J.K. Rowling Admits Her Son Was Not A Happy Camper After Finishing One Harry Potter Book

Harry Potter has its fair share of plot twists and absolutely devastating deaths, and sometimes, those two things collide with one gut-punching moment. To this day, kids (and adults who are experiencing the Wizarding World for the first time) have to face these moments and the emotions that come with them. It turns out, J.K. Rowling’s own son also went through that experience, as she revealed which book’s ending left him very upset.

While you can stream all the Harry Potter movies with an HBO Max subscription and experience the world that way, there’s nothing more magical than reading the books for the first time. However, it’s also an emotional experience, especially for a sixth grader, as @clharrington024 pointed out on X:

“Magical and moving and heartbreaking” does feel like the best way to describe the experience of reading that book and Dumbledore's death, specifically, for the first time. The parent went on to thank J.K. Rowling for these books, and they urged parents to read the Harry Potter series with their kids. This message is what led to the author sharing her own story about her kid’s experience with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

It turns out, even when your mom wrote the book, you can’t avoid the tragedy of Dumbledore’s death, as Rowling posted:

That's such a fair question, and it's one I asked my mom too. That's because I was like the kids in this story. I was in fifth grade when I read the Harry Potter books, and Half-Blood Prince’s movie had just been released. Up to that point, I, for some reason, had assumed Dumbledore was immortal and could not die. So, you can imagine how distraught 10-year-old me was when I learned about what happened to him.

Now, a whole new generation will get to experience the ups and downs of this series with the new Harry Potter show. This book-to-screen adaptation will premiere its first season, which will follow Socerer’s Stone, on the 2026 TV schedule. So, it will be quite some time before we see John Lithgow’s Dumbledore meet his tragic end. However, there’s no doubt in my mind that it will hurt just as much as it did the first time I read the book and the first time I watched the movie. And I bet these kids would agree.

That’s a compliment, though. Dumbledore's death is harrowing in the best way, it sets the stage for the final battle and makes it clear that no one is safe in this series. So, while the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has broken many fans’ hearts (including J.K. Rowling’s son’s), it’s also one of the reasons why Harry Potter is so great.