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Harry Potter #0.5

Harry Potter: La precuela

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La precuela de Harry Potter es un relato de 800 palabras escrito por J. K. Rowling y publicado en internet el 11 de junio de 2008. Ambientado unos tres años antes del nacimiento de Harry, la historia narra una aventura de Sirius Black y James Potter.

6 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 2008

844 people are currently reading
84444 people want to read

About the author

J.K. Rowling

672 books233k followers
See also: Robert Galbraith
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.

Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.

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5 stars
13,349 (48%)
4 stars
6,975 (25%)
3 stars
4,986 (17%)
2 stars
1,501 (5%)
1 star
993 (3%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,362 reviews
Profile Image for Rose.
426 reviews707 followers
May 20, 2017
okay, now i'm crying.

after finishing this way-too-short prequel, i'm sad because 1.] i want more 2.] this was really, really good 3.] I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

“Names!”
“Names?” repeated the long-haired driver. “Er – well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…”
“And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,” said the boy in glasses.
“Oh, OUR names, did you mean?” asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. “You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”


I just keeping thinking how sad it is that Harry didn't have these amazing people in his childhood. Sigh. And like I said in my review of the Cursed Child- I could never have enough of from the HP world.

also maybe i'm late with this, but i was looking through hp gifs and noticed:

description
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me: [sobbing]

-----

here is the link for everyone asking!!
Profile Image for Minne.
210 reviews237 followers
February 12, 2016
I feel like I've been punk'd.

The ending.
What did you think? Who do you think the guys in the alley were? Why were James and Sirius trying to go so fast on their bikes? So many questions!



So many questions. No kidding. Lucky me. I get to do all the asking and wondering. I can't even -

**DRIVES BACK** But wait. Seriously, is it that some pages are missing from the version of the story I read? Maybe it's some kind of puzzle! **RECHECKS. AGAIN** Nope.
I'M OUT. AGAIN.


I still love you, J.K, unconditionally!! **District 12 Salute**
Profile Image for Archit.
826 reviews3,200 followers
October 8, 2020


Woah!

I did not know that this existed.

The only problem with this book was that it was not a book. A 3 page prequel.

"I felt like the times never turned. Harry Potter remains the best book I have ever read."




The bond between Sirius and James is too strong to be suppressed in the pages of memory. They stay alive and afresh, no matter at which point of time you read them.

Your age does not matter. It never does.
All that matters, is the warmth in your heart.




People, you will savor this short prequel.

Because friendship and love can make you a person you never thought you were.
Profile Image for India.
98 reviews76 followers
February 13, 2016
I read this a few weeks ago online actually, and it was short but great.

It refueled the fire within me that burns just to say, "We need a Marauders book/movie."

We need one.

Now.

I'm looking at you, Rowling.
Profile Image for Sumit RK.
1,285 reviews553 followers
August 28, 2018

Set three years before the birth of Harry Potter, the story recounts an adventure had by Sirius Black and James Potter. The story is just 800 words & 4 pages long, so i don’t think it qualifies as a full sequel. Perhaps it would have worked better as a bonus chapter in the Prisoner of Azkaban or even the Order of the Phoenix (Harry accessing one of the memories stored in Dumbledore’s office, again  )

But reading this book brought back memories of reading Harry Potter and this book was written for a noble cause, so can’t complain. I hope that there is a spinoff series for the ‘Marauders’ in the future.

Profile Image for Zoë.
341 reviews2,291 followers
Want to read
April 3, 2022
I am the biggest Potterhead out there. So the real question is: HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS EXISTED?
Profile Image for Aria Carstairs (Hiatus).
21 reviews197 followers
November 5, 2023
Ok so um... Not to be rude, but... What was the point of this?? Did not satisfy my Manacled hunger in the least, and is literally less than 3.5 pages long. 😭😭
(Won't stop me from counting it towards my yearly reading goal, though. 😅)
Profile Image for P .
695 reviews345 followers
May 15, 2017
I have acute nostalgia for HP today and recall that I haven't read this one, I don't know why, but I decided to read it anyway. This is a too-short story. James and Sirius get into trouble, nothing serious. But the main point is that we see their lives being so lively and full of energy. Sirius is an basically easy-going guy, and I wonder if it's possible to learn more about him in the future with other short stories, companion novels or whatsoever.



