J.K. Rowling published the fourth and final warm-up story in advance of the movie “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which will release later this year.
The story describes life for the magic community in America in the 1920s. Among the more humorous aspects of the story, Rowling says that wizards and witches were free to drink alcohol, despite the Prohibition laws of the non-magical world at the time.
Magical Congress of the USA president Seraphina Picquery was apparently unconcerned with the potential dangers of allowing her people to drink.
“Many critics of this policy pointed out that it made witches and wizards rather conspicuous in cities full of sober No-Majs,” the Pottermore story reads. “However, in one of her rare light-hearted moments, President Picquery was heard to say that being a wizard in America was already hard enough. ‘The Gigglewater,’ as she famously told her Chief of Staff, ‘is non-negotiable.’”
This story also offers clues as to the plot of “Fantastic Beasts.” As Rowling wrote in the previous installment, the magic community in America was very concerned with secrecy, and therefore less accepting of magical creatures, “because of the risk such beasts and spirits posed of alerting No-Majs to the existence of magic.”
In the upcoming film, Eddie Redmayne will play magizoologist Newt Scamander, who travels across the pond with several dangerous magical creatures in his possession. But when some of the creatures escape into 1920s New York, Newt must capture them before it’s too late.
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” will hit theaters on Nov. 18.