The Glow and the Rain

By Cliff Hoffman

There was a time when her words felt like shelter.  

They shimmered — soft, rebellious, alive.  

A story about courage, love, and the beauty of being different.  

For so many of us, it was the first place where difference did not mean danger.  

Her books glowed in our hands like small lanterns against a world that did not see us.  

But glow can turn to glare.  

And rain always finds the cracks.  

When she began to speak — not through fiction, but through fear —  

the light changed.  

It wasn’t just disappointment.  

It was recognition: that privilege, once unchecked, hardens into certainty.  

That the woman who had written monsters  

was now feeding one of her own making.  

J.K. Rowling became the Death Eater she had warned us about —  

not through spells,  

but through rhetoric.  

Through the quiet cruelty of 'reason',  

through the language of exclusion wrapped in 'concern'.  

She turned empathy into weaponry,  

and forgot that the truest magic of storytelling  

is not control — it’s connection.  

We once read her words to learn how to resist power.  

Now we must resist the power of her words.  

This loss is not just about a story.  

It’s about the realization  

that even those who build worlds of hope  

can choose to burn bridges instead of build them.  

It’s about privilege —  

how easily it forgets itself once it feels safe.  

How she, insulated by fame and wealth,  

could speak without listening,  

and mistake volume for truth.  

For many of us, Harry Potter was never hers alone.  

It was a shared language —  

a fragile constellation of meanings we carried together.  

It belonged to queer kids whispering names they hadn’t said aloud.  

To trans readers seeing fragments of survival in shapeshifting spells.  

To outsiders who found belonging in the unlikeliest of places.  

She taught us to name our fears —  

and now we have to name hers.  

Because what she calls 'protection' is the old fear of losing control.  

And what she calls 'truth' is privilege dressed as principle. 

Still, not all magic dies.  

It transforms.  

The glow she once gave us remains, but the source has changed.  

It now shines from writers who build worlds with wider doors,  

from readers who refuse to let kindness be colonized,  

from rain that keeps falling —  

washing away certainty,  

leaving only reflection.  

I no longer read her books.  

But I carry the lesson she never meant to teach:  

that power without empathy becomes harm,  

and that stories, like people,  

must be judged not by their intention  

but by their impact.  

We grew up believing love could defeat darkness.  

Now we know it can also outgrow it.  

The glow remains.  

But it belongs to us now. 

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Bio: Cliff Hoffmann works in the pharmaceutical industry, where logic and empathy coexist in delicate balance. Outside his professional world, he writes and performs in drag — exploring how identity, emotion, and visibility intertwine. His ongoing series, The Fire and the Water, bridges analytical precision with poetic depth, turning lived experience into reflection and connection. Cliff’s writing invites readers to unlearn, re-see, and feel more deeply. His latest book, The Glow and the Rain, is available now on https://amzn.eu/d/9tsqIG6. Follow Cliff on Instagram: @hcliffhoffmann