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I am at a pub in South London at a friend’s farewell party when I meet a German doctor working at the NHS and a Mexican purchase assistant at a retail store. We talk about sundry matters such as the health of the NHS, Brexit, real estate and long commutes when something transformational happens. We realise we have one very crucial thing in common: Harry Potter. The story is the same: we were young, avid readers of the books and consumers of all the memorabilia, and in London we’ve found a universe that doesn’t let us forget the bonds we formed with the magical world many moons ago. The story is nearly universal — and right away we find comfort in the conversation, for ages starved of a good HP talk in our mature work and relationships, and soon deep desires and secrets are shared. Minutes later, we are making weekend plans. When we met we had nothing in common, but now we find ourselves with a common childhood experience that transpired in three different countries, us having resigned to our muggle fates.
***
I was in my late teens when I resigned to my muggle fate. My letter from Hogwarts was not coming, I was too old. When a white owl passed away on the topmost floor of my school, where my classroom was, I thought he had died delivering a message from Hogwarts. I was in eighth grade. I prayed for my letter to come, even though I was over eleven years old, and also wondered if the elves at Hogwarts would serve some vegetarian food at my request. No eggs either, please. Each waking day was spent wondering what subjects I would take, and if my parents would approve.
Soon, the fascination took other forms: collecting memorabilia, writing a book of spells, reading all Harry Potter–related things, fanfiction, and to top it all — a dissertation on the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince . This included a scene-by-scene analysis, a Freudian analysis, and a Sociological analysis, to mention just a few chapters. While I still think my thesis was good, I genuinely wish I had taken up another film or explored an auteur. While even at that time I was exploring films of all genres and languages, as I transitioned from childhood to adulthood, the former’s pull was stronger. Many hours were spent comparing the mise-en-scène and the historic incidents that Rowling must have been inspired by. A few years later, this dissertation had been erased from my mind, like most of my undergraduate years. Without really knowing when it happened I stopped obsessing about all things Harry Potter.
However, since last year there has been a strange but distanced pull. During the second half of the year I moved to London. It also marked the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone , and the whole city became a constant reminder of Rowling’s world. From King’s Cross’ Platform 9¾ to The Cursed Child on West End to Primark’s clothing line inspired by Harry Potter , JK Rowling’s spell has been inescapable. I now own Harry Potter socks, have watched Harry Potter and the Cursed Child , and visited The British Library’s ‘A History of Magic’ exhibition, finally found company (my new found German and Mexican friend) to go for the studio tour, and longing to go to bars that serve butterbeer. However, like my bachelor’s thesis proved my ultimate devotion to Rowling, I believe London has proven its declaration of Pottermania with the exhibition at The British Library .
Magic for me was reminiscent of adolescence, only to be reminded this year: no one is ever too old for magic.
There is something to say when the UK’s national library, with over 200 million objects, decides to explore a contemporary phenomenon. It is proof of the fact that here is a sociocultural aspect of society that has cut across space and time. For me, it combined my love for history with my childhood Pottermania. This exhibition, which will now move to New York, is crucial because it places Rowling’s world, and the objects and subjects within it, in a historical context while acknowledging the significance of the author’s contribution to contemporary society.
(After showcasing the magical world in London, the exhibition — just as the movies — will travel to the U.S. this year and will be displayed at the New York Historical Society in October 2018.)
Just as Rowling transported us to another world 20 years ago, the British Library’s exhibition ‘Harry Potter: A History of Magic’ uses the most rudimentary and practical form of time travel — books, paintings, manuscripts and objects — to show us fragments of communities and societies which engaged in traditions of magic. Hermione Granger would approve.
After my Hogwarts letter failed to come, I never thought I’d ever see the inside of the prestigious school. However, at this exhibition I came close. Here I was, walking across sections called Potions, Herbology, Charms, Divination, Defence Against Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures and Astronomy. The fact that one exhibition can explore and locate the history of a particular form of tradition through one person’s imagination is a remarkable ode to Rowling’s prowess, as not only a writer but also a researcher. The exhibition reminds me that even magic has a reality in the lived experiences of many people — with or without Harry Potter.
Unlike the German doctor, Mexican purchase assistant and Indian journalist (yours truly), who grew up wanting to be a part of the magical world, Julian Harrison, lead curator of the exhibition and specialist of medieval manuscripts at British Library, hadn’t read the books until this exhibition came to him. But Rowling’s world has clearly fascinated him as well.
He says, “Rowling is inspired by different magical traditions. For example, her use of the mandrake [various cultures have mythologies and stories about the mandrake, as noted in medieval manuscript from Baghdad at the exhibition]. So how she writes about that in the book is to a degree inspired and influenced by history and tradition. Like any good writer, she has taken these traditions and given a new life of her own.”
Harrison’s challenge was to give a sense of how magic has pervaded through all communities across time and space, and to connect those instances, and they are many, to Rowling’s world. He notes, “We have taken great pains to place Rowling’s world in the wider world of mythology, history, folklore and history of magic.”
While exploring the museum, one cannot but be awed by how magical humans and their history itself is.
Some objects at the exhibition are loans from other museums in the UK, such as the Museum of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Cornwall, the Science Museum and the British Museum. Again, a testimony to the universal academic interest in traditions of magic and the interface of varied cultural experiences with the ‘other’ world.
