I was six years old when I first discovered Harry Potter. I was small and hungry for escape, sitting in the aisles of Barnes & Noble browsing for a new story when my father appeared with the copy of Sorcerer’s Stone in his hands, forcing it into mine. There was protest (“I don’t like sci-fi, Dad”), argument, tears, and finally, me relenting to read the bookjust to get my father to stop fighting me. It was the beginning of a lifelong obsession, of two weeks spent reading from dusk ’til dawn, immersing myself entirely into a world of magic, danger, loss, and perseverance.

It was the start of a whole new life for me. The minute I finished Deathly Hallows, I put the book down, turned to my laptop, and began to type, writing myself into the world that I had fallen head-over-heels in love with. I had never wanted to exist somewhere as badly as I wanted to exist in Harry’s world, and so I utilized fiction that make that dream possible. I wrote my own version of Harry Potter, with a female protagonist who resembled me, so that I could be a part of a world that- no matter how fictional it may be- felt as real to me as the world in which I walked through everyday. I started writing, and I never stopped. That was nearly twelve years ago now.

So, needless to say, if there’s two things I love with an unforgiving obsession, it’s Harry Potter and good fan-fiction. When a fan-fiction is done right, it can be incredible, allowing readers to continue to live in the worlds which they cling to. It can elongate the magic and wonder of a good book, letting characters we love and cherish live on in our hearts. But sometimes, fan-fiction can go very, very wrong.

I’ve read fan-fictions before that were based around absolutely absurd concepts. I’ve seen characters manipulated to an author’s own means and ideals until their original versions have disappeared from the work completely. I’ve seen writers add their own “original characters” (OC’s), injecting them into the story to see what would happen. Because that’s what fan-fiction does; essentially, it asks “what if?”

Fan-fiction allows writers and readers to imagine and bring to life nearly every alternate possibility or wrong turn that could occur. What if Harry’s parents had never been murdered by Voldemort? What if Hogwarts was set in modern day America? What if Neville had turned out to be evil? What if?

Sometimes these types of stories can go very well, exploring the realm of alternate possibilities within a work. But sometimes it just seems wrong; after all, there’s a reason the story was written the way it was. Because trust me, as a writer, I can tell you that we waste hundreds of notebooks and lose weeks of sleep over what course makes the most sense for our stories to take.

Fan-fiction can be successful because it is interesting; it forces the reader to think about an established work from a different perspective, which can sometimes lead to a fascinating story. When a fanfic is well written- honestly, proper grammar is so important here- it can help connect readers and keep the worlds we love alive. Other times, however, it can make us want to abandon them completely.

This seems to be a common sentiment of many die-hard Harry Potter fans who began to read The Cursed Child, incredibly excited and giddy, only to begin to feel lost mere pages into the work. For years, we fans have cried and begged for another story, and yet, now we see many of those same fans wishing to take their pleas back, wishing for their beloved J.K. Rowling to say that the work isn’t canon (author-confirmed to be what happens) after all.

I am on the fence about The Cursed Child, because I really, really wanted to like it. In theory, the story sounds great. A teenage boy struggling with a legacy he never wanted, fighting the moral fight between good and evil, learning to reject expectations laid out for him by nothing other than a name. Fraternizing and growing close with the enemy, giving the reader perspective into life at Hogwarts as a Slytherin, seeing the characters we know and love being forced to deal with the issues of adulthood. Sounds fascinating on the surface, no?

I’m sure the work could have been executed fantastically to give readers the story they wanted. But, no matter how much potential The Cursed Child held, the truth is that it didn’t live up to it. There were some things that worked (cough, cough Scorpius Malfoy), but the many things that didn’t stood out far more to me. From the minute I picked up the book and began reading, I couldn’t shake the notion that the work felt like fan-fiction. The sheer absurdity of many of the situations, the multitude of plot-holes and things that seemed impossible, the simple “what if?” of the whole book.

What if Voldemort had a daughter with Bellatrix? What if all the time turners had never really been destroyed? What if Harry turned out to be a terrible father? What if Cedric had become a death eater? What if Umbridge was the head of Hogwarts? What if the trolley lady turned out to have spikes in her hands and pumpkin pasty grenades? What if time was able to be bent and manipulated so that the characters could return to a world in which everything is the same, but it is also different, different because this is a new book and therefore there must be new characters, new conflicts, new adventures? What then?

Reading The Cursed Child felt like looking back upon a slightly vague memory, like trying to recall a dream shortly after waking. It felt as though I had been there before, because I had, all those books ago. Albus and Scorpius were simply re-living an experience their parents had already had, tainted and tinged with darkness and the fear of being stuck in that world forever. There were new characters, but the story was the same, which allows J.K. Rowling (who is, and always will be, my personal hero, might I add) to stray from having to actually explain what happens in the future. We see very, very little of Albus and Scorpius lives at Hogwarts, and even less of their lives interacting with their families, or seeing the impact their friendship might have on that dynamic. And where, where, was Teddy Lupin?

It felt like The Cursed Child took the easy road out, staying in the realm of what was safe, of what had already happened. But that wasn’t what longtime Potter fans wanted when they heard about the release of the new book. I just wanted a glimpse into what Hogwarts and the wizarding world looked like all those years later, and I think that many will agree. I also wanted more on Albus and Scorpius, whose friendship carries the story and provides a fantastic dynamic with which to explore. Unlike their fathers, Albus is the brooding, surly one; Scorpius is an eager, needy little ball of sunshine. Their friendship, obsessive in nature, could have played out into something much more, but instead we got to see Harry, who should understand better than anyone what feeling isolated and alone is like, cut Albus off from his only friend, solely due to an old family feud, the negative weight of a name and legacy no one wished to carry.

The characters felt like cheap versions of themselves, shells of those we know so well. They were not deeply explored, once again, playing it safe. And on that note, let’s talk about the sexual tension between Albus and Scorpius, because it’s pretty much impossible not to notice it. In all seven of the original Harry Potter books, we never once saw an LGBT couple, which I never noticed growing up, but looking back on it bothers me. I re-wrote Harry Potter when I was a child because I wanted to be Harry; I wanted to see myself in that character, to know that I too could be the “chosen one.” I hope young children still struggling to understand their sexuality are able to see that, too; to know that there is a place for them at Hogwarts as much as anyone else.

This wouldn’t have been nearly as much of an issue if the relationship for Albus and Scorpius wasn’t so clearly outlined and hinted at throughout the book, all the way up until the last few pages, when Scorpius admits that he asked Rose Weasley out and we learn that Albus had a crush on Delphi, who is nearly double his age, and also evil, creepy, and manipulative. Despite the stage directions of the two books looking “heartbroken” upon seeing each other, or of Scorpius feeling jealous to look at Albus talking to Delphi, or of the fact that the two boys would be willing to give up everything to “spend eternity with each other,” the two boys are still lusting after girls who have rejected and mocked them. It would have been so easy to make their relationship canon, so easy to give readers the representation they deserved, the representation that would have made perfect sense in the context of the story, and yet. And yet.

I don’t hate The Cursed Child. In fact, I really enjoyed parts of it. And I’ve heard much better reviews from the play, so perhaps the success of the story depends upon being able to see the interactions of the characters. But the book felt, quite simply, inauthentic. It felt far from the books that inspired me to start writing all those years ago, the books that have lived with me and influenced me throughout my entire life. I wanted to open Cursed Child and feel that magic once more. I really, really wanted that.

Perhaps I’ll just have to turn to fan-fiction to find it.