J.K. Rowling Releases Excerpt From Half-Blood Prince

On the heels of J.K. Rowling’s exciting appearance at the Edinbugh Book Festival yesterday, fans who visit her official site www.jkrowling.com are finding something new.

The “locked” door now opens again, and although the room behind the door appears empty at first, after some very sneaky detective work, fans have discovered the prize: A small slip of paper with an excerpt that is apparently from the next book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The excerpt reads:

He looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp.

Here are the steps to take to see the peice of paper on J.K.’s site (instructions updated 10:07 am):

1. Click on the coffee cup to get to the “Extra Stuff” screen.
2. Wait a long time without clicking, eventually Peeves will come by and uncover a business card for “Gobb Lynn Security Specialists” 🙂 with the phone number “30 27 23”. (This step thanks to Wizard News readers Monica and Dawson!)
3. Click on the cup to go back to the main screen.
4. Click on the hair scrunchie.
5. Open the door.
6. Click around the area slightly below and to the right of the door handle. You eventually will click a switch that turns a light on in the room behind the door.
7. Drag darts to the numbers 7, 1 and 3 (The vault at Gringotts that held the Philosopher’s Stone, meaning of this clue thanks to Wizard News reader Kyle.)
8. Enter the number on the card from step 2 above into the safe’s keypad.
9. Click on the little slip of paper to read it.

Its been noted that some users may have to clear their browser’s cache before being able to see the new stuff.

Thanks to HPANA and other fan websites for information used in this report.