Rowling makes and breaks a spell

An anagram that the celebrated author J.K. Rowling tweeted on Monday, threw the digital universe of Harry Potter fans into a ferment of anticipation.

Ms. Rowling tweeted her fans that she was “very busy at the moment working on a novel, tweaking a screenplay and being involved in @lumos [her children’s charity].” To a onslaught of questions on what exactly she was writing she replied “See, now I’m tempted to post a riddle or an anagram. Must resist temptation…must work.”

And as if unable to hold herself back, Ms. Rowling tweeted an anagram. “Cry, foe! Run Amok! Fa awry! My wand won’t tolerate this nonsense”, said the tweet.

Under the spell of her word-magic, her fans set themselves the task of solving the mysterious anagram.

A solution that thrilled her followers quickly went viral. “Harry returns! Won’t say any details now. A week off. No comment,” went the answer, sending social media into overdrive with the news that a new Harry Potter installment was on the anvil.

That is, until Ms. Rowling herself put the rumour to rest.

“The solution is the first sentence of a synopsis of Newt’s story. It isn’t part of the script, but sets the scene,” said the author, who is writing the screenplay for a forthcoming series based on her book Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them , in which the magizoologist Newt Scamander is the protagonist.

Thanking her followers for being the “kind of people who get excited over an anagram,” she admitted that the anagram is the first line of her new screenplay, which reads as follows: “Newt only meant to stay in New York for a few hours. Circumstances ensured that he remained…”

A little less earthshaking that the announcement of an eighth Harry Potter novel, but a tasty enough news morsel for her fans to chew on for a while.