Re-reading Harry Potter as an adult: What the magic feels like in your 30s

Indian Express

a day ago

I was eight when I first stepped into the world of Harry Potter. My father read The Philosopher's Stone to me at bedtime, and I was spellbound. The magical creatures (dragons and three-headed Cerberus) and talking portraits were part of it, but mostly it was the idea that someone considered different might secretly be special. I fell headfirst into this magical rabbit hole. At one point, my parents even had to explain to my teacher why I sometimes confused the spelling of 'which' with 'witch.' I was that obsessed.
When I finally got my hands on The Chamber of Secrets and The Prisoner of Azkaban, I read both in one sitting. I forsook hunger and sleep, despite my mother's reprimands, till I finished both the books. I devoured pages, almost inhaling the plot, eager to know what happened next, and then circled back and reread them slowly, savouring the details I missed the first time. These books became my companions. I remember reading The Order of the Phoenix at a hospital while my grandfather recovered from a heart attack. In its pages, I found escape and comfort.
For the next few years, during long winter holidays, which I spent in Shimla, I would re-read the entire series. It became a ritual, a sort of literary blanket I wrapped myself in each winter.
The magic starts to fade
And then, as it does, life happened. I grew older. The books stayed behind on a shelf at my parents' home, gathering dust.
By the time The Cursed Child came out, I was in university. I didn't have my beloved collection with me, so I couldn't fall back on my customary reread of all the books before starting a new instalment. I picked up the new book with excitement, but, determined as I was to love everything Harry Potter, I found myself disappointed. The plot felt shallow, and the characters forgettable. It read like fanfiction, a hollow echo of the original magic.
It was my first real disenchantment with the wizarding world.
The re-read in my 30s
It wasn't until my 30s, in a moment of rebellion against adulthood, that I reached for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on my Kindle. I was looking for the comfort of familiarity, the promised escape — a world where problems could be solved with a spell, a draught of Felix Felicis, or a well-timed phoenix.
But something had changed. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the years I had spent as a journalist, exposed to stories of neglect, injustice, and institutional failure. Because when I revisited the story, it didn't feel like comfort anymore.
It felt… disturbing.
The cupboard under the stairs wasn't a quirky detail — it was child abuse. Harry was being starved and mistreated, and worse, this was being ignored by neighbours and teachers alike. Was it then an allegory for societal indifference? As a journalist, I had seen too many real-world Harry Potters: abused, homeless kids, and children thrust into adult battles. I had read stories of youngsters single-handedly fighting against climate change (Greta Thunberg) or for human rights (Malala Yousafzai), while adults either fetishised their courage or mocked their 'naivety.'
The novels' darker themes loomed larger. Harry, a woefully unprepared child soldier, was declared the Chosen One and raised like livestock for slaughter. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the holder of three top positions in the wizarding world, was terrifying and not the wise and benign mentor I remembered. He left Harry with abusive relatives and let Sirius Black (an Order member, not a known Death Eater like Severus Snape) rot in Azkaban without a trial. He allowed a Basilisk to petrify children for months while 11-year-olds solved the mystery. And don't get me started on Snape's 'redemption.' Sorry, but a teacher bullying students (and an orphan to boot!) doesn't get erased by a Patronus.
The Wizarding World was dystopian, just like ours. 'The Daily Prophet' was an embodiment of our post-truth world, albeit with moving pictures. Pureblood supremacy mirrored casteism. House-elves were enslaved. Werewolves were shunned. And the Ministry was a bureaucratic nightmare where the rich (Malfoys) thrived while the poor (Weasleys) scraped by.
Even more unsettling was the way ordinary people — wizards and Muggles alike — blindly followed questionable leaders. I had wanted a world to escape into — instead, it held a mirror to the problems I wanted to run from.
Then there is author JK Rowling's public stance on transgender issues. For years, I resisted believing it—how could the creator of a universe where literal closet-dwelling 'freaks' became heroes, where magic could transform bodies (Metamorphmagi, Polyjuice Potions), harbour such rigid biases? The wizarding world had always been a refuge for the marginalised, a voice for the disenfranchised, yet its creator seemed to reject the ideal.
And for all its merits, the series never adequately explains why purebloods, who were already entrenched in positions of power within the Wizengamot, Ministry, and elite social circles, would risk everything to follow Voldemort. It demonises all Slytherins, redeeming just Snape. What made Voldemort so charismatic remains unexplored.
A bittersweet legacy
Re-reading Harry Potter in my 30s was like catching up with an old friend, and realising you see them differently now. They haven't changed. But you have.
The books remain masterfully crafted, but the magic no longer offers escape. It is yet another reminder of how power corrupts, how systems fail the vulnerable, and how even our idols are only human.
Perhaps that's the most plot-centric lesson of all: growing up means realising your heroes (read: Dumbledore) are complicated, and the spells that once dazzled you can't fix everything. Maybe the point of growing up isn't to lose that magic, but to question it. After all, even Harry Potter, unlike Peter Pan, grew up.
Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics.
She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks.
She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year.
She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home.
Write to her at [e-mail] or [e-mail]. You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More