Hooray, Hooray, It's #BacktoHogwarts Day! But Did J.K. Rowling Just Screw Up the Dates?
Harry Potter fans are a devout bunch. Even though the books and movies ended years ago, it’s still common to see otherwise-mature adults running around in Gryffindor beanies, or getting tattoos of the Deathly Hallows they definitely won’t regret later.
It’s a level of fandom author J.K. Rowling could never have anticipated. She loves it, don’t get me wrong, and is the absolute queen of Twitter, but occasionally even she slips up on her HP factoids, and there’s always 5 hundred million fans ready to correct her.
Today is a special day for Potterheads. September 1st is the day young witches and wizards leave for Hogwarts to start the school year. It means lots of people post pictures in the non-fictional King’s Cross station next to Platform 9 and three-quarters.
For me, this day’s always tinged with sadness because it’s another year I haven’t gotten my acceptance letter via owl, but that’s besides the point.
This is an especially special day in the Potterverse, however, as Queen Rowling herself explained in a since-deleted tweet: "If you're at King's Cross, the Potter, Granger-Weasley and Malfoy families are there too. Albus Severus starts school today. #19YearsLater"
She’s referring to the epilogue of the series, where the adult Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny are shipping off their own children to Hogwarts. Albus Severus is the disastrously named child of Harry and Ginny.
Thing is though, J.K. had to yell ‘JK’ when she got called out by a few fans who know her books better than she does. Because according to the books timeline, this final scene would occur in 2017.
OMG JK HOW COULD YOU.
The mea culpa was delivered via Twitter:
I doubt anyone’s going to give her lingering crap for the mistake. Especially not if she were to send us some signed Hogwarts swag…?
(Hey, a guy can hope)
