one that belongs in a book written specifically for children and young adults. I think it is much more likely that Rowling either had no clear idea of what Malfoy's intentions were -- she knew she would have Dobby intervene so she didn't have to make that decision -- or she saw him as indulging in a fit of rage, with the intention of hurting Harry but not killing him.

If I am correct in this, we have to wonder why Kloves added the intent to murder into the film. By the time he was working on the script, the fourth book had already been published so that Unforgivable Curses had been introduced into the novels so the Avada Kedvara was available... but it's the intent that is important. In the film, Malfoy is willing to commit murder (or the Wizarding World's favourite son, no less) in front of a witness, within a stone's throw of Dumbledore's office.

And, to be frank, that makes no sense to me.

Nobody graduates from Hogwarts; they just leave

Have you ever noticed that there is almost no mention made of students actually graduating from Hogwarts in in any of the seven Harry Potter novels?

I mean, sure, some of the students we know (like Oliver Wood, Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater) clearly complete their studies and move on into the post-Hogwarts lives, and many adults in the books recall their days at Hogwarts fondly, but we never actually see, or even hear of, a graduation ceremony.

I went back and read the final sections of all seven books and, even at the "end-of-year" or "leaving" feast (the final celebration in the spring is called the former in the first three years and the latter after year four), there is absolutely no mention made of graduation, no congratulations offered to students who had completed their studies, no celebration of the class of students that is leaving Hogwarts to begin their careers.

In year one, Harry attends the end-of-year feast and Dumbledore's reported comments focus only on the House Cup and awarding additional points to Harry and crew.

In year two, Harry also attends and we only read about Hermione's return, Gryffindor winning the House Cup for a second year in a row, exams being cancelled and Gilderoy Lockhart not returning in the upcoming year.

The report on the end-of-year feast after year three is even shorter, with confirmation that Gryffindor won the House Cup yet again.

In year four, perhaps not surprisingly, the much longer scene focuses on the death of Cedric Diggory and the return of Lord Voldemort. No mention of the winner of the House Cup at all.

At the end of year five, we are not even sure if Harry made it to the feast since, devastated at having lost Sirius Black, Harry is first distracted by Nearly-Headless Nick and then by Luna on his way to the Great Hall.

There is apparently no final feast in year six since the focus is on the death of Dumbledore.

And, of course, there isn't even really a school year for Harry, Ron and Hermione in year seven since they are on the run for the entire book, returning only for the Battle of Hogwarts at the very end.

It's interesting that Rowling paid so little attention to the fact that seventh-year students were actually graduating from her beloved school.

And perhaps even more interesting that each of the last four books ends with a significant death: Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore and finally Voldemort.

I don't have any brilliant thoughts or insights into why this may be but I do find it interesting.

Who wrote the Goblet of Fire?

Who wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?

Sounds like a silly question, doesn't it? Of course J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Her name is right there on the cover, she has publicly claimed it and accepted credit for it.

But I am not sure that the J.K. Rowling who wrote the four Harry Potter book was the same person as the J.K. Rowling who wrote books one, two, three and five.

The Rowling who wrote most of the Potter books is a master story teller, a clear and technically perfect writer, a person who cares about the details as much as she cares about the grand themes of her work.

The Rowling who wrote The Goblet of Fire, on the other hand, seems to me at least to have been a different person: a person in a rush, under pressure to take advantage of the building success of her first three books and publish book four as soon as she could. 

The first three Harry Potter books were published in consecutive years -- 1997, 1998 and 1999 -- and each came in at between 200 and 300 pages. That's a remarkable creative pace but, considering the relatively brevity of the books and the simplicity of their plots, eminently reasonable. And these books are masterpieces, technically perfect in the details and creatively impressive in their overall achievement.

Goblet comes in at a whopping 636 pages but was still published only a year after The Prisoner of Azkaban. And, if you read it carefully, it is a sloppy sloppy book.

At a macro level, the plot is hyper-convoluted and nonsensical: once Voldemort manages to place Barty Crouch Jr. at Hogwarts with access to Harry, the entire Triwizard Tournament is rendered unnecessary. Crouch could simply port-key Harry to the graveyard on any one of the many occasions he had access to our young hero and, in the process, Crouch himself would not have had to be sacrificed.

Further, as I have pointed out elsewhere, there are significant problems with key points in this book, problems that should have been caught by Rowling in the writing:

1. Wormtail killed Cedric Diggory with his own wand and yet, when Harry's wand forces Voldemort's wand to regurgitate its most recent spells ("priori incantatem") in reverse order, Cedric emerges as if Voldemort's wand had killed him;

2. In the same "priori incantatem" scene, Harry's parents emerge from Voldemort's wand in the wrong order: it is made clear throughout the books that Voldemort murdered James Potter first, then was forced to murder Lily Potter in order to get to infant Harry, and so Lily should have emerged from Voldemort's wand first -- but James does; and

3. Rita Skeeter must have overheard the entire scene involving Harry, Dumbledore, Fudge, Snape, McGonagall, Sirius Black and the others in the Hospital Wing at the end of the book, including the confrontation between Fudge and Dumbledore -- once Hermione catches her at the very end of that scene, Skeeter could have been forced to write and publish the entire true story immediately so as to force Fudge to admit the truth. And render much of the plot of Book Five unnecessary.

Even so, it is in the details of the writing that the sloppiness becomes unhappily apparent.

I have chronicled in previous posts how skilled Rowling is at providing the reader background information from previous books in interesting ways while still moving the plot of the current book forward effectively. In Chapter 2 of the Goblet, however, she simply slaps it all into the story in long expository paragraphs. This continues in Chapter 3 and, despite a promising opening chapter, we are almost 40 pages in before the main plot even begins.

