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Harry, a History
HARRY, A HISTORY (ROWLING FOREWORD)
By J.K. Rowling
Not until sometime in 2002 did I finally crack, and do the thing that people
assumed I did daily. I Googled Harry Potter.
I knew, of course, that there were fan sites out there. My postbag was full of
mentions of them, my readers assuming that I was au fait with what was
happening online. My PA, Fiddy, had had contact with a few of the webmasters.
But I was still utterly unprepared what I found during that first, mammoth
trawling session.
The fan sites were so professional-looking; easily up to the standard of any of my
publishers’ sites. And they had tens of thousands of visitors. They had forums,
message boards, editorials, rolling news, fan art, fan fiction, quotes of the day from
my books… and the shipping wars… my God, the shipping wars…
I had already heard of ‘The Leaky Cauldron’; it was one of the biggest and most
popular Harry Potter sites on the net, and I had been told about a couple of great
things they had done (freeing the already-free Dobby got my attention). But I had
never seen it for myself, never realised exactly what went on there. I sat and read
editorials, predictions, theories that ranged from strange to wild to perfectly
accurate. I was, frankly, stunned… and I remain stunned.
Reading the book you now have in your hands has been an astonishing experience
for me. It is as though I have, at last, achieved the ambition I held for years: to go
along to a bookshop at midnight on Harry Potter publication night, in disguise,
and simply watch and listen.
At long last I understand what was going on while I was holed up writing, trying
to filter my exposure to Potter-hysteria. A great chunk of my own life has been
explained to me; Melissa has filled in an enormous number of blanks, taken me to
places I wish I could have visited with her (like the House of Pancakes, to meet the
US’s most prominent anti-Harry Potter campaigner); explained jokes that fans
assumed I understood, introduced me to people they thought I knew, filled me in
on arguments I had inadvertently started. She has reminded me of incidents I had
half-forgotten in the furor surrounding every publication from 2000 onwards – the
stolen truck full of copies of ‘Order of the Phoenix’, that irksome ‘Green Flame
Torch’, and the endless War On Spoilers…