J.K. Rowling's own drawing of Harry Potter standing in front of the Dursleys' fireplace, with a caption pic.twitter.com/zOXtcgvrm0
— Horry Puttor (@HorryPuttor) April 9, 2018
It was also amazing to see objects that root the exhibition firmly in Rowling’s world (from Bloomsbury’s and the author’s collection): stunning ‘official’ portraits of various characters by the artist Jim Kay, JK Rowling’s earlier sketches of her characters (which could be an illustrated book in itself), early versions of the manuscripts, screenplays and so on. These are there in every “class”, from a first drawing of Snape to a rough map of the Forbidden Forest drawn in 1991, years before Harry Potter was published.
Then there are the objects that link the world of Harry Potter to the wider universe of magic, which is a real treat for both history lovers and Potterheads. This exhibition puts into context the amount of archival work and research that Rowling has incorporated in her creation of this universe.
Take for instance, the 800-600 BC Battersea Cauldron found in River Thames or a German book printed in 1490, which has the first known illustrations of two ‘evil-looking’ witches using a cauldron. These are not only defining images of a Potions class from Harry Potter, but Harrison explains that this kind of imagery of witches would remain in public imagination for a long time, fuelling the witch hunt across Europe in medieval era.
Source: Wikipedia
The full title of this 18 th Century painting by Joseph Wright is ‘ The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and prays for the successful Conclusion of his operation, as was the custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers ’. Wright may have been mocking the “unscientific” methodology of alchemists in the past such as Hamburg alchemist Hennig Brandt, whom the painting depicts in his lab in 1669, but...
... it just shows that there’s a lot of serendipity involved in life, which we can stoke with a childlike fascination for magic.
There are also interesting magical explorations that intertwine with scientific discoveries and histories. The Chinese Oracle bones, used for prophecies by the Yin Dynasty, have been dated precisely to December 27, 1192 BC, by NASA, thanks to its description of the lunar eclipse. This is the oldest dateable object at the Library. ‘The Alchymist’, a large painting by Joseph Wright, depicts Hamburg alchemist Hennig Brandt’s accidental discovery of phosphorus while attempting to turn urine into a philosopher’s stone in 1669.
Then there is a real 17 th -Century gold-plated Bezoar stone which many believed would come in handy in case of a poisoning; the 16 th -Century six-metre-long illustrated Ripley’s scroll that describes a recipe for concocting a philosopher’s stone (in case you were in the mood for some DIY); several ‘Herbals’ or large illustrated books (Rowling was inspired by a 1653 book Culpeper’s Complete Herbal for many names and creatures) explore the anatomies of plants, real and imagined; charms or spells (such as ‘Abracadabra’, first mentioned in the 2 nd Century AD as a cure for malaria) from Ethiopia to Netherlands; 7 th -Century Atlases of the night skies, 13th-Century Syrian astrolabes, and pages from Da Vinci’s book take us through magical astronomy; manuals on divination, palmistry and tea-leaf-reading for lessons of prophesying; bestiaries dating back between the 13th and 18th Centuries depict unicorns, dragons, phoenixes and other magical creatures.
Also to be noted is the tombstone of Nicholas Flamel, the eponymous ‘Philosopher’ after whom the first book is named, who was actually just a landlord in 15-Century Paris. Well, his legendary mythical quest for immortality aside, even his mortal remains weren’t left in peace as his tombstone was found as a chopping board in a Parisian grocery.
However, I felt there was a lack of representation from South Asia, even as the sub-continent continues to have multiple traditions which rely on magic and the supernatural. The only manuscript from India is the 17th-Century Majma’ al-ghara’ib, which illustrates a kind of phoenix.
I asked Harrison this.
“We tried very hard to be as representative as possible, and we would have loved to find more things from India, but we have discovered that magical traditions are a completely global phenomena. They are not restricted to one region or culture or period of history,” he replied. While putting together the exhibition, there was evidence of different cultures sharing and being influenced by each other’s magical traditions, just as discoveries in the Middle East and Arabic influenced Western science. “It is very important to convey to people that it is not restricted to western culture,” says Harrison.
The fact that each object at the exhibition has its own complex and antiquated history, not just a story, makes one see how imagination, traditions and pursuit of the unknown can take us in different directions. The exhibition depicts magic as not merely imagined or something to be laughed at, but a feature and practice within many cultures, to be studied and understood.
At the beginning and the end of the exhibition are markers of the ‘Past, Present and Future’ of Harry Potter, which locate the creation of the series and its vibrant afterlife since the final book.
Where’s Waldo — oops — Harry? | leakycauldron.org
It is here, that Jim Kay’s painting of Harry at the station, at the beginning of the exhibition, comes back to mind and leaves an everlasting imprint. In his painting, crowds of undefined characters are scurrying about next to the Hogwarts Express, and among them is the clearly visible Harry, pushing his trolley. Much like how Rowling’s work stands apart from the many rich, yet disparate voices, of the magical stories of yore.
Cynicism and ‘maturity’ had long overtaken my childhood fantasies by the time I had landed in London. Magic for me was reminiscent of adolescence, only to be reminded this year: no one is too old for magic. This exhibition, with a deeper exploration of magic as a tradition, reminds me that Harry Potter is not just a pop-culture consumeristic phenomenon specific to millennials sitting at a bar bonding over magic. In Harry Potter, the history of magic lives on.
(Go on, experience the magic )