The book is also rife with the kind of small grammatical errors (for example, subject-verb disagreements, especially when she uses collective noun such as "group of students" but then uses the verb in its plural form "group of students were") that Rowling usually avoids, with run-on sentences (... and ... and ... and ... but) and with examples where she tells us something rather letting us discover it through action and dialogue.

For example, I opened the book at random and came up with this quote as an example of a run-on sentence:

'Lovely,' said Rita Skeeter, and in a second, her scarlet-taloned finger's had Harry's upper arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and she was steering him out of the room again and opening a nearby door.

 It is possible, of course, that the failure is on the part of Rowling's editors -- perhaps all of her draft manuscripts arrived at the publisher's office replete with errors and the editors whipped them into shape.

Whoever it was, the fourth Harry Potter book fails to live up to the exceptional quality of writing of the other six. And I think it's because Book Four was a significant rush job. Even though it is a mammoth tome, neither Rowling nor her publishers saw fit to take the time necessary to make sure it was of the same quality as her earlier novels in their rush to publish it for their adoring and lucrative public.

And the women shall lead

So Space Channel in Canada is showing the Harry Potter films all through the Victoria Day holiday weekend. I have them on blu-ray, of course, but I always find watching movies on television much more interesting than watching my own copies of them.

As anyone who has read this blog will know, I am not a fan of the movies that were made, loosely based as they were, out of J.K. Rowling's books. That being said, I have also tried to be fair and honest in identifying those areas where I feel the films have enhanced or, by necessity of the medium, adapted the books in a meaningful, interesting way.

I've just sat down in front of the television to watch the last hour of the second part of The Deathly Hallows. The first scene I saw takes place in the Great Hall where Snape demands that the students and staff of Hogwarts turn in Harry Potter and he, instead, emerges from the crowd of students to challenge Snape and, by doing so, set up the final battle of Hogwarts.

I don't love it, overall. But I love Snape in this scene ("ee - qual - lee") and I love the feeling of, I don't know how to describe it, triumph of having Harry emerge to challenge him and McGonagall step forward to defend Harry.

And it is not lost on me that McGonagall and Molly Weasley, two strong adult female characters, step forward to duel with Snape. And, even further, I love the fact the first people to step forward to protect Harry after Pansy Parkinson tries to convince the student mob to turn him over to Voldemort are women: first Ginny, then Hermione, then Cho Chang, then Katie Bell and Parvati Patil, and, as several males start to join Harry's defenders, Lavender Brown.

Add one more detail: Luna Lovegood is the one, in the film, who tells Harry not to bother to go to the Ravenclaw common room but to find, instead, the ghost of the Helena Ravenclaw to help him track down the diadem.

These are pretty strong feminist moments. While two men stand at the centre of the final conflict, it is women who provide the primary, immediate and on-going support to Harry in winning that battle. It's really quite wonderful... and unexpected, considering the fact that Rowling, for all the opportunities she had to fill the Harry Potter books with strong, dominating female characters, too often failed miserably in that regard.

While I love the books and tolerate the movies, I have to admit that, at times, the films are better than the books when it comes to their depiction of women.

Not So Trivial Flaws

Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition.

Very excited to get this as a gift from a sibling and her family for Christmas this year. To be honest, I had never even heard of it but was delighted when it showed up under the tree.

"Please please please," I pleaded as I opened the box for the first time. "Let this game focus on pure Harry Potter..."

Trivial Pursuit, for those of you who don't know, was created in Canada I believe way back in the 1980s and was an instant hit, first in its home country and then around the world. After the original edition, with its six original categories of questions (if I remember correctly, Geography, Science and Nature, Arts and Literature, History, Sports and Leisure and finally Entertainment), there followed the Silver Screen edition (which focused on movies exclusively), the All-Star Sports Edition (which is self-explanatory) and then the Genus II edition, which returned to the original six categories. At some point in there, the original creator of Trivial Pursuit sold the game to a major American producer.

From there, a series of special Trivial Pursuit games were released, one for every major fad that came down the pipe. Despite this serious dilution of its core base, Trivial Pursuit continued to thrive.

It's a story that sounds kind of familiar to Harry Potter fans, isn't it? Humble beginnings, surprising success, a sell-out to a U.S. conglomerate and a rapid proliferation of spin-offs that move the "franchise" into a deeper and deeper dive for profit and further away from its roots.

Although the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, has many merits -- it focuses on the original seven, true Potter stories and ignores the inspired mess of Hollywood insipidness and merchandising frenzy that followed -- it also suffers from two flaws:

1. It prefers the American versions of the original stories over the British versions; and
2. It prioritizes the events of the films over the events of the novels.

The first flaw is perhaps understandable -- an American game maker is attempting to appeal to an American audience and so uses "The Sorcerer's Stone" etc., the name familiar to its audience.

The second flaw is inexcusable. The books are Harry Potter -- the films are merely adaptations of Rowling's novels (and significantly problematic adaptations at that).

So when you face a question in the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, like, "Who burned down the Weasley's home?", you know the correct answer is "no one" because, well, the Weasley's home was never burnt to the ground in the novels.

In the films, of course, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback do set fire to the Burrow.

And when you get a question like "What Muggle game appears in the background of Mr. Weasley's workshop?", you know that there is no answer because Rowling never describes the "workshop" in such detail. Sure, in the film, you see that there is a pinball machine back there but that is merely a choice made by a set decorator, not a creative decision of the creator of Harry Potter.

The least the game designers could have done was to introduce each question with a qualifier -- "In the film version" and "In the original novels" -- to point out the difference.

