J.K. Rowling Will Release a New Harry Potter Story This Halloween

Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. / Warner Bros.
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This isn’t a trick: J.K. Rowling has a very special treat in store for Harry Potter fans this Halloween. A series of games and riddles posted to Rowling’s website Pottermore.com this week culminated in Friday’s big reveal that the Rowling will release a new Harry Potter story on October 31. 

According to a statement obtained by Time, Rowling’s new story will feature one of the most terrifying characters in Potter’s world (no, not Nagini): Professor Umbridge. 

“Umbridge is not only one of the most malicious Potter characters, she is the only person other than Lord Voldemort to leave a permanent physical scar on Harry,” Time reports Pottermore.com of saying. “The new exclusive J.K. Rowling content provides a rich, 1700-word back story about Umbridge’s life filled with many new details, as well as Rowling’s revealing first-person thoughts and reflections about the character.”

Dolores Umbridge, the pink-clad, giggly sadist, enters Harry’s life in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as Hogwarts's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She finds immense pleasure in torturing her students, most notably with her blood quill—a piece of dark magic that etches all words written with the quill into the skin of the writer.

In addition to her new Pottermore stories, Rowling is currently hard at work on the screenplay for a new movie featuring Newt Scamander (a magizoologist who lived roughly a century before Harry was born) and a new, top-secret novel.