As Harry Potter greys a bit more, JK Rowling makes a killing

Should you decide to join the Harry Potter interactive website Pottermore, you will be offered a set of username options. SellSpell, DogBone, WhaleWhip, LotionPotion: fine, I made these up. But the choices are pretty similar. Not that any Harry fan would mind, since it leads the person to a crazily exciting online experience once one gets stuck to it like iron filings to a horseshoe magnet do. On a visit to Pottermore, one question that had been forgotten sometime ago is reborn. How did Harry Potter cast a spell, and why is it that the hangover still remains? The only thing we know for sure is that Rowling's little boy creation not only mesmerised the reading population the world over, but also charmed those for whom the act of picking up a book is one of desecration. If the first book introduced us to a world that was alien yet somewhat familiar, the gradual progression led to the extraordinary third part in which Rowling's command over plotting was a stunning revelation. That was the time the cuckoo called, resulting in Robert Galbraith many years later. Having peaked as a plotter, Rowling should have ended the series much sooner. Instead, she turned Harry into a story-telling industry. So, the little boy was made to grow up. He capitalised on the memories of his childhood, and the reader simply went along with him. After abstaining from writing another full-length Harry novel while producing three major works — two Galbraith novels and her first work of adult fiction The Casual Vacancy — in between, Rowling has activated Rita Skeeter on Pottermore. Rita who? In Harry novels, she is a reporter who does yellow journalism for the wizarding newspaper the Daily Prophet. In the latest Rowling short story on Pottermore, Rita who uses her byline for the first time ever is referred to as the 'Gossip Correspondent' while Harry's wife Ginny Potter is the Quidditch Correspondent. The two of them have reported simultaneously on a Quidditch World Cup final match between Brazil and Bulgaria.

Harry, who has turned 34, has come down with his two sons to watch the match. Rita being a Gossip Correspondent cannot restrain herself from suggesting that Hermione aspires to be the Minister for Magic. Telling a short story by alternating two kinds of reporting is fine. But, to say that Rowling has written her latest short story to promote a fan website makes very little sense. Had promotion with content support to the site been her only aim, what made her share developments in the narrative which we hadn't heard about earlier? Why couldn't she stick to the time frame of her earlier novels and reveal untold sub-plots? Introducing her once-young wizard as a young man who is greying is her way of telling the reader that the next Harry book will have an older, more mature hero. Rowling's strategy isn't subtle enough to be defined as diplomatic manipulation of the reader's mind. Before releasing her 'match report,' she probably knew that millions would rush towards Pottermore to imagine the possibilities in a new Harry novel. They did, and the site crashed. If and when Rowling releases a new one in this series, his fans will ensure that the novel doesn't crash. Succeed it certainly will, at the cost of killing Harry just that little bit more.

The author is a freelance writer