Of course, I would love to have a TP game that focuses on the books alone. Or even one that has a separate category for the films: "Film Facts" or "Film Adaptations" or some such. But to have an HP TP game that actually treats the books like they don't matter?

Not acceptable. Not even remotely acceptable. But typical of the trajectory both TP and HP have followed since their humble but outrageously creative beginnings. TP and HP have both been sold out and are being exploited by soulless US conglomerates who care more about profit than art, generating cash flow than creating magic.

"I haven't read the books but I'm a huge fan" -- AARRGGHH

We've all had this conversation:

"You're a Harry Potter fan?" someone says to us. "So am I! I must have seen each of the movies a dozen times!"

You: "What about the books?"

Someone: "Oh, I haven't read the books. But I'm a HUGE fan!"

Doesn't that make you want to scream? Can we not all agree that, if you have not actually read J.K. Rowling's original Harry Potter novels, then...

YOU'RE NOT A HARRY POTTER FAN!

I don't care how many times you've watched those ridiculous movies. I don't care that you know the film dialogue off by heart and that you can name the actor who played the auror who is standing at the gates of Hogwarts when Harry trudges up, his face bloodied, near the start of the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, or that you think the portrayal of Draco Malfoy is simply dreamy.

If you have not read the books, even once, you are not a real Harry Potter fan.

That's why I can't stand Harry Potter trivia events these days. In North America, at least, the organisers' idea of a show stopper, a stumper, a question that separates the fans from the wannabes, is something ridiculous like: Who was the gaffer on the second movie? I don't know and I don't care. I can barely watch the films at all, not to mention studying their ludicrously long credits to prepare for a trivia contest. Ask me about Rowling's world, her characters, her plots, her details... don't ask me about the movies.

What is happening in American society is that the movies are replacing the original books as the canon of Harry Potter. This is ridiculous. The movies are fine as stand alone projects -- some of them are even mildly entertaining -- but they cannot and must not replace Rowling's works as the foundation of Harry Potter fandom.

Not only are the film versions significantly inferior to the books as stories, as narratives, as world-builders -- they are flawed even as films. They are internally inconsistent and self-contradictory. They have plot and character-development gaps through which you could fly a hippogriff and they undermine many of the most praiseworthy of the themes, of the creative decisions, of the original books.

I have described many of what I perceive to be the films' shortcomings in other blog posts so I won't rehash all of that now. Suffice it to say, in my Harry Potter fandom, if you haven't read the books, you're not a Harry Potter fan. Okay?

Voldemort versus Grindelwald: Who was the more powerful?

Okay Harry Potter fans, easy question: between Grindelwald and Voldemort, which evil sorcerer was more powerful?

Perhaps not such an easy question. And, unless J.K. decides to find a way to have the two of them duel each other, probably not one we will ever be able to answer definitively.

But, for the sake of the intellectual exercise, let's look at the evidence that Rowling does provide in the seven Harry Potter novels.

The only direct comparison made in the books appears in Rita Skeeter's scathing biography of Albus Dumbledore, which is excerpted extensively in The Deathly Hallows. In her book, Skeeter writes: "The name Grindelwald is justly famous: in a list of Most Dangerous Dark Wizards of All Time, he would miss out on the top spot only because You-Know-Who arrived, a generation later, to steal his crown."

In Skeeter's estimation, Voldemort was the more dangerous of the two. Does that mean he was more powerful as an individual wizard? Not necessarily: from my understanding, it means only that, in Skeeter's highly untrustworthy opinion, Voldemort posed more of a danger to the wizarding community than did Grindelwald.

But Skeeter does make an important point: in any comparison of the two evil wizards, Albus Dumbledore is a useful measuring stick. After all, Dumbledore faced both Grindelwald and Voldemort in battle.

Of Grindelwald, Dumbledore himself says this: "They say he feared me, and perhaps he did, but less, I think, than I did him...Not what he could do to me magically. I knew that we were evenly matched, perhaps that I was a shade more skilful."

And, of course, Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald in their fateful duel.

So Dumbledore believed and then later proved that he was slightly more skilful (powerful?) than Grindelwald.

What about Voldemort?

It is common knowledge that Voldemort feared Dumbledore. This is a fact repeated over and over again, by any number of knowledgeable persons, throughout the seven novels, beginning in the first chapter of the first novel when Professor McGonagall says, "Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know -- oh, all right, Voldemort -- was frightened of." At that point, of course, Dumbledore admits from the outset that "Voldemort had powers that I will never have".

It is also a fact that Voldemort never sought a direct confrontation with Dumbledore: their duel in the Ministry of Magic took place only because Voldemort arrived not knowing that Dumbledore was there already and ignored Bellatrix's attempts to warn him of Dumbledore's presence in the building; and Voldemort sent Draco Malfoy to kill Dumbledore in Book Six and assigned Snape the task of murdering the headmaster if Draco should fail, rather than confronting Dumbledore himself.

(Another interesting question: did Voldemort at that point know that Dumbledore had been injured by a curse? I doubt it. Even though Snape did not know about the Horcruxes, I would expect that he would withhold the key information about Dumbledore's injury from the Dark Lord. Imagine how differently the story would have played out if Snape had, in his ignorance, told Voldemort that Dumbledore had been injured cracking open ring? Would Voldemort have put two and two together and realised that Dumbledore was hunting Horcruxes?)

It also important to note that Bellatrix, one of Voldemort's most trusted followers, believes that it is imperative that she warn the Dark Lord that Dumbledore is in the Ministry, even though, at that very moment, she fears for her own life and faces severe punishment for her failure to obtain the prophecy. In fact, she tries not once but twice to warn him ("Master, you should know..." and later "But Master -- he is here -- he is below --"). This suggests that Bellatrix knows that Voldemort would not wish to meet Dumbledore in the Ministry, or at the very least might change his approach if he knew his former teacher was present.

