Guest Post: Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies

Brittany Rowland is my guest blogger today. She recently wrote a novel titled An Aching Kind of Growing. I will review it in the spring sometime, but she was sweet enough to provide me with a guest post on a favorite author's works!

Brittany Rowland has written student test-prep guides and product reviews, and it’s always been a dream of hers to write fiction. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, painting, playing music, watching movies, and keeping up with her active toddler. She lives in Woodstock, Georgia, with her husband and daughter.

J.K. Rowling probably needs no introduction. With the holidays coming up and with the recent release of the new movie set in the wizarding world (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), I was not surprised, but quite pleased, to see three new releases from Rowling’s Pottermore. Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies is the first in this short series, and it focuses specifically on Minerva McGonagall, Remus Lupin, Sybill Trelawney, and the lesser-known Silvanus Kettleburn (Hagrid’s predecessor as the Care of Magical Creatures professor, who retired with not all of his limbs intact).

Now, Harry Potter fans are likely aware that these stories are available on the Pottermore website, but it’s nice to have them collected in ebook form. Trust me, if Pottermore had come out when I was a teen, I would’ve spent hours trawling through the site and finding the bonus content about all the characters. Pottermania was a major part of my adolescence: I read the first three books in middle school, and the final book came out in my last year of college, so I, like many others, essentially grew up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I’m tremendously glad to see the series still alive and popular, what with the amusement park, the new movie series, stage productions, and so on. I look forward to sharing the Harry Potter world with my own daughter, when she’s old enough.

But back to the book! Professors McGonagall and Lupin are two of my favorite characters, so I appreciated that they received the most attention in this collection. The stories are not so much narratives as biographical summaries detailing the characters from childhood onward and providing much-craved background information that complements the original seven-book series. McGonagall, for instance, has always been one of the more inscrutable characters, but here we learn of her early years as the daughter of a Scottish Presbyterian minister and a witch mother and how, after seeing her mother give up her magical heritage for love, Minerva chooses the opposite, turning down a marriage proposal from her sweetheart, a Muggle farmer. McGonagall does marry later on, but her life is full of struggles and heartbreaks (a fact that explains her protective and tender feelings for Harry, who has also experienced loss).

Lupin’s backstory is also fleshed out. Like Minerva, he’s also half Muggle, half magical, and he also experiences tragedy; his father’s unfortunate encounter with the vicious werewolf Fenrir Greyback leads to young Remus’s attack and lifelong struggle with lycanthropy. Happier chapters in his life include his friendship with James Potter and Sirius Black and his sweet relationship with Tonks and their son. Rowling includes a segment on werewolves and their uncertain status in the wizarding community, and she likens their condition to other stigmatized blood-borne conditions like HIV and AIDS.

The segments on Sybill Trelawney and Silvanus Kettleburn are shorter but still enjoyable, as are Rowling’s personal thoughts on each of the characters. One thing that I missed in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was Rowling’s distinctive voice, but you get that here, which is refreshing. Ultimately, fans of the original series will appreciate these short stories, collected for the first time in an easily accessible ebook format. I for one am glad to have it in my Harry Potter library.