Menu

Gentlegeeks, Star Your Fanfics: J.K. Rowling Officially Describes Harry Potter, Age 34


harrypotterfinalscene.jpg

The Pottermore website for Harry Potter fans has actually been steadily cranking out a series of satirical articles about the Quidditch World Cup, mirroring the real one and supposedly written by Ginny Potter, who, we can safely assume, is now a reporter for the Daily Prophet.

It’s just the latest one – also reprinted at Today.com for non-Pottermore members – that has caught mainstream attention, because it includes a grown-up Harry and friends finally showing up, to support their old rival Victor Krum. Written by catty gossip Rita Skeeter, it gives us our first canonical look at how the Boy Who Lived is becoming the Man Approaching Middle Age…

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here are the highlights:

About to turn 34, there are a couple of threads of silver in the famous Auror’s black hair, but he continues to wear the distinctive round glasses that some might say are better suited to a style-deficient twelve-year-old. The famous lightning scar has company: Potter is sporting a nasty cut over his right cheekbone. Requests for information as to its provenance merely produced the usual response from the Ministry of Magic: ‘We do not comment on the top secret work of the Auror department, as we have told you no less than 514 times, Ms. Skeeter.’ So what are they hiding? Is the Chosen One embroiled in fresh mysteries that will one day explode upon us all, plunging us into a new age of terror and mayhem?

Oh Rita. If I were your editor, I would point out that apparently all the magic in the world cannot save you from a dangling modifier.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle Weasley, whose famous ginger hair appears to be thinning slightly, entered into employment with the Ministry of Magic alongside Potter, but left only two years later to co-manage the highly successful wizarding joke emporium Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Was he, as he stated at the time, ‘delighted to assist my brother George with a business I’ve always loved’? Or had he had his fill of standing in Potter’s shadow? Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admitted that the destruction of He Who Could Not Be Named’s Horcruxes ‘took its toll’ on him? He shows no obvious signs of mental illness from a distance, but the public is not allowed close enough to make a proper assessment.

No obvious signs of mental illness? I’ll just leave that one out there.

After a meteoric rise to Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she is now tipped to go even higher within the Ministry, and is also mother to son, Hugo, and daughter, Rose. Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch really can have it all?

Huh-huh. That means she, like, did it twice.

Neville Longbottom, now a popular Herbology teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is here in Patagonia with his wife Hannah. Until recently the pair lived above the Leaky Cauldron in London, but rumour has it that Hannah has not only retrained as a Healer, but is applying for the job of Matron at Hogwarts. Idle gossip suggests that she and her husband both enjoy a little more Ogden’s Old Firewhisky than most of us would expect from custodians of our children

You know what? I’d rather a Hogwarts teacher enjoyed the booze than let kids run around into forbidden areas to face giant monsters unprepared. Perspective, people.

Luna Lovegood (now married to Rolf Scamander, swarthy grandson of celebrated Magizoologist Newt). Still delightfully eccentric, Luna has been sweeping around the VIP section in robes composed of the flags of all sixteen qualifying countries.

The fact that this is allowed to stand when other reports mention an American team being present is a sign that Rowling does not understand ‘Murica. No way some crazy English chick would get away with wearing our stars and stripes as part of a robe.

No doubt Potter will be distressed to know that his sixteen-year-old godson Teddy Lupin – a lanky half-werewolf with bright blue hair – has been behaving in a way unbefitting of wizarding royalty since arriving on the VIP campsite. It might be asking too much that the always-busy Potter keep a tighter rein on this wild boy, who was entrusted to his care by his dying parents, but one shudders to think what will become of Master Lupin without urgent intervention. Meanwhile, Mr and Mrs Bill Weasley might like to know that their beautiful, blonde daughter Victoire seems to be attracted to any dark corner where Master Lupin happens to be lurking.

FANFIC TIME!