‘The ones that love us never truly leave us’: How the Harry Potter fanbase has expanded to become an interactive fan-based franchise
As the sun sets on the eleventh hour and the minute dial ticks into twelve, we enter November the 16th, which to many may seem like a perfectly regular day. However, to a select few, today is an extraordinary day. Let’s rewind the clock a little, twenty years to be exact, when hundreds of little children, and many big adults were lying sleepless in their beds, counting down the hours until the next morning when Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone would first be shown in cinemas. Upon waking, thousands of fans would don their house colours, red, blue, green, or yellow to sit down and watch the magical world be bought to the big screen.
Even now, after all this time, Harry Potter is influencing art and popular culture all over the globe, inciting childish wonder and fascination amongst even the grumpiest of souls. This is, why twenty years later, I am sitting nestled in an unassuming café in Islington. Outside the leaves are just beginning to fall, adorning the churchyard I’m sitting opposite. A faint tinkling noise above the door marks the arrival of my guest Lauren, known as ‘Messr_moony’ on Instagram. We quickly exchange all the niceties of strangers before settling into our matching pumpkin-spiced lattes, oat milk of course.
Lauren is wearing a Hufflepuff badge pinned to her coat, which I pick up on before asking if that’s her Hogwarts house. She glances down “Oh yeah, just and loyal that’s me”, she takes another sip of coffee before asking about my house to which I reply by saying I’m a Gryffindor but not a Harry type but more like a Hermione. She nods slowly, opening up her iPad, I seemed to have won her approval with my answer. To Harry Potter fans which house you’re in is like what political party you vote for. The wrong answer can defiantly leave a sour taste in your mouth.
Much like me, Lauren first got into Harry Potter when she was a child after her parents read her the books as a bedtime story. “My dad used to put on funny voices for each character, Hagrid was Glaswegian for some reason, I don’t know why?” After watching the first few movies on DVD Lauren remembers going to see The Half-Blood Prince in the cinema, to her this was the special moment she fell in love with the series, after seeing the passion and the love of all the hundreds of fans.
“It was a few years after that, maybe when I was about fourteen that I started drawing, I wasn’t very good at first, most of the people I drew resembled misshaped stick figures, but I just really loved it for some reason, still do.”
So why draw digitally now? “There’s something about drawing digitally that’s cleaner than say, one of the more traditional forms. I’m a bit of a perfectionist with things like that, and when I draw on my iPad, I can just get rid of any of the mistakes.” Lauren works mainly in Procreate, an IOS graphics editor app for digital painting that absolutely dominates the marketplace for digital art. When asked what brushes she uses, Lauren pulls up a website called ‘MaxPacks’ and shows me the variations of brushes, she says she mainly uses the ‘comics set’ as it suits her looser style.
She flicks through a portfolio of her work on her iPad, her work, is bright and stylised, a culmination of neon lights and 70s rock and roll. The pieces range from landscapes to originals, but the majority of her work is Harry Potter Fanart. Fanart has long since been regarded in the art sphere as being unprofessional and amateurish however, what Lauren creates is anything but, she brings an air of professionalism and talent with her carefully drawn lines and shading. I ask whether she gets any negativity about her drawings, she says: “To be honest yes, people complain about Harry Potter not being relevant or spouting comments about me being an ‘obsessed freak’, but I try not to let them get me down.” This information astounds me, the idea that someone could be so hateful to the woman sitting opposite me is baffling.
I found Lauren’s Instagram account ‘Messr_moony’ about a month ago after she started an October drawing prompt month called ‘Lil_Messrsoctober’, a variation of Inktober specifically for Harry Potter fan art. Each day in October Lauren would post a drawing under a specific prompt and hundreds of followers would post an image inspired by her prompt. “It was amazing,” said Lauren, enthusiastically. “I didn’t expect that many people to engage with what I was creating, it shows you how alive the community is.”
As a fan myself, I completely agree with the sentiment, Harry Potter is no longer living through just the written word and on the big screen anymore. Fans have memorialised and embellished her creations through art, theatre, and even self-written fiction. It is clear that Harry Potter has inspired Lauren's artwork and subsequent career, as at present she is earning her living through commissioned pieces or pre-existing prints from her Instagram.
As we finish our coffees, I suggest to Lauren that we go for a short walk around the neighbourhood. The wind has died down and the sun is beginning to make an appearance, still, we both struggle into oversized coats and scarves. Outside I take charge, leading us a few streets over to Claremont square, where we stop, heads craning upwards to take in the row of white and brown brick terraces.
Lauren, squeals in excitement before rummaging in her bag and bringing out her phone to take a picture. “I can’t believe you took me here; this is perfect!”, Lauren says looking towards the houses previously used as an exterior filming location for Order of the phoenix. We talk a little more about the location before Lauren checks her watch and apologises for having to rush for a train.
After we part, I take a moment to rest on a nearby bench and reflect upon my surroundings before thinking back to something J.K said at the premiere of Deathly Hallows Part 2 ‘whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.’ The weight of that statement holds true right now, as I sit here twenty years after the initial release and feel perfectly at home.