Wednesday, July 2, 2008

expecto patronum

This might be old news to all you Hogwarts students and Leaky Cauldron regulars out there, but JK Rowling has written a Harry Potter prequel! Here's the catch: it's 800 words long, handwritten, fits on the front and back of a note card, and there's only one copy in existence. Rowling wrote the prequel for a charity auction, as well as several other authors (Neil Gaiman, for one). The rules for the authors were that the story had to be handwritten and could fit on a note card. Well, Rowling cheated a little and stretched hers out onto both sides of the card. But how could she not, if, as she says, "I did feel like a relapsing addict as I sat down to write - the words poured from my pen with frightening ease."

The story is said to feature James Potter and Sirius Black about three years before Harry is born, and it involves an altercation with a policeman, and, of course, there's magic involved. The story went for the equivalent of around $50,000. Rowling did make it clear that she is not writing a prequel... boo!

Listen to this BBC reporter read a snippet of the story.

2 comments:

Glen! said...

This is old(er) news. But, along the same lines, I watched a harry potter marathon whilst you were gone.

Jon Allison said...

i hope you were drinking butterbeers the whole time