And Voldemort's own reaction to Dumbledore's sudden appearance is also telling: "'What --?' cried Voldemort, staring around. And then he breathed, 'Dumbledore!'"

So Voldemort's is afraid when he discovers that he must face his former teacher.

In the duel that follows, Dumbledore's focus is split between fighting Voldemort, keeping Bellatrix trapped and protecting Harry, and yet he is still Voldemort's match. The battle ends in a draw, with the Dark Lord choosing to withdraw (first by possessing Harry in a vain attempt to get Dumbledore to kill the boy and then by fleeing the Ministry) rather than continue to fight Dumbledore.

 It would appear from this evidence that Voldemort did indeed fear Dumbledore and that Dumbledore was the more powerful of the two.

I come to this conclusion even though Rowling writes, just before Voldemort possesses Harry: "For the first time, Dumbledore sounded frightened." From the context, I would argue that Dumbledore is not afraid of Voldemort at that point but for Harry. He recognises the threat to Harry and fears for his welfare.

I may be wrong, of course. Perhaps, in that moment, Dumbledore felt personally afraid of Voldemort. But even then, that does not prove that Voldemort was more powerful than Dumbledore but merely that, momentarily in a duel in which Dumbledore's attention was divided, Voldemort momentarily seemed to gain the upper hand.

So that leaves us with two Dark Wizards, both of whom feared Dumbledore and both of whom were unable to defeat him in a one-on-one duel. Grindelwald battled Dumbledore straight up and lost. Voldemort fought a distracted Dumbledore and withdrew.

It's not conclusive by any means but my gut tells me, based on the evidence in the novels, that Grindelwald would have bested Voldemort had the two ever duelled each other.

I just noticed that Rowling made a boo boo

People seem shocked when I tell them that I am constantly in the process of reading a Harry Potter novel -- that there is not a day that goes by when I am not somewhere at the start, in the middle or nearing the end of one of the seven novels by J.K. Rowling.

I've lost count of how many times I've read them (though conservative estimates place the number at 25).

So how is that I missed this?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In the chapter entitled "Veritaserum". Page 594 of the Canadian first edition, published in 2000. Eighth line from the bottom.

Barty Crouch Jr. has already transformed back into himself after being stunned by Dumbledore and deprived of his next dose of Polyjuice Potion. The real Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody has been discovered in the bottom of his own magical chest and Barty Crouch Jr., under the influence of three drops of Veritaserum, is explaining everything to Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Harry and Winky, the house elf.

Crouch's transformation back into himself is complete and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for almost an entire page. Then Dumbledore asks him:

'How did your father subdue you?'

And, in the eighth last line of page 594, Rowling writes the response:

'The Imperius curse,' Moody said. 'I was under my father's control....'

"Moody said" is the tag. Not "Crouch said". "Moody said". Even though Crouch has fully transformed back into himself and Rowling has been referring to him as "Crouch" for more than a page, somehow "Moody" sneaks back in when it is clearly Crouch who is speaking.

How did I miss that error in all my 24 previous readings of the book? How did Rowling miss it in her original writing of the scene, in her numerous reviews and revisions? How did her editors miss it?

To be frank, I missed it because I am always, even after more than 20 readings, so caught up in the action at this point that I speed read the entire chapter. This is the first time I've been able to slow myself down enough to notice things... including continuity errors.

Wow. I'm sure a million other Harry Potter fans have spotted this error in the past but it's the first time I've seen it. It's like Harry Potter is new to me again... after 24 readings.

Another side to Rowling's talent

Have you ever tried to write a screenplay? Or even a play? I have and it is NOT EASY. Writing stories and novels isn't easy either but at least they use the same kinds of sentences and paragraphs and stuff that we learned in school.

Screenplays are truly little bits of normal writing jammed between other nonsensical stuff that seems more like code than anything else. And then there is the structure of a screenplay -- sure, it has the same basic elements (beginning, middle and end) that a normal story has but it also requires a whole pile of other bits that they didn't teach us about in the classroom.

That's why it's amazing to me that J.K. Rowling's screenplay for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is so impressive. A master story teller in traditional prose formats -- her novels include not just, well, novels but also short stories, fables, news articles, magazine articles, advertising copy, and much more in terms of the forms of prose writing, all beautifully written -- J.K. seems to move effortlessly into the world of screenwriting as well.

To be honest, I don't really think Fantastic Beasts is a fabulous screenplay but it is indeed very very good, an amazing accomplishment for a novelist like Rowling. Sure, she probably got lots of help from the professional screenwriters who worked on the Potter films but still -- she has produced a credible, professional quality, exciting first screenplay.

I finally broke down and read the script after I missed Fantastic Beasts when it came out in theatres. My town is so small that films, even major motion pictures, only stick around for a week or two and, if you're distracted by life at the time, you're bound to miss out. I thought I could hold out on reading the script until the film came out on  Blu Ray but... nope. I fell about three weeks short.

And, to be honest, I'm glad I did read it. I have gained a new appreciation for Rowling as a writer (a multi-talented writer) and I now have a clear idea of the story and the characters as I wait, with a great deal of impatience all of a sudden, to get my hands on the Blu Ray to see how this fun, lively, face-paced script was brought to life.

With The Cursed Child, I wanted to see the play to redeem what I consider to be an awful script; with Fantastic Beasts, I want to see the film to see this amazing story on the big (TV) screen.

