Attack of the Punctuation Poltergeist

[Lolua]

So something strange has been going on since Sunday night on most of the Harry Potter fan sites, particularly in the Leaky Lounge and the HPANA forums. At first large question marks began appearing all over the front pages of the major HP fan sites, many of which were links to each other or to special teaser pages:

• TLC: www.the-leaky-cauldron.org
  Click the text of the owl-carried newspaper to reach teaser pages at www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/1.htm and then, when you manage to click on a flashing "PP", you get sent to www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/000002.htm. On that page is a flashing blue piece of candy with a Potter "P" on it.
  
  This image of the blue cough-drop-like candy, astrononomically enlarged, originated as part of a glitch on JKR's official site. Instead of bringing you to the bulletin board with all the "Extra Stuff", clicking on the coffee cup on the main desktop page brought you to a giant piece of candy. Obviously the glitch was fixed soon after fans discovered it, but the candy's reappearance has led many theorists to think Jo has something to do with this latest mystery.
  
  
• HPANA: www.hpana.com
  Click the question marks on the banner to get the thread at www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=1, started by a site moderator under the name ??*? (without the *) and forming a repository of clues posted sporadically by the same person. See next post below.
  
  
• MN: www.mugglenet.com
  Linked from many sites, but no question marks or acknowledgement of the scheme so far. Theories about this vary: is Emerson asleep at the wheel on this or is he keeping quiety because MN is where it's all going to be revealed?
  
  
• DR.co.uk: www.danradcliffe.co.uk
  Question marks in the site banner link to DR.com, MN, and HPANA. A ? in the charity wristband ad at the bottom right corner of the main page links to TLC.
  
  
• DR.com: www.danradcliffe.com
  A question mark on the left-hand side of the banner links to an on-site teaser page at www.danradcliffe.com/something_is_coming.html, which declares "Something's coming!" and asks "Why?" "Who?" "Where?" "What?" "How?" "When?" Other ?s on the rest of the main page lead back to HPANA, DR.co.uk, MN, and the first teaser page on TLC.
  
  
• HG: www.hogwarts-galleries.org

[/url]
The only part of the Floo Network besides TLC that seems in on the action. The resident ? graphic has moved closer to the bottom of the page and the captions "Dumbledore's Army is bigger than you think..." (each word linked to different sites) and "Bigger than you think..." have appeared above it.

[/li][li]VTM: www.veritaserum.com
The ? in the banner doesn't link to anything extraordinary, and the nightscape background shows additional non-linked question marks. However, the graphic accompanying the story about unprecedented demand for the UK adult edition of HBP switches between the cover illustration and a large question mark, adding to speculation that the mystery is somehow related to the book release.

[/li][li]HPFZ: www.harrypotterfanzone.com
Unlinked ?s across the top banner, and a news item from late Sunday night called "??*?":

And this is all we can say...for now. PP.

The words "for now" send you to www.harrypotterfanzone.com/coming.html, another teaser page with links this time to TLC, HPANA, DR.co.uk, DR.com, and HG.
[/li][/ul]

[Lolua]

Timeline: Sunday 15 May - Monday 16 May
Special credit to user Honeydukes on HPANA.

• Question marks begin to appear on main HP fansites as above, 9:00 pm ET
  
• The first post by ??*? appears on the usually serious "All Questions Answered Here" thread on HPANA's admin board.
  
  Posted at 9:37 pm ET on page 128, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=3385&p=128
  

  ? ? ?
  ? ? ?
  ? ? ?
  ? ? ?

  
  I added the spaces between ?s. I'm really hating the emoticon right now. Grrr...
  
  Posted at 10:01 PM ET on page 129, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=3385&p=129
  

  ? and ?
  What could it be
  ? and ?
  just wait and see
  ? and ?
  oh my oh me
  ? and ?
  what fun it'll be!

  
  
  
• TLC changes the owl-borne story on their main banner to "Something's Coming to Your Favorite Shop!" and links in the two teaser pages. See description in previous post.
  
  
• Then begins ??*?'s traffic on the main clue thread on HPANA.
  
  Posted at 10:33pm EDT as a new thread, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=1
  

  A mid-summer night
  Will be alright
  For those who come to see
  
  A wizard's story
  Unfolding in glory
  Whose initials are H.P.
  
  ? ? ? ? ? ?

