J.K. Rowling is further expanding the world of Harry Potter with new written content on Pottermore.com.
Released in celebration of the character’s August 18 birthday (which was only revealed today), Rowling has written and released a biography of the wizarding world’s superstar singer, Celestina Warbeck.
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Warbeck never appears in person in the Harry Potter series, but is mentioned in passages like this one, from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, included in the Pottermore.com announcement:
“They were all supposed to be listening to a Christmas broadcast by Mrs Weasley’s favourite singer, Celestina Warbeck, whose voice was warbling out of the large wooden wireless. Fleur, who seemed to find Celestina very dull, was talking so loudly in the corner that a scowling Mrs Weasley kept pointing her wand at the volume control, so that Celestina grew louder and louder. […]
‘Oh, come and stir my cauldron,
And if you do it right
I’ll boil you up some hot, strong love
To keep you warm tonight.’
‘We danced to this when we were eighteen!’ said Mrs Weasley, wiping her eyes on her knitting. ‘Do you remember, Arthur?’
‘Mphf?’ said Mr Weasley, whose head had been nodding over the satsuma he was peeling. ‘Oh yes … marvelous tune …’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter Sixteen, ‘A Very Frosty Christmas’.
In addition to the biography, Pottermore.com users can also listen to the title track from Celestina’s new album, You Stole My Cauldron But You Can’t Have My Heart.
Celestina’s biography was also released to The Today Show, where Rowling explains the character’s origin.
“Celestina Warbeck is one of my favourite ‘off-stage’ characters in the Harry Potter series,” Rowling says, “and has been part of the Potter world ever since its inception, making an early appearance in the short-lived ‘Daily Prophet’ series I produced for members of the equally short-lived fan club run by my British publisher, Bloomsbury. Although we never lay eyes on Celestina during the whole seven volumes of the Potter books, I always imagined her to resemble Shirley Bassey in both looks and style. I stole her first name from a friend with whom I worked, years ago, at Amnesty International’s Headquarters in London; ‘Celestina’ was simply begging to be scooped up and attached to a glamorous witch.”
Celestina and her backup singers, The Banshees, perform live shows daily at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando Resort.
The release of Celestina’s biography is the second expansion of the Harry Potter world to be written by Rowling in recent months. In July, during the World Cup tournament, Rowling published to Pottermore.com a news article written by Rita Skeeter that covered the Quidditch World Cup championship. Harry Power and his friends and family were in attendence, and the article was used as an opportunity to catch reader up on the lives of Dumbledore’s Army following the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.
