A children’s hospital in Bristol found itself faced with a magical mystery that had an unexpectedly bittersweet solution. And it just might be your feel-good moment of the week.
This real-world Harry Potter mystery has an unexpectedly bittersweet solution
Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater.
The BBC reports that in November of 2014, a plaque mysteriously appeared outside of a children’s hospital in Bristol, with the following legend:
Dedicated to the children of Bristol
the 1998 Quidditch World Cup Posts
Enchanted by Adou Sosseh
Have a magical day!
The plaque is next to a sculpture called “Lollypop-Be-Bop,” which features enormous colored metal hoops on long sticks. The sculpture presumably represents lollipop silhouettes, but it bears a striking resemblance to the Quidditch goalposts of the Harry Potter films.
The Adou Sosseh mentioned on the plaque is the captain of Senegal’s Quidditch team, which lost the 1998 World Cup to Malawi — at least, according to Pottermore, the website where J.K. Rowling likes to expand the mythology of the Harry Potter universe.
The plaque looks so official that the hospital didn’t even notice it for a full 18 months. But now it’s been revealed that it was the work of Cormac Seachoy, who died in 2015. Seachoy used crowdfunding to finance the plaque and secretly glued it to the hospital wall at midnight.
And here comes the bittersweet part: Seachoy was diagnosed with terminal cancer less than a year later. He died on December 16, 2015.
The hospital has promised to keep the plaque up, but asks that if any other “magical beings” want to put up plaques, they check with the “muggles” at the hospital first.
J.K. Rowling speaks for us all now.