  
  The row of ?s at the bottom are six links to TLC, DR.co.uk, DR.com, HPFZ, MN, and VTM.
  
  Posted at 1:14am EDT on page 30, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=30
  

  ? What lies in store ?
  
  ? For the fan who craves more ?
  
  ? A choice must be made ?
  
  ? When, where, what, how, why, for ?

  
  
  
  Posted at 1:32am EDT on page 33, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=39
  

  ? Riddles and questions and guesses ?
  
  ? Do much to relieve our obsesses ?
  
  ? When fans work together, though ?
  
  ? What could be better, so... ?
  
  ? Figure out what this whole mess is ?

  
  
  
• Meanwhile, things began to happen in the comments thread and Leaky Lounge Forums on TLC. They're down at the moment to save on bandwidth, but an account from HPANA user Quietus gives us a summary on page 50 of the HPANA clues thread, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=50.
  
  Posted by Peeves on the main page comments:
  

  Leaky my leaky
  ooh you’re so sneaky
  don’t you wish you could take a peaky??
  come join the other ickle firsties all gathered in the lounge trying to guess about it!
  In the daily prophet section called “Here we go again
  Wheeeee!”

  
  
  Posted by TLC user Beaky:
  

  Oh, and may I also point out that your
  newspaper, while filled to the brim with a certain punctuation mark, is completely missing an apostrophe?

  
  To which webmaster Melissa replies:
  

  Why Beaky, how kind of you to notice.

  
  I'm thinking that the lack of apostrophe is at least partially a reference to CommaGate, the recent controversy over the lack of comma in the original version of the first GoF teaser poster, upon which the caption read, "Difficult times lie ahead Harry." The poster was later fixed and reposted on the official movie site.
  
  Another post reported from TLC, probably posted by Peeves:
  

  ? and ?
  the Leaky fans go
  ? and ?
  they just don't know
  ? and ?
  our clues are sparse
  ? and ?
  but what a fun farce!

  
  
  Posted by staff member Sue on TLC:
  

  so, ok . Seriously, It is NOT about the tee-shirts

  
  
  The Weasley Wizard Wheezes gang got in on the TLC action at this point. Images of red herring and a crown were supplied by Lee Jordan's "niffler," followed by the blue candy in an open door. Gred and Forge popped up with random mentions of swamps.
  
  TLC moderator also offered her advice to one theorist:
  

  Wolfie - You are not thinking BIG enough!

  
  
  This was followed with many more references to candy by Melissa, Lee, Gred, and Forge. Hmmmm....
  
  Then another post on the TLC forums, possibly by Peeves:
  

  It's your first real clue
  So here's what you do
  Get your wits about you
  And think this through
  
  Where you are
  and where you've been
  Are not as key
  As where you'll be
  
  Somethings coming
  To somewhere you know
  Someplace you've been
  or somplace you'll go
  
  And here to help
  You find your way
  Are all the fans
  All on this day

  
  This seems to have led to speculation that the mystery development is a Harry Potter uber-site.
  
  
  
• And back on HPANA, more clues from ??*?...
  
  Posted at 2:01am EDT on page 39 of the clues thread, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=39
  

  ? When 16 hours have passed ?
  
  ? You may have occassion to ask ?
  
  ? Did my hints leave you wanting ?
  
  ? Burning questions are haunting ?
  
  ? But you'll be rewarded at last ?
  
  -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  
  ? Yet there's nothing more I can say ?
  
  ? To keep you awake more this day ?
  
  ? So lay down and sleep ?
  
  ? Don't crawl up and weep ?
  
  ? These poems will be answered Monday ?

  
  
  
• The speculation and outcry overnight brought HPANA webmaster Cheeser out of hiding the following afternoon.
  
  Posted by Cheeser at 1:55 pm ET on page 102, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=102
  

  Okay, I can't keep quiet any longer.
  
  Some of you have guessed EXACTLY RIGHT. Bet you'd love for me to tell you who, though, wouldn't you?
  
  Others have made valiant efforts but I will put to rest a false one right now. This is not the super-secret project having to do with JKRowling.com I mentioned a while back. When it does happen, you won't miss it (as I said before), but this is not it.

• After some tense waiting that afternoon, a news post on TLC deflated all hope of finding out Monday, as had been promised by ??*?.
  
