The first of twelve new pieces of Harry Potter material released for Christmas on Pottermore talks about Snape and Lily's past!

Today started a very exciting time for Harry Potter fans as the first of 12 new pieces of material for the Harry Potter franchise was released by author J.K. Rowling on the site Pottermore today! Every day from today until December 23rd Rowling has stated that new material will be released as a Christmas gift to her fans. Talk about the best advent calendar ever!

It is said that some of these gifts will be stories while others will be magical "puzzle pieces" like background information or a new spell or potion. To start the gift giving off, a magical riddle was posted on the Pottermore Facebook page that read,

"In a house on Spinner’s End, a meeting takes place, a mother begs help for her son, tears on her face. Agreeing to help, though he doesn’t know how. Which potions master performs an unbreakable vow?"

Read the answer to the riddle and the newly released piece of material on Pottermore inside the full article!


The answer to this riddle is "Professor Snape" and when answered on Pottermore a new piece of background is given for the book location "Cokeworth, England". Cokeworth is the town that Petunia and Lily Potter and Severus Snape grew up in and where Spinners' End is.

Here is the new piece of background information revealed today:

"Cokeworth is a fictional town in the English midlands area where Harry spend the night at Railview Hotel with his aunt, uncle, and cousin Dudley. Cokeworth’s name is supposed to suggest an industrial town, and to invoke associations of hard work and grime. 

Although it is never made explicit in the book, Cokeworth is the place where Petunia and Lily Evans and Severus Snape all grew up. When Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon are trying to evade the letters from Hogwarts, they travel to Cokeworth. Perhaps Uncle Vernon has a vague idea that Cokeworth is so distinctly unmagical, the letters will not follow them there. He ought to have known better; after all Petunia’s sister, Lily, turned into a talented which in Cokeworth. 

It is therefore Cokeworth that Bellatrix and Narcissa visit at the start of Half-Blood Prince, where they visit Snape at his parents’ old house. Cokeworth has a river running through it, evidence of at least one large factory in the long chimney overlooking Snape’s house, and many small street full of workers’ houses."

This may not be what fans were expecting but for the first day this is a cool piece of information on the magical world that we fell in love with. I would imagine as the days go on the material released will be bigger and better. How do you feel about today's reveal about the town of Cokeworth? What topics (people, places, spells/potions, items) would you want to see developed in this set of gift from Rowling?

Source: Pottermore