About a month ago (I apologize for my lateness), J.K. Rowling gave die-hard Harry Potter fans more information about a lesser-known character known as Celestina Warbeck on her Pottermore website. If you’re unfamiliar with Pottermore, let me first explain what it isn’t, what it is, and why this little tidbit of news really isn’t as newsworthy as some news outlets thought.

What Pottermore Isn’t

When Pottermore first opened for beta testers in 2011 (I was among them), its initial draw surrounded the Sorting Quiz. Everyone wanted to know definitively what their Hogwarts House was. I knew before taking the quiz that I was a Ravenclaw, and Pottermore’s results confirmed it. However, once users are over the initial draw, what keeps them coming back?

• Artwork? While the artwork really is amazing, despite that many people thought users should view each moment while rereading the books, I have yet to reread Harry Potter while browsing Pottermore. An illustrated companion to the books, in my opinion, Pottermore isn’t.
• Interactivity? I admit that I’ve collected everything that there is to collect (every Wizard Card, every Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean) from every moment within all four currently released books. Pottermore certainly isn’t an MMORPG, but then, I don’t think it pretends to be.

What Pottermore Is

• New content from J.K. Rowling? You’ve really hit the money on that one! At least, that’s what brings me back to the website every time, and that also seems to be the ploy that the Pottermore people are taking: the more Jo writes, the more newsworthy it is, especially more and more often with non-fandom outlets. Case in point: Celestina Warbeck.

Celestina Warbeck Is Not New

The fact that we were given more information about a character already existing in Harry Potter canon is newsworthy among Harry Potter fandom news websites, but on August 18th, when the news broke about this new article on Pottermore, bigger websites (which invariably know less about Harry Potter than the fandom websites—and which I will not name) were reporting that J.K. Rowling created a new character within Harry’s world. A little research would have proved this false: 1) the new article was hidden within an “old” moment from Chamber of Secrets, which is 2) the book where Celestina Warbeck was first mentioned, and she could not possibly have been brand-new on August 18th when 3) her likeness had been belting it beautifully on the Diagon Alley stage at Universal Studios weeks before that.

Again, I apologize that it’s taken me nearly a month to post this, but frankly, I didn’t think it was as newsworthy as everyone else seemed to think it was on the day that the article was released on Pottermore. Besides that, I’ve been very busy.

The Pottermore Index has been updated to include the new article about Celestina Warbeck. Check it out!

Am I making a molehill out of a totally newsworthy mountain? Share your thoughts below!