At last, my Hogwarts acceptance letter

I have been accepted to Hogwarts School, the best school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. That's what the letter I received today says. It's about four decades too late but at least it got here.

 In fact, I got the whole Hogwarts acceptance package: the letter, the list of supplies and books, the train ticket. Very very exciting. I even tweeted to J.K. Rowling to ask her help in finding the Leaky Cauldron and the entrance to Diagon Alley -- I have a lot to buy and I'm not sure Canada has its own magical mall.

I believe that my sister Lynn created these exquisite reproductions (because, let's face it, they're not real... unfortunately) and they have instantly become one of my favourite Harry Potter items, alongside my Gryffindor scarf (also hand-crafted by Lynn), my Grim tea cup and my Harry Potter shelf, all hand-made, one-of-a-kind items.

And these are perfect reproductions. Gorgeous and perfect in every way. The envelope came tied with a string, with the red Hogwarts seal on the back. And, if I'm not mistaken, the letter is perfect, right down to the signatures, while nothing is missed from the supply list enclosed.

I especially love the train ticket, which is plasticised slightly, to keep it firm and clean. I'm not sure everyone in the world would be as enthralled by this little package as I am but I guess that's the nature of presents: they are intended to please and delight the receiver. And, if my sister's excited anticipation of my opening the gift over the past two weeks is any indication, she's as delighted by this as I am!

Ah, the stories Bellatrix's wand could have told!

So I'm reading The Deathly Hallows in French and I have come to the scene at Shell Cottage where our hero trio are about to apparate to Diagon Alley to attempt to break into Gringott's.

Hermione expresses her horror at having to carry the captured wand of Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry tells her it should help her live the part. Ron tells her to imagine all the powerful magic that has been done with that wand.

Ron's comment only serves to make matters worse as Hermione points out, with absolute disgust, that  Bellatrix had used that exact wand to torture Neville's parents into madness and then to kill Sirius Black.

Harry's immediate reaction is one of revulsion. He expresses the wish to throw the wand away, to get as far from it as he possibly can.

It's too bad he didn't remind himself of Priori Incantatem, the spell that forces a wand to reveal the spells it has previously cast in reverse order.

We saw Priori Incantatem in the graveyard in The Goblet of Fire when Voldemort returns to bodily form -- Harry's wand forces the Dark Lord's wand to spit out shadows (albeit talking shadows) of its most recent victims, including (I believe erroneously) Cedric Diggory and Harry's parents -- and, earlier in the seventh novel, Harry reminds Hermione and Ron that, by using Priori Incantatem on Hermione's lost wand, the Death Eaters will soon learn that Harry's original wand had been broken.

In that graveyard scene, remember, the shadows that emerged from Voldemort's wand of his recent victims were actually able to speak to Harry and to take steps to protect him as he made his escape. In a way, while simply shadows of spells past, they were also thinking beings.

So it's too bad that Harry doesn't think to perform Priori Incantatem on Bellatrix's wand so as to get a chance to speak, at least briefly, to his godfather. I'm not sure what good it would have done any one, to be honest -- it's not like Sirius would have any great insights into the Deathly Hallows or how to break into Gringott's or what the last three Horcruxes were -- but it might have given Harry, Hermione and Ron a welcome moment with their beloved mentor.

A worthy home for Harry Potter

Wand on top, movies, books, special books

If you are like me, your Harry Potter collection is getting a little bit out of hand. Even if you limit yourself to the original seven novels (and eight movies), even if you refuse to purchase each new edition of the books as they are released, your probably are starting to amass quite a pile of Harry Potter related stuff.

What do you do?

Naturally, you choose a book shelf some where in your house and put all of your HP books there. You might even put your DVDs or Blu Rays there. But it doesn't seem enough, does it?

Are you really showing your allegiance to Harry and the wondrous Rowling World by shelving her books beside your copies of The Hunger Games? No way.

Feeling that I was doing a disservice to my Harry Potter passion and realizing that I wasn't showing my collection to advantage, I decided to commission a carpenter friend Robb to build me a custom-made, carefully measured Harry Potter book shelf.

It's oak, stained dark to look like the wood from which the Nimbus 2000's handle is made, and it has beautifully carved accents: the glasses and lightning scar at the top, the HP on the sides and even the Nimbus 2000 logo hidden on the right of the bottom shelf.

I just got the final product yesterday and, as you can see by the photos, it is spectacular.

Note the HP carved on the sides

My official HP wand holds the place of honour, on the top shelf, just below the inscribed glasses and lightning scar. On the second shelf, you'll find the Blu Ray movies and all of the Jim Dale audio books on CD. Below that, the books themselves: seven novels in English (plus a second copy of The Deathly Hallows that I literally read to pieces), the seven novels in Menard's wonderful French translations, and finally the ancillary canonical books from Rowling herself, accompanied by a couple of other odd Potter-related works.

The bottom shelf is still a work in progress. On the left, a limited special edition hard cover copy of The Philosopher's Stone that I picked up at the Studio Tour in England. In the centre, the first of the illustrated versions of the Harry Potter novels (the shelf is scaled for this book -- I can only trust that the next six will be the same dimensions) and finally my studio tour guide book. I plan to add my hand-knit Gryffindor scarf (thanks Lynn) to the bottom shelf as well, at least until the other illustrated books join the collection.

I have to admit, I'm arguing with myself as to whether or not I should add my copy of The Cursed Child to the shelf. It was such an awful piece of work, it wasn't written by J.K. herself and I don't consider it canonical so I probably won't honour it by placing it here.

That leaves the question: do I add the script for Fantastic Beasts when it comes out? It was written by Rowling so it should probably be considered both canonical and worthy of inclusion on my shelf. But I'll have to think about that.