I think I might reread all of the HP books again next month.
Profile Image for MischaS_.
783 reviews1,462 followers
March 28, 2018
...This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”
“Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little —”


Okay - it is official now! We need a book SERIES about the Marauders!
Profile Image for Hannah ♡.
20 reviews98 followers
September 7, 2017
I wish JK Rowling would write 7 books about the Marauders' life in Hogwarts.. Is it too much to ask?😭😭
Profile Image for Belle.
608 reviews564 followers
June 18, 2017
oh my poor little heart, it could not take this tiny little sliver of happiness. eight-hundred words were not enough, I needed more of padfoot and prongs.

"The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin."





*sobs*



you can read the 800 word prequel written by JK for a charity auction here
Profile Image for Ahmed  Ejaz.
550 reviews366 followers
June 23, 2017
I didn't know that I had missed something from my beloved series. When I came to know about this, I went for this without wasting more time.

This story is just a little adventure of James Potter and Sirius Black (one of my favourite characters in the series) Good!! :D :D

This story was too short. But still J. K. Rowling didn't fail to entertain me. That's why I love her works. So sad she didn't write more fantasy books after Harry Potter series. 😔 She wrote just one series and wrote it in a way that she can't be forgotten. But still I really wish I could get more of her works.
Profile Image for v.
137 reviews142 followers
August 16, 2016
"Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band"


A LARGE GOLDEN BIRD ....

... A PHOENIX?

Are James and Sirius wearing matching ORDER OF THE PHOENIX t-shirts?!??!?!?!??!?! LMFAOFJHwioefhgbiuakjs those idiots
Profile Image for Hamad.
1,318 reviews1,628 followers
Read
August 5, 2018
I "siriusly" can't rate this because too short!

What did the comedian say to Harry Potter? Why so Sirius?


Profile Image for peachygirl.
299 reviews873 followers
December 21, 2023
Umm, what?
Just 4 freaking pages???
It got over before I could say Black is back!!! 😫😐
I want more of Sirius Black. I need more of Sirius Black. Like, RIGHT NOW.
Profile Image for Emma Griffioen.
414 reviews3,301 followers
July 3, 2023
3 pages??? this is the biggest tease for a marauders prequel ive ever seen. and she has the audacity to say "From the prequel I am NOT working on - but that was fun!"... id bet a million dollars she has a full prequel somewhere, and i need it!

thoughts before reading: how did i not know this existed?? reviews are meh but i will be reading this today!⚡️📖 💗🪄

read june 26th, 2023
Profile Image for Hayat.
574 reviews196 followers
February 14, 2016
`Thanks very much!' called Sirius over the throb of the engine. `We owe you one!'
`Yeah, nice meeting you!' said James. `And don't forget: Elvendork! It's unisex!'


If you're thinking, 'what the hell' and 'this makes no sense', then you should read Harry Potter: Prequel because it makes as much sense as that quote. It feels odd to give anything related to the Harry Potter series anything less than 5 stars but this novella really has nothing to do with the series and it adds nothing to the series either.
Profile Image for Matt.
4,828 reviews13.1k followers
November 3, 2020
I promised Neo that I would read the Harry Potter series with him. Since I have never done so (insert gasp here), I wanted to begin with this prequel piece.

Two cops clock a motorcycle speeding by them at something that should not register. When the two long-haired boys are trapped in a dead-end, they reveal who they are. James Potter and Sirius Black seem not to be taking this very seriously, though the two cops cannot understand why.

In the flash of an instant, something happens and everything is turned on its head. Likely all part of the series that is to come, though, like the coppers, I am completely baffled.

Bring on the series. I hope I learn a lot!
Profile Image for ambsreads.
818 reviews1,584 followers
August 6, 2016
Oh. My. God.

If you would like to read this: http://www.mugglenet.com/harry-potter...

“We’d have loved to stop for a chat,” said the boy in glasses, “only we were trying —”

“Don’t get smart – you two are in a heap of trouble!” snarled Anderson. “Names!”

“Names?” repeated the long-haired driver. “Er – well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…”

“And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,” said the boy in glasses.

“Oh, OUR names, did you mean?” asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. “You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”


Harry Potter: The Prequel was something that I personally didn't know existed and now I regret everything in life that let to that. I'm new to the Harry Potter book fandom, I liked the movies for all of my childhood but only allowed myself to dive into the books this year. Sirius Black was my favourite character in the Harry Potter series, and this short 800-word story made me want to cry so much.

Set three years before Harry is born James and Sirius are doing what they do best - getting into trouble. I read the story probably five times before realising it would not get longer no matter how many times I read through it. Which sucks. This short story is made up of quotes that had me smiling to myself and wishing for a Maurders book. It's difficult to write a review on this as I'm overcome with emotions and a complete urge to re-read this series.

