Harry Potter: The Prequel

Harry Potter: The Prequel (Harry Potter 0.5)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83  ·  rating details  ·  16,002 ratings  ·  1,572 reviews
The Harry Potter prequel is an 800-word story written by J. K. Rowling, and was published online on 11 June 2008. Set about three years before the birth of Harry Potter, the story recounts an adventure experienced by Sirius Black and James Potter.
ebook, 4 pages
Published June 11th 2008 by crushable.com

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(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Sarah
Cute, but WAY too short to be a "book" in my humble opinion. Hopefully if she does stretch it into a full-on prequel/series, it'll be a genuine story instead of a way to milk fans for more money. Not that she'd do that, unlike some authors I could mention (shoots daggers at Stephenie Meyer for The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner). Even though she has kind of milked it with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them & such, at least she donates the proceeds to charities.
Adi (Reading in the Windowseat)
Oh, I want a whole series' worth of prequels about James, Lily and the Marauders. It's a pity J.K.Rowling said she won't write such a thing ;(
Elijah.
Jun 16, 2012 Elijah. rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Elondel
I'm not sure why precisely it is called 'the prequel' as it is just a small extract that hardly can be seen as the cause of the events in the Harry Potter series.

It feels like J.K. Rowling has written a fanfiction story for her own creation. Very nice indeed. Certainly when she wrote it to collect money for charity.

Although vexatiously short, it's a lovely story. Correct characterization of Sirius Black and James Potter, judging by the image we've seen of them in the books. Funny as well. It's...more
Steph Sinclair

I'm not sure why it's called "The Prequel" because it should be called "Random Scene."

James and Sirius are being trouble makers, giving the muggle police a hard time. Then they ride off on broom sticks. The end.

Would ya look at that? I wrote the same story in only 23 words compared to J.K.'s 800. But she did donate it to a charity. Thumbs up for that!
Jen at Reading Lark
Kind of short, nice snippet though. I'm wondering if this is the kind of thing we will see more of on PotterMore.

I'm happy to read anything by JK Rowling to be honest, but I thought that this was just too short. At two pages, if that, there wasn't much that I could glean from it to add to the mythology in my head.

Sirius and James once had a scrape with the law... ok, not surprising. What was more surprising is that they both seemed to have 'Order of the Phoenix' t-shirts on, unless I interpret...more
Morgan
I haven't read the Harry Potter series yet, and I am about to take a few trips this month, and since I haven't read them yet, I was thinking I would do so. I hope the the book is really good, and from what I have heard, it will be awesome...wish me luck on my journey to the world of Harry Potter!
Mandy
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Melissa Darnold
09/22/12: This is so wonderfully charming, I cannot even properly explain. As a huge J.K. Rowling fan, I was so excited when I found out that she wrote this prequel to the series. Not only was I excited that she wrote the prequel in general, I was even more psyched that she wrote it about James and Sirius. I think that many Potter fans have a closeness to James and Sirius that was never really able to be fleshed out like they might have been able to, had their deaths not been so early in life. T...more
Claudette
I so miss Harry Potter.
This short, short story took me back in time, to the first time I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Ah, the good ol' times.
Merve  Özcan
Black ve Potter'ın macelarından biri. Polisten kaçıyorlar, bir şey oluyor ne olduğu belli değil...
Anagha
Sep 03, 2012 Anagha rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: HP fanatics like me :D
I am such a Harry Potter fanatic and I had NO IDEA Rowling wrote a prequel! How could that escape my notice?

ZOMG. LOL. Are there any other ubercool expressions to define that heart-stopping moment when you realize there's Harry Potter content out there that you haven't read? This is the kind of time to create awesome abbreviations, because by golly, the prequel was hilarious, but more importantly, it gave me the chance to revisit the Potter world without actually rereading the books (I hate re-r...more
Bonnie
Little Harry Potter prequel (available free online) that involves James Potter and Sirius Black. Didn't exactly consist of much but fun nonetheless.
Palice Pottle

It's only 800 words, so it's not much, but it was all right.

It was sold off at an auction and the money was given to charity, which is why now I think it was more than 'all right.'

It was WONDERFUL! Yep, all 800 words! A little silly, but WONDERFUL!
Maud
This a short story but really great! I laughed after only a few lines and I wished this would become a total new Harry Potter book. The story is about James and Sirius and it's just great. I wished there would be more then those 800 words but I'm glad that they are there to begin with. A great small story for every Harry Potter fan.
Sandra
meh... not much of a prequel.. not much of a story and waaayyy too short.
Kevin
After searching the internet I found that this was written(on a card) by Rowling for charity and she has no plans to write an actual prequel beyond this very short story. This is more of a tease than anything else but without the possibility of a "real" prequel it is a bit disappointing. Its nice to get a bit of a sense of what Sirius and James were like as students but damn I want more!
Lauren (Lauren Reads YA)
This was really short, and I just really wished J.K. Rowling would write a book about James, Sirius, Remus, Lily, and Severus at Hogwarts. Or maybe just a book with short stories about random Hogwarts people, I don't know.
It was okay. I guess I just expected more from J.K. Rowling.
Georgeanna
I only gave it three stars for a few reasons. One, it was ONLY 800 words. As a big fan of the series, of course I wished that she had drawn it out a tad more to explain how the vague and tangled plot of the marauders came to be. After all, we really only learned about the "fore-story" in the second and third books. I would've loved to know and compare James to his famous son.