To be honest, I'm not even sure the film versions deserve to be there but many HP fans might consider their exclusion to be nothing short of heretical.

A chance Potter encounter in a strange place

I am currently reading The Half-Blood Prince in French. Yes, I've made it that far... I am quite proud of myself and very much enjoying this new way of reading Harry Potter.

And it led to an interesting conversation with a blood technician at our local hospital. I was sent, you see, to have blood drawn for some routine tests and, thinking I would likely have to wait in several lines for an hour or more at the hospital, I brought my HP book with me..

Surprise! Surprise!

With their new scheduling and check-in system, the hospital has actually managed to streamline its process immensely and I spent no longer than 5 minutes in total waiting. Impressive.

It turns out the young technician who took my blood was both a native French speaker and a Harry Potter fan. He spotted my book immediately and complimented my on my taste in literature. This led to a conversation about what it's like to read Harry Potter originally in French.

He laughed at my questions about the challenges posed by reading an English book in its French translation in which, while most characters speak English, several recurring characters speak French or, at times, English with a French accent.

I asked him specifically how a French reader would deal with the situation, as takes place in The Goblet of Fire, where the main characters (who are English but, in the French translation, are speaking French) encounter a group of Beauxbatons students (who are French and are, in the French translation, are still speaking French) and yet cannot understand each other.

He thought it was an interesting question. "I guess," he said, his eyes wide, "that we just naturally read it with the understanding that they are speaking different languages, even though they are both written as if they are speaking French."

Then he realised how bizarre his statement sounded and laughed out loud.

But it made sense to me. In order to cope, French readers of Harry Potter must make some mental note that differentiates between the English speaking characters and the French speaking ones.

It was a fun and interesting conversation, one that made what I had anticipated would be a difficult experience actually rather enjoyable.

Two other thoughts that arose in this context:

1. Despite the fact that I have always been angry that Scholastic Books in the U.S. required that the original books be "Americanized" for publication in the States, I have come to realise that it would be more profitable if I treated the Scholastic Books version as translations of the original: from English to American.

2. On several occasions now, I have noticed that the French translator (Menard) has substituted appropriate French metaphors and sayings for the English ones that Rowling originally included. There is so much more to translating a novel than simply translating the words!!!!

The Cursed Play and the death of subtlety

That must be some production in London to be getting all those rave reviews.

Because, having now read the "Special Rehearsal Edition Script" of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Parts 1 and 2), I can tell you: it's a really bad play.

Worse still, it's bad Harry Potter.

I had high hopes for The Cursed Play, looking forward to seeing what J.K. Rowling, who (to my mind) is a brilliant, masterful writer of prose, would do with a Harry Potter script. Could she translate her remarkable gifts into this very different style of writing?

But this play was not written by Rowling: it was written by Jack Thorne, "based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne", according to the new book's cover.

What exactly does that mean? It's clear that J.K. has endorsed The Cursed Play -- she promotes it every chance she gets -- but how much input did she really have in the its writing?

From the quality of the written script, I would say, "Not much".

The plot is as complicated and silly as they come. Albus makes friends with Scorpius, two loners who find each other as they try to survive their first year at Hogwarts, each struggling under the weight of his real or suspected lineage.

Albus hates his father (though we're never sure exactly why) and so, when he overhears Harry Potter refuse old Amos Diggory's request that he use a newly discovered Time Turner to go back to the Tri-Wizard Tournament and save Amos' son Cedric, Albus decides that he and Scorpius must steal the Time Turner, save Cedric and put his father forever in his place.

All kinds of mayhem ensues, including multiple incursions into the past, the creation of several alternate (and successively darker) timelines, extensive dream sequences, murder, deceit, and the inevitable return of Lord Voldemort.

Thorne manages to introduce or mention just about every character of any stature from the original seven Harry Potter novels, to revisit location after location from those books and to raise for discussion most of the major emotional themes Rowling wove so carefully into her original story.

It's like really bad fan fiction. Or like a rabid Potter fan wrote down every character, location and theme they could think of, threw the list at the playwright and said: "Write a play that mentions every one of these, no matter how long and convoluted it becomes." And Thorne seems to have accepted that challenge as ranking in importance above any need to structure the plot, for example.

Worse still, Thorne's dialogue is remarkably bland and banal. If he isn't copying directly (or at least, semi-directly, with whatever revisions he sees fit to make) from the books themselves, Thorne is typing out long-winded, white-bread dialogue the voice and diction of which changes little from character to character and which often has characters displaying remarkable, unbelievable levels of self-awareness.

Whereas Rowling managed to tailor her dialogue perfectly to her different characters, to create unique voices for each (using everything from word choice to the rhythm of their speech), Thorne uses a one-voice-fits-all kind of approach. I guess he figures he should leave it to the actors to give his dialogue personality. To some extent, that approach makes sense but it doesn't excuse the absolute lack of personality in the dialogue.

I can imagine that the stage production of the play is fantastic. The budget must be enormous to create underwater scenes, dream sequences, wand duels and all kinds of magical effects. Add to that a total of 75 scenes across four acts and a cast of more than 30 actors playing uncountable numbers of roles.

What really worries me, however, is that The Cursed Play does not even seem to me to be good Harry Potter.

For example, isn't it well established that no witch or wizard could even see the Potters' home in Godric's Hollow while James and Lily were still alive unless they had been told where it is by the Secret Keeper, on account of Dumbledore's powerful Fidelius Charm? So how do Scorpius and Albus look in its windows when they arrive to intercept Delphi?

