Pottermore and more and more

“The stories we love best do live in us forever.”  Not only was this a heartfelt remark by J.K. Rowling at the premiere of the final “Harry Potter” movie, but it was also a promise.  

How often have you come close to the dreaded last page of a captivating book, or series of books, and thought “I wish this would go on forever?”  For the hundreds of millions of Harry Potter fans, this dream has become a reality with the help of Pottermore, “the digital heart of the Wizarding World.”  

Since 2012, Pottermore has served as a supplementary website to the Harry Potter series.  The site is dedicated to retelling, but also filling in the blanks of Harry’s story in an interactive way.  Members can take a formal test to get sorted into a house (I’m a proud member of Ravenclaw), buy books in the famous Diagon Alley and even make virtual potions which, by the way, is way harder to do than it sounds.  

Rowling also posts stories behind famous spells, Potter family history and even Hogwarts courses.  To give it a personal touch, she occasionally adds details about her earliest notes when writing the series and how these notes evolved throughout the writing process.  

But perhaps most importantly, Pottermore is constantly being updated with short stories and news, answering the unanswered Harry Potter questions.  The two most recent among these supplements, and both still a work in progress, are the movie adaptation of Rowling’s 2001 book, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and the upcoming two part play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.”

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is written under the pseudonym “Newt Scamander,” the author of Harry’s textbook in the actual series, and is complete with marginal notes supposedly jotted down by Harry and friends as they fumbled through it at school.  The film adaptation, set to release in 2016, takes viewers through the life of Scamander and his community of witches and wizards in New York, 70 years before Harry reads his textbook at the beloved Hogwarts.  

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” also set to premiere in 2016, flashes 19 years past where we left off with Harry’s life at the end of the final book and focuses on the complicated experiences that Harry’s son faces with such a loaded family legacy.

Pottermore provides fans with the most recent information on the status of both the play and movie, from details of the set to magical terminology of the time period.  With the creation and expansion of Pottermore, Rowling continues to feed the original generation of Harry Potter lovers and simultaneously establishes an absolutely magical adventure for future generations that far surpasses the original seven books.

Right before Rowling came out with the first Harry Potter book, fears of drop offs in child reading frequency were rising.  In 1997,  upon the release of the book, reading rates skyrocketed in comparison.  In 2011, at the premiere of the final movie of her billion dollar success, Rowling thanked her devoted fans with the acknowledgment that “no story lives unless someone wants to listen.”  

In 2015, we’re still listening.  And with the help of Pottermore, someone always will be.