  Posted at 4:39 pm ET by Melissa as news on TLC, www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/MTarchives/007015.html
  

  ADMIN: Episode ?: Revenge of the Punctuation
  
  We know that there are many sites fandom-wide that have been driving you all mad with the appearance of mysterious "?"s today and last night. It should have been over by now, the mystery solved, the big reveal unveiled. That was our plan, anyway.
  
  We didn't count on turning our server into a very expensive toaster. It's only been eight months since we got our own server and we've already managed to outstrip it. Today, we bought a second server for TLC's forums alone, which will be delivered and installed tomorrow in the AM/earlyPM ET, and will make things zip along quite nicely.
  
  We can't unveil the meaning of the "?" without it. There's a clue for you that should knock some of the current theories far away.
  
  But this does mean some things have had to be pushed back until that server is functioning. We are working to replace the chunk of money this takes from last summer's donations (and hence future bandwidth payments). If you would like to help, please consider shopping at The Cauldron Shop {www.thecauldronshop.com/}. We don't want to take any more money from you but we know a lot of you are going to ask anyway, so here is a Pay Pal donation button. Note: We or PayPal may be having problems, we're not sure which. We've updated the button, so try again if you had problems before.
  
  {PayPal button}
  
  Please don't donate unless you are financially in a situation to handle it. Advertisements can do the same work, without costing you anything but a minor annoyance.
  
  Thank you for your patience.
  
  

  
  The announcement was eventually passed on in the thread on HPANA by way of another clue.
  
  Posted by ??*? at 7:00pm EDT on page 174, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=174
  

  ? The time will surely come, my friends ?
  
  ? When hinting stops and guessing ends, ?
  
  ? Longer now than we had planned ?
  
  ? Our web sites under high demand; ?
  
  ? Regretfully, we've been pushed back ?
  
  ? Your interest in this has us cracked! ?

  
  
  
• Apparently because Cheeser's assurances weren't enough to quell suspicion of JKR's involvement, ??*? wrote one last clue.
  
  Posted at 7:10 pm EDT on page 178, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=178
  

  ? Oh Jo, oh Jo, she doesn't know ?
  
  ? What fans have got in mind ?
  
  ? She'll be quite pleased, though ?
  
  ? (At least we hope so) ?
  
  ? Come, if so inclined ?

  
  

[/list]

So, in a nutshell, that's what happened. If anyone is still reading this post and wondering why I put it up here in the first place, it's because I need a written record of it, and threads get deleted on HPANA after a month's inactivity. I submitted a paper proposal to The Witching Hour (http://www.witchinghour.org), a Harry Potter conference to be held in Salem, MA in October. My topic has to do with online hoaxes, and there's been a lot of speculation during the day about whether or not this was real, even after Cheeser and Melissa put in their two Knuts. Because of the hoax speculation or perhaps due to boredom from waiting too long, several people including The Great Mundungus (??*?.) and Bartender HPMad (??*?_), who had both borrowed ??*?'s avatar, renamed themselves and posted fake riddles that kept everyone on their toes. Not all of us were amused, but at least one fake clue was memorable:

Fake clue posted by The Great Mundungus as ??*?. at 4:47 pm ET on page 138, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=138

? The time is coming ?

? For you all have been humming ?

? Monday is the date ?

? For two more hours you must wait ?

? You efforts will be repaid ?

? Answers will no longer be delayed ?

Just another in the long line of HP hoaxes.

[mooncroww]

After looking through all of that, and there was quite a lot to look through, I found it all rather frustrating. I figure there is no need to get excited though. Whatever is up, will all be figured out soon enough. Hoax or not.

Healthy curiosity is good, I'd rather skip all the OMG THIS IS SOOOOO COOL! stuff. Neato. Great. Just tell me already. Puzzles are great, but I'd rather have all this stuff just told to me directly.

As the oracle said "Where's my book? Where's my movie?"

She sums it up very well.

[Lolua]

mooncroww said:

After looking through all of that, and there was quite a lot to look through, I found it all rather frustrating. I figure there is no need to get excited though. Whatever is up, will all be figured out soon enough. Hoax or not.

'Tis not a hoax, but it does seem to be over-hyped. Unless Jo Rowling is coming personally to my house to tell me the ending of the seventh book, it's not worth all this. But, like I said, I need a record of it, and I figured that since not everyone on this forum visits the HP sites with any great regularity, I might as well make it public.

mooncroww said:

Healthy curiosity is good, I'd rather skip all the OMG THIS IS SOOOOO COOL! stuff. Neato. Great. Just tell me already. Puzzles are great, but I'd rather have all this stuff just told to me directly.

