JK Rowling’s cryptic tweets hint at return to world of Harry Potter

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/07/jk-rowling-tweets-harry-potter

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Could it be a spell? Or maybe a potion? Or might it just be the big announcement that many Harry Potter fans have been hoping for? Author JK Rowling has tweeted an anagram that has led many to speculate that “Harry returns”.

However, there were also claims, fuelled by Rowling herself, that the answer has more to do with a spin-off involving the fictional ‘magizoologist’ Newt Scamander, author of one of Harry’s textbooks, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the first Potter book.

On Monday morning, Rowling posted the puzzle for fans to solve, before teasing them with the message “something to ponder while I’m away X”.

“Cry, foe! Run amok! Fa awry! My wand won’t tolerate this nonsense.” read her cryptic tweet. Speculation soon started on sites such as Reddit and Twitter, with many fans noticing that the letters were an anagram of the phrase: “Harry Returns! Won’t say any details now! A week off! No comment.”

Cry, foe! Run amok! Fa awry! My wand won’t tolerate this nonsense.

However, she hinted that one fan was “much warmer” with their guess “Newt Scamander’s History of New York Fauna: One town, my tale”.

And, in a later tweet that included the hashtag “#helpfulhint”, she wrote: “The solution is the first sentence of a synopsis of Newt’s story. It isn’t part of the script, but sets the scene.”

#helpfulhint The solution is the first sentence of a synopsis of Newt's story. It isn't part of the script, but sets the scene.

Rowling called time on the Harry Potter series of books in 2007 after seven instalments. It spawned on of the highest grossing film series of all time, as well as the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Florida. The films also launched the careers of actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.

She has given few interviews and is seen as an enigmatic figure as a result. She has also written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. She remains a wildly popular figure to millions of fans and is a philanthropist, having reputedly given £160m to medical research, single mothers’ charities and other causes.

And she has not entirely shied away from public life. She declared political allegiances in the past, donating £1m to the no campaign in the Scottish independence referendum and publicly backing the Labour party, handing it a similar sum in 2008.

In a 2012 interview with the BBC, she said: “We’re in the middle of a huge, terrible, terrifying world recession. I just think now is a time for stability. And Scotland’s doing great under devolution.

“I think economically we’re in a pretty stable, sound condition. I would be personally quite averse doing anything that destabilised that in the next few years.”