Welcome back, Potter!
Fans around the world rejoiced on Tuesday after J.K. Rowling posted an update about what their favorite witches and wizards have been up to lately.
In a new short story published on her website, Pottermore, Rowling gets help from infamous witchy columnist Rita Skeeter to bring readers up to speed on Harry and the gang.
SPOILER ALERT: Written in the form of a satirical news column, Skeeter gives readers a peek inside the adult lives of Harry, Ron and Hermoine, but not without her usual jabs and unflattering banter.
Now in their mid-30s, the members of “Dumbledore’s Army” have made their way to the Quidditch World Cup, which is the magical equivalent of the popular soccer event.
Sporting “threads of silver” in his hair, Harry has become an elite dark wizard hunter known as an Auror.
A “nasty cut over his right cheekbone” hints that the wizard has been dangerously active in his post-Voldemort adventures.
Potter’s wife, Ginny Weasley, is now a reporter for the Daily Prophet and is currently covering the popular Quidditch event, leading Skeeter to ponder how she scored such a position.
“Let’s face it when your last name is Potter, doors open, international sporting bodies bow and scrape and Daily Prophet editors hand you plum assignments,” Skeeter quipped.
After leaving his job as an Auror, Ron Weasley, “whose famous ginger hair appears to be thinning slightly,” is now co-manager of the family joke emporium, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.
Hermione Granger, whom Skeeter refers to as the “femme fatale” of the group, has become deputy head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and could soon rise higher in the ranks.
“Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch really can have it all,” Skeeter asks.
“No – Look at her hair.”
Readers even found out what Potter favorites Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood have been doing since Deathly Hallows.
Longbottom is now a popular Herbology professor at Hogwarts, where he lives with his wife, Hannah Abbott, a healer who has applied for the job of Matron at the school.
Lovegood is now married to Rolf Scamander, a “swarthy grandson of celebrated Magizoologist Newt.” The couple also has a set of twin boys.
According to Skeeter, the Potter gang has been quiet about their recent adventures, leading to speculation on what the group may be up to in the future.
“So what are they hiding?” she wrote. “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?”
Only time will tell.