THE jury is OUT Arthur Conan Do le

the final book. So far, it has been retweeted more than 100,000 times and “liked” almost 140,000 times.

Though the occasion was the anniversary of the ( fictional) Battle of Hogwarts, the date when for the past two years Rowling has expressed sorrow over deceased characters, it also came at a time when excitement is building over the play.

Details have been few and far between — Rowling likes to tease her fans by doling out information sparingly. Sometimes she’ll respond to questions on Twitter, as she did recently when a follower asked if Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would make him cry. “If it doesn’t, we’ll be checking your vital signs,” she replied, launching a thousand headlines about how she had revealed that the play will be “sad”.

All those tidbits are just fine with Melissa Anelli, who runs the Leaky Cauldron fan website and also organises a Potter- themed fan convention known as Leakycon. “I love everything about Harry Potter,” she said. “So, when I get one of those plot details or a new piece of writing, it’s like a nice, full exhale.”

Not everyone agrees, and this speaks to a debate deep within fandom culture, starting with what counts as the canon in a fictional world like Harry Potter’s. Should the plot snippets that Rowling lets slip — that Hagrid can’t conjure the soul- like being known as a Patronus, for instance — be considered part of the series, or something outside and apart?

“Some people say the canon is within the actual covers of the seven books and that anything she says afterward you should take as opinion,” Anelli said. “Others say that anything she says is true, no matter if it’s on Pottermore or on Twitter or wherever — no matter what she says, it’s canonical.”

Readers in the first camp consider the material in the seven books to be inviolate, im- A PREQUEL OF SORTS: Edd e Redma ne stars n the Harr Potter sp n- off out th s fall