Goodbye to the Magic: On Betrayal, Grief, and Letting Harry Potter Go

There’s a very specific kind of heartbreak that comes when the stories that shaped you — the ones that wrapped around your soul and whispered, "You’re not alone" — end up being written by someone who, very loudly, insists people within your community don’t belong.

That’s where I’m at with Harry Potter.

I loved it. God, I loved it. I stayed up reading by torchlight under my doona. I lined up at my local bookstore to buy the latest release. I whispered spells to myself like prayers. I clung to that world like it was a lifeline — because sometimes, it was. Growing up queer in rural Tasmania, you learn early how to survive on fantasy.

Harry Potter taught me about friendship, about fighting back, about being brave even when you're scared. It taught me that being different was powerful, not shameful. It made me believe there was magic waiting for me, somewhere, somehow.

And then J.K. Rowling opened her mouth. And kept opening it.

The betrayal wasn't just casual. It was relentless. It was cruel. It was watching the woman who gave us Hermione — the literal blueprint for stubborn, brilliant girls everywhere — double down on bigotry again and again, all while pretending it was some noble defence of "truth."

It’s a grotesque magic trick, really. How she turned a story about chosen family, resistance, and compassion into a personal manifesto for exclusion and hate.

I’ve wrestled with this for years. Tried to separate the art from the artist. Tried to tell myself the books belonged to us now. But the truth is, every time she doubles down, it taints the magic a little more. It’s like finding out the wand you loved was carved from poisoned wood.

So this is me, saying goodbye.

Not to the memories. Not to the friendships made at midnight book launches. Not to the part of me that still knows every word of "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble."

I’m saying goodbye to the idea that Harry Potter can be my safe place anymore.

My choice is to leave. There are other worlds now. Other books. Other magic. Ones that don't ask people within the LGBTIQA+ community to make peace with being seen as "less than" by the person who spun the spell.

Goodbye, Harry. Goodbye, Hogwarts. Thank you for what you were.

And goodbye forever to the woman who taught me that even the brightest stories can rot from the inside out.