“Harry Potter” Fans and the Anxiety Over the “Cursed Child”

In the decade since Harry Potter vanquished He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, fans have gobbled up every short story, tweet and interview tidbit from J. K. Rowling like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

Now, Rowling is finally delving deeper into Harry’s life beyond Hogwarts and wizarding history with two new full-length stories: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” already on stage in London and to be released as a book on July 31, and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” her first foray into screenplays, coming to theaters this fall.

What does that mean for nervous fans? Michelle Markey Butler, who teaches an Honors College seminar on Harry Potter, says they should just relax (with a butterbeer and Pygmy Puff).

“I hear people talking about ‘Cursed Child’ and ‘Fantastic Beasts’ as if there’s some way that something new coming out can retroactively mess up the existing series,” says Butler. “But that’s not true. The existing series is finished and it’s great. When George Lucas released ‘The Phantom Menace,’ it itself was bad, but it didn’t make ‘Star Wars’ bad.”

Her class, “The Boy Who Lived, All Grown Up: Assessing the ‘Harry Potter’ Books and Their Adaptions,” revisits the series with a critical eye, delves into its unique place in contemporary fantasy and addresses the sprawling universe that sprung up following its publication. (The freshmen who made up half the class were born in 1997—the same year her first book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” was published in the United States.)

The rise of “Harry Potter” paralleled the rise of the Internet, and the explosion of fan fiction and art and in-depth discussions on sites like “Mugglenet” gave fans a feeling of ownership over the series unlike any other. The series’ incredible popularity led to theme parks, board games, movies and more—all new avenues for fans to engage with the wizarding world.

Butler advises fans to take them in as “different points in the universe, without direct-line continuity.” Nitpicking changes like Hermione’s skin color in the play only detracts from enjoying the series as a whole, she says.

Instead, she advises rereading the books—especially for those whose middle and high school years paralleled Harry’s, Ron’s and Hermione’s and those who were born at the start of the “Potter” phenomenon—and see how the passage of a few years can enhance your experience.

“The series has so many layers,” says civil engineering major Meg Galuardi ’16, who took the class that will be offered again this fall. “There’s surface-level things I loved as a child, like the houses, the creatures and imagining what it would be like to be in the classes. Now, what resonates with me is the deeper truths about life… It’s our choices that show who we are, more than our abilities.”

She’s excited about both new works, especially “Fantastic Beasts.”

“It’s not Harry’s story,” Galuardi says. “It’ll be interesting to get to explore the American part of the [wizarding] world.”