And isn't it also well established that Polyjuice Potion takes months to brew? If so, then how do Scorpius, Albus and Delphi manage to get some for their highly derivative incursion into the Ministry? And why do they ever consider using it in Godric's Hollow?

And, although never clear, isn't it true that Harry's scar hurt because 1) he had a bit of Voldemort's soul inside him and 2) Voldemort was either nearby or really emotional? So how come Harry's scar hurts in this book when the bit of soul is gone and Voldemort is long dead and nowhere near?

And why does the transfiguration of Harry wear off?

Those are small questions. Even more problematic in my mind are the several scenes of dialogue in which characters attempt to address moral, philosophical or emotional questions left hanging in the original novels. Particularly egregious among these is that awful scene in Act Four, Scene Four where Harry and Dumbledore (through the former headmaster's portrait) manage to say all the things that were left unsaid at the end of The Deathly Hallows and to pledge their eternal love for each other.

It's bad enough that anyone attempts to write a scene like this when Rowling went to such great lengths to create a lovely, balanced, strife-ridden, subtle, often unspoken relationship between the two major characters. It's worse when it's someone of the evidently limited talents of the current playwright.

Perhaps the greatest sin of The Cursed Play is that it puts the lovely subtlety of J.K. Rowling's original novels to a slow, agonizing death.

I'm not sure what's going on with Rowling. For a long time, she seemed prepared to leave Harry Potter behind, to view the seven original novels as perfect and complete. She turned her attentions (and prodigious talents) to other projects, including the creditable series of detective novels she penned under the name Richard Galbraith.

Now, she can't seem to leave Potter alone. We've got a new movie, this new play and, from what I saw when I picked up my copy at my local big-box bookstore, a veritable gift shop full of new Harry Potter paraphernalia, cheap plastic tidbits that years ago Rowling delighted in decrying.

Why does no one blame Harry for Cedric's death?

I hereby apologise to J.K. Rowling for all of the nitpicking in which I indulge in this blog. She has created a remarkably complex, fascinating and consistent world in the seven Harry Potter novels and, considering the intricacy of the many plots and subplots, she leaves surprisingly few holes for detail-oriented people with all the time in the world (like me) to exploit.


That being said, let me ask this:
1) if the official stand of the Ministry of Magic is that Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory were not transported to the graveyard, that Cedric Diggory was not murdered by Peter Pettigrew in that graveyard and that Voldemort did not return to full power at the end of The Goblet of Fire; and
2) if the Ministry wishes to discredit Harry Potter for claiming that Voldemort has, in fact, returned; and
3) if Cedric Diggory died at the end of Tri-Wizard Tournament when the only person, according to the Ministry's version of events, who was near or with him was Harry Potter;


WHY HASN'T THE MINISTRY BLAMED HARRY POTTER FOR CEDRIC DIGGORY'S DEATH?


Fleur Delacour had already been removed from the maze. Victor Krum had been stunned and was out of action. It would seem an easy thing for the Ministry to lay the blame for Cedric's death at the feet of Harry, the only other person then inside the maze.


Even if they didn't want to charge him with murder (and face the possibility of being forced to admit they could not prove the charge), at least they could use the power of the press and the power of public opinion to suggest that he was in some way to blame. And to suggest that Harry's insistence that Voldemort has returned is simply an attempt to throw the blame for Cedric's death elsewhere.


I don't recall a single moment in the fifth, sixth or seventh books when anyone (friend, foe or Death Eater) even implies that Harry might be responsible for the death of Cedric Diggory. I wonder why.

The imperfect choice for Prefect

Help me figure something out. I'm re-reading The Order of the Phoenix and I've just come to the part where Ron and Hermione receive their Prefect badges from Hogwarts.

A big deal is made about the fact that Harry was not chosen instead of Ron -- everyone thought he would be -- and, if I recall correctly, Dumbledore will eventually explain to Harry, at the end of the book, that he didn't want to put any more pressure on our hero than he was already facing.

Good enough.

But tell me why Dumbledore would name Draco Malfoy a prefect for Slytherin. The headmaster is well aware that Draco's dad is a confirmed Death Eater. He knows that Draco is Harry's nemesis and that, with the powers of a Prefect, Draco would have a great deal more power to bother, upset and harass Harry throughout the year.

So why, if Dumbledore is worried about putting too much additional pressure on Harry, does he name Draco a Prefect? Why not someone else? Even Crabbe or Goyle would be a better choice, since they are too stupid to be really harmful to Harry. Even if Draco is telling them what to do, their thickness would provide something of a buffer and the fact that Dumbledore refused to recognize Draco as a Prefect should make Harry feel a little bit better about being passed over.

The only think I can think of is that the Ministry intervened in these choices as well. Maybe Lucius paid Fudge to force Dumbledore to name Draco as Prefect. We see Draco's dad and the Minister of Magic together at the start of the book -- perhaps that's when the demand was made and granted.

I simply cannot believe Dumbledore would make this choice on his own.

Umbridge a Death Eater?

This will show you how really attentive a reader I am -- I just realized, as I re-read the first chapter of The Order of the Phoenix for the 20-somethingth time, that Dolores Umbridge sent the Dementors to Little Whinging to kill Harry Potter on that hot summer night.


She wasn't playing around. She took it upon herself, without any consultation with Cornelius Fudge or anyone else, to send the most heinous of magical creatures into Surrey to kill an innocent 15-year-old boy who had committed no crime but witness the rebirth of the Dark Lord and return to tell about it.


Woweee.


I mean, these Dementors meant business. They arrived, attacked and were ready to perform the Kiss on Dudley, an even more innocent bystander in all this, without wasting any time at all.


