Potter Spoiler

My attorney was recently able to obtain, on double super secret background, an advance copy of the new Harry Potter book. After perusing it herself, she passed it along to me, and — as a public service to those of you who can’t wait the few hours until midnight tonight — I offer here a brief plot summary. Spoilers ahead.

After the customary introductory crises at Number 4 Privet Drive, Harry boards the Hogwarts Express, only to find himself on academic probation even before reaching the school when Draco Malfoy overhears him refer to Professor McGonagall as a “milf.” There are the usual worries about Lord Voldemort, and Hagrid reveals that he’s captured one of the animals that serve as the pets of the dementors, a large extradimensional ground squirrel commonly known as the “void marmot” or “nothingpig.” In one of the first sessions of Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures course, it’s discovered that the void marmot — Hagrid has named it “Slimpie” — is a remarkably friendly creature. Ron observes how it rolled over on its back to have its belly scratched, causing Hermione to exclaim: “‘Void marmot rolled’ — that’s an anagram for Tom Marvolo Riddle, you-know-who’s name!” Terror ensues, Professor Dumbledore is summoned, and the entire Quidditch season is cancelled, to the immense relief of future movie audiences everywhere.

These are not the only worries at Hogwarts, however. Cornelius Fudge, having seen a recent abstruse and esoteric journal article by Professor Trelawney drawing on continental magical theory from the Beauxbatons Academy and the Durmstrang Institute, declares that Hogwarts must henceforth follow an English Magic Only policy. Professor Snape comes out with a public statement of support for Professor Trelawney (Rowling notes in a wry aside that of course someone whose wardrobe consists of nothing but black clothing would embrace continental theory), leading to an interdepartmental scandal, and the academic battle lines are drawn: Snape, Trelawney, and Flitwick embracing the continental neoformalist post-occlumency position, and McGonagall, Sprout, and Hooch denouncing them from the well-entrenched pseudostructuralist meta-Goshawkian perspective. Parvati Patil and Colin Creevey, under the advice of Nearly Headless Nick, denounce the entire affair as imperialist hegemony and lead a student strike. Dumbledore, in the tradition of academic administrators, does nothing, and Hogwarts is put into academic receivership until Percy Weasley suggests that converting Hogwarts into a networked distance-learning institution would help quell controversy, increase profits, and expand the school’s global reach. Upon hearing this, Hermione completely loses her temper, and declares she’s quitting wizarding to go to law school.

I won’t completely spoil it, though: you’ll have to find out for yourself how it ends.