I haven't mentioned this to many people -mostly because I've forgotten. It's been over four years since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been released. Always in the back of my mind though, I've never forgotten.
While I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time, I noticed something strange about my copy. At first, I thought it was supposed to be there. I believed it was part of the print. A trick of the trade intended to reflect the mood of the chapter. It was, after all, called The Will of Albus Dumbledore.
Then, out of curiosity, I checked a friend's copy. This anomaly was not there. I checked another and another. I even went so far as to go to the bookstore and look in those copies. Not there.
I even searched online to see if anyone else had reported this strange occurrence and couldn't find anything. Granted, I didn't search very hard but if google doesn't know, who does?
So, to what am I referring?
Here are my images. I scanned two pages and photographed two pages. The scan isn't great because I'm not about to squish my copy of the book just to get a good scan. I also assure you this is not photo-shopped -I'm not that good with the program and something like this simply isn't worth my time.
I like to think of these as the tears of
J. K. Rowling. As a writer, to bid farewell to that which has been so dear to her for so very long is not an easy thing. I truly thought that was the message she was trying to convey with these ink stained pages that resemble drops of liquid on the pages.
What are they really? A printing error obviously...perhaps. Or perhaps they are part of the magic of Harry Potter. Magic in one copy of a book printed 12 million times (thank you google).
