J.K. Rowling teases return of Harry Potter with anagram tweet! Or does she?
Leave it to Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling to divert our attention from cheating rumors, fraud convictions and wardrobe malfunctions to report on a more wholesome kind of controversy spawned by an anagram!
Rowling lit the fuse Sunday when she tweeted, “Very busy at the moment working on a novel, tweaking a screenplay and being involved in @lumos campaigns. Back when I’ve finished something!” Rowlingerers (just made that up) are well aware that she is currently working on writing part one of the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie trilogy, so the screenplay reference didn’t set off any alarms.
The same cannot be said for the “working on a novel” comment! Millions of muggles mulled over the mystery of a new J.K. Rowling book, with many wondering if perhaps there wasn’t some sort of hidden message in the tweet. Take Twitter user @peruseproject for example. She confessed to obsessing over the tweet, and Rowling responded with appreciation:
.@peruseproject See, now I'm tempted to post a riddle or an anagram. Must resist temptation… must work…
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 5, 2014
Rowling would eventually give in to her temptation, tweeting this seemingly cryptic message a few hours later:
Cry, foe! Run amok! Fa awry! My wand won’t tolerate this nonsense.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 6, 2014
She then added, “Something to ponder while I’m away X”
The powder keg exploded when vigilant cryptographically-inclined Potterphiles came up with this universe-shattering solution:
“Harry returns. Won’t say any details now. A week off. No comment!”
I’ll give it a moment to let that sink in…
Alas, it appears as though anagramming is a cruel art, as Rowling later revealed (after a series of hints) that the hidden message was actually:
“Newt Scamander only meant to stay in New York for a few hours…”
Rowling had earlier shared the hint, “The solution is the first sentence of a synopsis of Newt’s story. It isn’t part of the script, but sets the scene.”
Newt Scamander, in case you were unaware, is Newton Artemis Fido Scamander, a famed Magizoologist and author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — the subject of Rowling’s film trilogy project. From the Harry Potter Wikia:
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a book written by Newt Scamander detailing magizoology and describing magical creatures. It was a standard textbook at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry since it was written in 1927.
J.K. Rowling took to Twitter to thank her fans for getting so excited about the riddle, and to offer up just a little more info:
Well, I'm limp, frankly – limp. A few suggestions were spookily close to the script!
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 7, 2014
OK, the next riddle is… kidding. As I said (was it only 2 days ago?) I've got a novel to finish and a screenplay to tweak.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 7, 2014
Thank you, thank you, for being the kind of people who get excited about an anagram #myspiritualhome
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 7, 2014
Newt only meant to stay in New York for a few hours. Circumstances ensured that he remained… for the length of a movie, anyway. X
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 7, 2014