I've given up trying to solve the riddles, I'm no good at them anyway. No one liked my idea that it had something to do with Puking Pastilles, so I've retired from active participation on the relevant HPANA threads after 3 posts. If you took out all the spam, the almost 500 pages of thread generated on HPANA alone could probably be reduced to a page and a half of actual clues. They should have been posted as news on the different websites, which would have spread out the fan traffic and maybe saved TLC's server.

mooncroww said:

As the oracle said "Where's my book? Where's my movie?"

She sums it up very well.

Yes, she does.

Anyway, the record continues....

Timeline: Tuesday 17 May

• Eventually ??*? struck again on that HPANA clues thread:
  
  Posted at 12:52 pm ET on page 316, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28352&p=316
  

  ? PP to be ?
  
  ? The place to see ?
  
  ? Fear not, dear friends ?
  
  ? We're soon at ends ?
  
  ...
  
  ? The 16th was to be the day ?
  
  ? But crazy fans got in the way ?
  
  ? So now we wait, rapt with glee ?
  
  ? It's almost over... seriously! ?

  
  
  
  
• Late that afternoon, a new thread appeared on the same board on HPANA, bearing the same title as the first and kicked off by another clue-post from ??*?.
  
  Posted at 5:24 pm ET on page 1 of a new thread, www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=28511
  ? Fun clues, good chat (and red herrings) ?
  
  ? Caused some to lose their bearings ?
  
  ? Yet others will rejoice tonight ?
  
  ? To see that they, in fact, were right! ?
  
  ? For PP's nearly in the can ?
  
  ? And PP aims to serve the fan ?
  
  ? So what, dear friends, have you all learned ?
  
  ? A prize, we hope, that you have earned; ?
  
  ? For when the fans all work together ?
  
  ? There surely can be nothing better ?
  
  ? ? ? ? ? ?
  
  (for your convenience...)

[/quote]

Again, the six question marks link to TLC, DR.co.uk, DR.com, HPFZ, MN, and VTM.

"For your convenience" is also linked, but was probably added in a later edit. The edit log at the bottom of the post shows that it was edited at least once before 7:30 pm ET, the last time, at least, by HPANA webmaster Cheeser. The link leads to a LiveJournal page at www.livejournal.com/users/smilie117/278370.html that greatly resembles my timeline up above. *sigh* If only I'd been more obnoxious and plugged OoCF on HPANA, I might have gotten all those foolchildren over to this thread and crashed ProBoards. :-P (Just kidding, o wonderful Powers of ProBoards, should you take time from your busy karmifying schedules to read this post.)



About ten minutes after that first post on the new thread, the original clues thread on HPANA was locked by site administrators, probably to keep the spammy discussion all in one place.

[Lolua]

I know I'm not done with the last post, but a quick update in case anyone cares.... the mystery has been solved.

*
*
*
*
*

SPOILER SPACE

*
*
*
*

SPOILER SPACE

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

The HP fan sites chose this clue-and-riddle method to announce the development of an HP super-site, but not the kind with news and exclusive interviews with Jo Rowling. No, this one has one purpose and one purpose only: to organize and advertise midnight release parties for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

www.potterparties.com/

There aren't a lot of parties listed yet, but I suppose that as word gets out, more will appear. I'm not going all the way to Oshkosh, WI just for a midnight party. :-P

[mooncroww]

Right. So all of that nonsense was about a party? Good grief... if I wanted to go to a party I'd visit the Tae Kwon Do place next to where I work. They have HP parties. I could just wander over after work and hang out.

I was hoping for something more... dramatic. Like a spoiler or something. Or maybe something I could buy in the mean time. That was just... *grumble*

Draco wasn't exactly thrilled either, he's pouting now. I think he thought he might actually have something to do with it. *pats fiction on head* He means well. Honestly.

But anyway, that was kind of lame. I'm sure people will freak out and go, but I find my HP obsession is served better at home.

*grumbles more* The Great Author can bother me when something is really up. Like when she decides do something interesting like bring Sirius back or invent a cure for lycanthropy. My werewolf agrees.

*grumbles still more and goes to bed*