Also, it was TERRIBLY vague. I understand it was only 800 words, but still. We didn't know who the characters were, thoug...more
Ana
Por breves minutos, voltei, esta tarde à experiência "Harry Potter". Em apenas oitocentas palavras deu para matar um bocadinho as saudades do maravilhoso mundo em que iniciei as minhas leituras.
Mas, mais do que recordar, este prelúdio à série traz também algo de novo: o ponto de vista da juventude de Sirius e James. Estes dois amigos, rebeldes como só os gémeos Weasley (Gred and Forge, para os verdadeiros Potterheads) souberam ser, têm a sua irreverência como o propósito deste pequeno texto, qu...more
Owen
ATTENTION EVERYONE! IT'S NOT ACTUALLY A PREQUEL.

It is a short scene that happens like ten years before Harry. Basically insignificant but I think the author wrote it for a charity event or something, so it's all good. I can't say it was great since it was between two characters I don't really care about, but it is a step above fan-fiction quality. This is not what I would want to see in a prequel (view spoiler)[ Sorry, but I wouldn't care if there is a prequel or not. And I don't really want seq...more
Jaspreet Singh
While surfing idly few minutes ago, i came across a new (for me atleast) e-book : "Harry Potter Prequel". Unheard before, unread obviously, i quickly downloaded and opened it. Being a J.K. Rowling admirer, even though not an HP 'Cooler' Fan (huge fan, that's to say; :p) and owning every Harry Potter in hard copy (though unable to read the last 2 parts unfortunately due to some or the other stupid reason cropping :/)
The first of 5 pages was near to illegible scrawl, demanding 'Sirius' attention t...more
Anne Nikoline
Jul 18, 2012 Anne Nikoline rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any potter fans
Recommended to Anne Nikoline by: J.K. Rowling
So apparently J.K Rowling was working on writing a prequel to the Harry Potter series but only she was not. If I did not know that this was suppose to be a scene from the prequel I would not have liked it to be called a prequel but instead something like 'random scene.'

That said I thought it was great to get a sneak peak into James and Sirius' friendship and traits. They are must similar to the Weasley twins which made my heart ache a little, however, I thought the descriptions were just perfec...more
Grace
Read it.
HATED it.
I'm extremely DISSAPOINTED in J.K. Rowling. It was awful. All of us HP lovers already know that Sirius Black and James Potter were troublemakers. We don't need her to tell us this. I am pretty sure that I could have written somethig this simple in my sleep.
I am pretty positive that J.K. Rowling is getting pretty tired of all this HP stuff. She could definitly write a better prequel than this wimpy 800word thing. Unfortunatly, she has decided that she's not gonna write an ACTUAL...more
John Egbert
I did read this one!

AND I HATED IT.

Review later :3

Editing time:

The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted 'whoa!' Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street. Rather awkward, I f...more
Linda
I found online. It's this short:

The 800 word Harry Potter Prequel that JK Rowling wrote for the Waterstone’s “What’s Your Story?” Charity benefit

If you are having any difficulty reading the handwritten version, here is a typed copy of the submission. Enjoy!

The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted,”Whoa!” Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flun...more
Emma
Feb 04, 2012 Emma marked it as to-read
800 words is not enough!!!!! Show me more!
Julien M.
When I finished reading this short story I thought I had misplaced the rest of it by accident. It’s indeed, very short, and very inconclusive. I think it’s meant only to fool Harry Potter fans about a new series of books with James and Sirius as the main characters or it could actually be a starting point for such a series. If Rowlings just wanted to play with dorky Harry Potter fans, myself included, that’s quite lame. If a new series is actually in the process, good. I think she wants the firs...more
Amanda (Amanda's Weekly Zen)
This was interesting. As a whole I did not like the short story. It was in fact too short and unlike the Harry Potter books I had no introduction to the characters and the climax was a little confusing. We readers never really knew who was acting the boys when the cops had them pulled over. Also the ending is a list of questions to the reader which in a rough draft is fine to illicit more ideas for writing at a later date but I would have kept them separate from the story itself.

All that being s...more
Steven
Well, that's a good romp. Classic Rowling. But it's ironic that the story ends with questions, because it left me with several of my own. It's an engaging, action-packed scene, the middle of some crazy chase, no doubt. But years after it was published, I wonder what was the point? It does not seem to connect to anything in any of the fully realized Potter novels. After reading them all, I have no idea what the point of this vignette might be.

And it ends with questions that sound a lot like some...more
Laura Hobbs
I liked this insight into James and Sirius' past as children, but I'm not entirely sure about it.

A) I don't know if it was just me but they didn't really seem like them. What they were doing didn't seem very true to their characters. And wouldn't they have gotten in a hell of a lot of trouble for magic outside of school and in the presence of two muggles?

B) It was way too short. This may have made up for the strangeness. It may have explained it some more or revealed something of their school...more
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Harry Potter fan ...: Harry Potter: The Prequel 4 33 Sep 28, 2012 07:27pm  
Гарри Поттер: Предыстория (Harry Potter, #0.5)
1077326
Although she writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling,her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initia...more
More about J.K. Rowling...
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6)

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