Set during the Quidditch World Cup final, the story takes the form of a newspaper gossip column written by Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter.
In the article, Skeeter writes that Harry Potter, who is about to turn 34, has “a couple of threads of silver in [his] black hair”, but says he continues to wear his “distinctive” round glasses.
She also notes that Harry Potter now “sports a nasty cut over his right cheekbone” to accompany his famous lightning scar.
Getting older appears to be taking its toll on Ron’s hair too, with Skeeter reporting that his famous ginger crop “appears to be thinning slightly”.
Even Hermione’s hair gets a mention, with Skeeter taking a catty slight at her appearance despite her "meteoric rise" to the Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
“She is now tipped to go even higher within the Ministry, and is also mother to son, Hugo, and daughter, Rose. Does Hermione Granger prove that a witch can really have it all? (No- look at her hair.),” the gossip journalist writes.
The 1,500 word article also reports that Harry took his sons James and Albus to visit the Quidditch World Cup players’ compound, “where he introduced them to Bulgarian seeker Viktor Krum”, but no more details are given about them.
Harry’s wife Ginny is not present at the match, leading to heavy speculation from Skeeter about their marriage.
“Or does his injury have a more humble origin, one that Potter is desperate to hide? Has his wife perhaps cursed him? Are cracks beginning to show in a union that the Potters are determined to promote as happy?
"Should we read anything into the fact that his wife Ginevra has been perfectly happy to leave her husband and children behind in London whilst reporting on this tournament?,” she writes.
Skeeter goes on to make another speculative claim about Ron’s mental health, suggesting that his destruction of Voldermort’s Horcruxes has had an irreparable impact on him.
Now working for his brothers’ joke emporium Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, she claims Ron has had to step away from his job at the Ministry of Magic for reasons he has not revealed to the public.
“Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admited that the destruction of He Who Could Not Be Named’s Horcruxes ‘took its toll’ on him? He shows no obvious signs of mental illness from a distance, but the public is not allowed close enough to make a proper assessment. Is this suspicious?,” she writes.
Rowling, who won a privacy case in 2008 over the taking of her young son’s photograph, finishes her article with an apparent send-up of gossip journalists.
The author, who has given evidence to the Leveson Inquiry and is a supporter of the Hacked Off campaign, writes: “One always hesitates to invade the privacy of young people, but the fact is that anyone closely connected with Harry Potter reaps the benefits and must pay the penalty of the public interest.”
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