“Thanks very much!” called Sirius over the throb of the engine. “We owe you one!”

“Yeah, nice meeting you!” said James. “And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!”
Profile Image for Tina➹ lives in Fandoms.
494 reviews473 followers
August 30, 2020
3 Golden Stars

that was cute. & fun.
but very short.
& very random...

I hope we had more of James & Sirius.
more Marauders' stories. real as a novel, not short, not random... something like Marauders at Hogwarts. reading about the mischief they made, how they met, how they figured out about Lupin, or Sirius's problems, how they made the Map. I really like to read about their lives as students.

I always loved James, even before I knew this fancast:
description

edits below from my marauders account on instagram:
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Profile Image for Veronique.
1,362 reviews225 followers
April 15, 2019
Forgot I had this. I bought the Postcard Collection, printed by Waterstones for charity, back in 2008.

It is a very short story featuring teenage James Potter and Sirius Black on one of their adventures. Too short of course, but still a very nice little look in our favourite world :O)

The other stories from famous authors are pretty good too, one being from Neil Gaiman about a detective...

Profile Image for Mayi.
132 reviews27 followers
November 30, 2019
Neh!
I literally don't care...
Sorry
Profile Image for A_ bookbound _soul.
208 reviews41 followers
October 27, 2019
WOW! That was fun. It was a really short story, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Though it ended to soon. :/ I. Want. MORE!!!

In this really short story, we get to see two of the young marauders chased by muggle police. Then,.... You know what, go read the rest yourself because if I said one more line I'd be telling the whole story.

Profile Image for C.  (Comment, never msg)..
1,563 reviews206 followers
October 14, 2018
There is an art to fitting a full tale into a few pages. This contained one action scene of unexplained fragments, in Jo Rowling’s 800 words for a dyslexia charity. A conclusion, however short on details, can be achieved; even on a restaurant drinking cup. I will discuss that, when I review Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s “Two-Minute Apocalypse”. Notably, “Harry Potter: The Prequel”, 2008, is a treat; just by being an additional glimpse of much-loved characters. James has seldom been seen.

A “Harry Potter” world timeline tells us that he and Lily were born in 1960 and died when Harry was 3 months old; making them only 20. The scarcity of their time together leads to my most vehement critique of this little excursion. I remind myself that Jo’s oeuvres began as children’s literature and became beloved by all of us. The history and suspense are quite complicated and the ultimate goal is the grimmest it can be. Evil and darkness abound, while secrets and clues to decode, delight any avid mystery fan. The romance and family love, extended to the Weasleys and school teachers, are very adult in scope. Thus, teenagers roaring motorcycles over policemen’s heads might generate hilarity for kids but was not to my taste.

This entails one directionless piece of action. We don’t know the point of James’s and Sirius’s race and that interested me, not a whit. We could have basked in a lovely tableau of Harry with his parents. I am glad Jo’s handwriting helped a charity but would have, by far, preferred an emotional union. Such a heretofore unseen, moving personal portrait, would feel well-rounded; in a powerful start and finish. I am a fan via the films and have not yet read the novels. A family prequel would be wonderfully timely for me!
Profile Image for Ariel.
263 reviews13 followers
August 21, 2016
“And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!”


description

I needed something light - this fit the bill. If you haven't read it yet, you have no earthly idea exactly how short 800 words can feel.

As a side note: I really really love the image of James, Lily, Sirius, and Lupin all matching in Order of the Phoenix tees.

Lily: I believe it's called a secret society...
Lupin: Well, right. She has a point...
James: No one will ever know, you worry too much!
Sirius: Well we could tattoo ourselves up with our symbol but I've heard there's a group already doing that sort of thing - tacky, really. Too soon?

Profile Image for Gorgona Grim.
105 reviews102 followers
November 11, 2016
Jedan trenutak ti puls ubrza od radosti zbog susreta sa starim likovima i već sledeći te žacne tuga jer je u pitanju kratka priča od svega 800 reči. Opisana nam je dogodovština iz mladosti Džejmsa i Sirijusa koja prikazuje susret sa policijom nakon što su uhvaćeni kako prebrzo voze svima poznati motorcikl. Situacija i postupci policajaca će vas svakako oraspoložiti, kao uostalom i zafrkavanje dobro poznatog dvojca.

Iako je Roulingova navela da je u pitanju samo kratka priča, nakon objavljivanja osme knjige me ne bi čudilo da jednog dana čitamo o događajima pre Harijevog rođenja, a nakon što su njegovi roditelji i prijatelji završili Hogvorts.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,362 reviews

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