Part one of JK Rowling’s new online series expands Harry Potter’s world, but amounts to little more than an ad for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The wizards who keep the world wide web going have cancelled all leave again, their usual procedure before the release of a new piece of writing by JK Rowling.

In this case, traffic, however heavy, will have been brief, as the contribution runs to only 427 words, including the names of the author and the piece: Fourteenth Century to Seventeenth Century. A movie or theatre producer would probably have urged a slightly more enticing title – maybe with the words “Harry Potter and” or “Corcoran Strike in” before that academic heading. But Rowling can do whatever she wants on her Pottermore website – and clearly does.

It will be interesting to see if Donald Trump feels it necessary to denounce Rowling as a satanic liberal

The four pieces of new writing, dropping at 2pm each day this week until Friday, form an essay called History of Magic in North America, which promises to help Rowling fans to “lay the foundation for the arrival of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in November”. In other words, the mini-essays are a preview/advert for the next film based on her work.

The first 420-word chunk, beginning the chronicle of witches and wizards in what became the US, is characteristically pro-immigration and anti-racism, with Rowling noting that the earliest American magic-makers were “stigmatised for their beliefs”. So, in the present political context, it will be interesting to see if Donald Trump or other Republicans feel it necessary to denounce Rowling as a satanic liberal. Such is the writer’s cultural power, however, that this year’s range of eye-poppingly odd presidential candidates may yet prove to be a promotional ruse for the forthcoming film, which is released the week after the US election.

JK Rowling on Donald Trump: 'Voldemort was nowhere as bad' Read more

In the febrile pre-referendum atmosphere in the UK, the author’s assertion that the “Native American wizarding community was … of a sophistication beyond much that was known in Europe” may risk being taken as anti-EU. Certainly, Rowling has not shied from contentious political issues in the past, having taken flak for her pro-Union stance during the Scottish independence referendum.

But I may be reading more into Rowling’s brief burst of necromantic scholarship than is there, which is always a risk when a writer chooses to let such small flakes fall from their desk. It’s said that Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst have been warned not to doodle on menus or hotel notepads in case the result is lucratively sold on eBay. Similarly, Rowling’s family should be wary of letting her leave shopping lists around, in case they crash the internet and are turned into films.