We only learn at the end of the novel that it was Umbridge who, on her own initiative, sent them to attack Harry but, in retrospect, this action says a great deal about this delightful lady.


She could not have known that Harry was so capable with the old Patronus Charm. We can't give her the benefit of the doubt by arguing that she sent the Dementors to force Harry to perform magic so that the Ministry would then have some grounds to snap his wand and expel him from Hogwarts.


She was trying to kill him.


Why? For upsetting Fudge? For making him look bad?


Is it possible that Umbridge is actually a Death Eater who is simply never identified as such? That she is acting on the Dark Lord's orders, trying to kill the Boy Who Lived after Voldemort failed to do so in the graveyard?


If she isn't a Death Eater, Doesn't her decision to try to have the Dementors kill Harry seem like a bit of an over-reaction under the circumstances? To kill Harry just because he represents the only real evidence available that Voldemort has returned?

Casting aspersions -- Race and the Cursed Child

Some people on social media don't seem to like the idea of a black Hermione.


As you are no doubt aware, when J.K. Rowling's new post-Voldemort play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, debuts in London's west end this summer, it will feature respected actress Noma Dumezweni in the role of the adult Hermione Granger.


The uproar is because of the colour of Ms. Dumezweni's skin. They have taken to social media to express their outrage that a black actress has been cast in the role. Hermione, the complainers state, is white -- she is described as white in the books, she's portrayed as white in the films, that means she's white.


As "proof", they point out that, in one scene in the books at least, Hermione's face is described as having "turned white" in response to a shock, which they feel is definitive proof that the character is written as being white.


Rowling rebuts the assertion that the Hermione of her canonical novels is described as white by pointing out that physical descriptions of the character in the books lend themselves to any number of racial makeups, not just white. Further, she points out that she never once states categorically that Hermione, or any other character for that matter, is Caucasian.


If I recall correctly, some segments of social media were also outraged when actress Willow Smith, an African-American, was cast as the character Rue, an angelic and highly sympathetic young girl, in the first Hunger Games movie.


The whole argument makes me very sad, both that people out there have to get up in arms about these casting decisions and that Rowling herself feels the need to wade in to take them on.


I wish I could believe that the people who protest having Noma Dumezweni in the role of the adult Hermione or Willow Smith in the role of Rue were expressing their outrage because they are genuinely concerned with the sanctity of canon, genuinely interested in ensuring that the new versions stayed true to the original books.


After all, I myself get hung up sometimes in how the stories I love are changed, and not often for the better, when they are adapted to the movie media. It's never on the issue of the race of the actors cast, mind you, but still, I do resent when film adaptations make changes to the original simply for the sake of change.


But it's not loyalty that I see here. After all, I didn't see the same uproar when the filmmakers made hundreds, nay thousands of changes to the original Harry Potter books in making their eight movies. We didn't see protests about how Neville was changed, or what happened with Luna, or Snape or Dumbledore or... Well, you get the picture.


What seems to me to be going on here is, as Rowling recently said, racism pure and simple.


The issue does not seem to be that a character who was, whether legitimately or not, thought to be white in the original book is portrayed by a black actor/actress. The issue seems to me to be that a beloved, noble, admirable, sympathetic, leading character  who was, whether legitimately or not, thought to be white in the original book is portrayed by a black actor/actress.


Further, I wonder if the mere fact that the character in question was a beloved, noble, admirable, sympathetic, leading character didn't actually influence these readers into believing, despite significant evidence to the contrary (in the case of Rue) or no real evidence either way (in the case of Hermione), that the character was written originally as white.


In other words, if we love the character, she must be white. If we find her noble, admirable or sympathetic, she can't be black.


Others have presented this question even more starkly, suggesting that the people complaining about the casting of Rue as an African-American were thinking: "I cried when this character died -- I would never cry at the death of a black character, therefore she cannot be black."


It gets scary, doesn't it?


The racism seems to be so deeply ingrained that at least some of the people complaining about the black Hermione might not even recognize the racist roots of their feelings.


I don't really have any hope of seeing Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, with Noma Dumezweni in the role of the adult Hermione, but I really wish I could. I expect the play to have a fantastic run in London's west end and I hope to see it mounted, with diverse actors, in Canada soon.

18 years later, still a waiting list

I was standing in the local public library today on my lunch hour, checking out the books on offer at their standing book sale, when I heard the following conversation:


Staff Member: "No, The Philosopher's Stone is the first one."


Man with small child: "Oh, then which is the second one?"


Staff Member: "The second one? That's The Chamber of Secrets."


Man with small child: "Then that's the one I want."


Staff Member, checking her computer: "Sorry, sir, all copies of The Chamber of Secrets are currently out with clients. Would you like to go on a waiting list?"


My jaw dropped for two reasons: 1) that there could be a single person in the English-speaking world who doesn't already know the titles of the Harry Potter books in their proper order (smile); and 2) that 18 years after it was published, The Chamber of Secrets is still in such demand at my local public library that there is a waiting list to borrow it.


I think it is great that the Harry Potter novels continue to be popular, both in book stores and in libraries. I would think that most successful books are released, enjoy a period of popularity in book stores, a longer period of popularity in libraries, then fade away again, only to re-emerge if and when they are made into movies.


But J.K. Rowling's novels seem to be maintaining a high level of popularity even 18 years after they were published!


I also think it's neat that the man who was inquiring about the Harry Potter books seemed to be about 30 years old and his son maybe 4 or 5. That means that a guy who perhaps read HP when he was 12 is getting ready to read them again, perhaps with his own child, two decades later.


I had to stop myself from rushing over and offering the man a sermon on the wonders of Harry Potter, telling myself to be satisfied with the knowledge that Harry Potter lives on.