From Lexicon to Fanfiction: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

When I was a kid, before the Internet was cool and websites weren’t as slick, I used to visit a website called The Harry Potter Lexicon. Created in 1999 by Steve Vander Ark the website has no affiliations with J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. It was a fan-made encyclopaedia with everything you could ever want to know about the Harry Potter universe based solely on the books. It was like someone went through the books with a fine-tooth comb to find any and every little detail about the Wizarding World.

Image 1: The original homepage of The Harry Potter Lexicon.

As an 11 year old, I loved this website. However, after a few years I thought I knew everything there was to know about the Harry Potter universe. All the books had been published and I reread them countless times. So I stopped visiting the Lexicon.

Then I discovered the magic of FanFiction.net and Tumblr.com. Although I wanted more Harry Potter content from J.K. Rowling herself, I was able to find exciting new content from my fellow fans. These platforms provided the perfect balance between getting more out of the Wizarding World, and experiencing new fan-generated content.

There was something so great about exploring the Harry Potter world in new ways. I joined a community where I was no longer just a passive reader, and instead I was an active audience member. I could respond to the fanfiction that I was reading, and contribute my own thoughts to a greater conversation. The term ‘participatory culture’ was not even a part of my vocabulary until I started university but there I was at 14 contributing to a fandom and joining this culture of participation online.

Fanfiction is a crazy and wonderful phenomenon, and it has been around for a very long time—even longer than the Internet (Thomas, 2011). The idea that someone enjoys a piece of literature, a movie, or a TV show to the extent that they are willing to create their own narratives around it is a little mind-boggling, isn’t it? In today’s online environment collaborative endeavours and accessibility are almost taken for granted (Thomas, 2011). If I want to find a very specific fanfiction about Percy Weasley, a relatively well-known but not extremely popular Harry Potter character, I no longer have to write the fanfic myself. I could filter over three thousand fanfics on FanFiction.net and Archive of Our Own. Or I could turn to other social media sites; Reddit has a subreddit dedicated to Harry Potter fanfic and Tumblr also has its fair share.

Suddenly, I was able to get what I always wanted. There was a balance between what I already knew about the Harry Potter universe, thanks to the wonderful Lexicon, and what I still wanted to explore. Fanfic allowed me to rediscover the characters I loved in new scenarios and new ways. What are your favourite fanfictions? Give me your best recommendations!

Thomas, B. 2011. What Is Fanfiction and Why Are People Saying Such Nice Things about It??. Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 3, 1-24. doi:10.5250/storyworlds.3.2011.0001