• My parents shared my autism diagnosis when I was 9 years old.
• I was obsessed with “Harry Potter,” and they used it to explain how I was different from other kids.
• My parents gave me the confidence I needed at a critical age, which I’ve carried throughout my life.

Every time I was excluded from another kid’s party or not invited to playdates, my parents made me feel like everybody was missing out on how cool I was. Not invited to somebody’s 7th birthday party? No problem, we were going to the toy store and getting ice cream instead. Excluded on the playground? We’d play games together at home.

I was diagnosed with autism when I was a toddler. I was sensitive and shy. I vaguely remember visits to speech and occupational therapy and a parade of adults playing with toys and board games to teach me social and conversational skills. I was an only child, so didn’t think anything of it — I was used to having adults around.

I was confident, believing that others needed time to catch up to figure out just how interesting and fun I was.

My mom was the queen of diversion, turning every social shortcoming of mine into an opportunity to learn and grow, and I never once thought I was the “weird kid.” “Harry Potter” helped.

The way my parents told me about my autism was empowering

When I was 9 years old, I was given the keys to the kingdom of self-discovery. Like many 9-year-olds in the early 2000s, I was obsessed with the “Harry Potter” series. (This was before J. K. Rowling’s comments about trans people and people with autism.)

“You have magical powers like Harry Potter,” my mom said to me one day.

We were orphans when I first got to know Charlie Watts, thrown together in a grand, expensive orphanage. Before my time at the facility, some of the older kids had chosen The Stones as our band, their songs as our battle cries, our hymns, and prayers. It suited me. I swapped tender messages with my fellow orphans on the day Charlie died.

Martin Armiger, a member of The Sports, told me he went to a London club one night to watch Charlie’s current jazz ensemble. After the show, he was asked if he’d like to meet Charlie. A Rolling Stone? Hell, yes! He was taken to a room backstage and guided over to Charlie. “Charlie, this is the Australian musician Martin Armiger. Martin this is …”

As Martin put his hand out to shake Charlie’s, the drummer leant back against the wall and slid down into an unconscious heap on the floor. At that moment, a woman in jodhpurs and a riding jacket appeared at the top of the stairs leading down into the room. She looked at Martin and began to scream. “You f—ing arsehole. You prick. You scheming, pale-faced little turd. You unconscionable worm. You couldn’t leave him alone, could you? You had to give him the stuff.”

The woman was Charlie’s wife, Shirley. She’d been trying to get Charlie off heroin and mistaken Martin for a dealer, or enabler, some fan with a pocketful. So Martin never, quite, got to meet Charlie. But he did get to meet his wife. And what a wife. We should all have a partner in jodhpurs riding shotgun on our lives. Between them, they got him off heroin.

Giving a pandemic twist to a famous scene from the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — featuring Potions Master Professor Horace Slughorn and Harry Potter — the law enforcement agency reminded the importance of face masks. Swapping a bottle of Felix Felicis, a magic potion also called ‘liquid luck’, the creative showed the professor donning a mask and handing Harry a mask as well.

“A little bit of ‘Felix Felicis’ and mask by your side to ensure you stay safe from Corona!” the force captioned the post, which is now winning hearts online.

A post shared by Mumbai Police (@mumbaipolice)

For the uninitiated, ‘Felix Felicis’ also known as “Liquid Luck” was a potion that made the drinker lucky for a period of time. Drinking it would make a person successful at anything they attempted under its influence. So, in its Marathi version of the meme, the force added: “The mask is not only ‘lucky’ but also effective in protecting you!”

The scene is the one where Harry excels in a potions class and chances upon a past-student’s textbook, the force added: “The ‘magic’ of the mask is very simple, learn.”

In case, you want to relive the moment from the 2009 film, here’s the scene:

The post delighted many Potterheads online who appreciated the admin’s taste and choice of meme to teach people about Covid protocols.

Not gonna lie you guys keep the meme game high 😄

— ANURAG SINGH (@deadpoolwa) July 15, 2021

Ek hi dil hai, kitani baar jitoge!❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

— Shivrak Goenkar,🇮🇳 (@NykeTheSiamese) July 15, 2021

Felix Face Mask 😷

— Sparklebox School (@SparkleboxSchol) July 15, 2021

pic.twitter.com/5eYQ7uSdxq

— Chetan Jawale (@chetanjavale) July 15, 2021

This movie released 11 years ago. Admin do you still like Harry Potter references ? (Notice how this is a perfect segue to reply with “After all these years ? Always.” )

— Thamba Re and 24 others (@rugsymone) July 15, 2021

Very cool messaging @MumbaiPolice 👍🏽👍🏽 https://t.co/Cn3FoR39ks

— Aditi Hazra Ganju (@AditiGanju) July 15, 2021

However, it’s not the first time the force has used Harry Potter memes to convey an important message. Time and again they have been giving quirky twists to the scenes from the movie franchise to remind people about Covid appropriate behaviour. In May, they had made another reference in a post featuring Professor Albus Dumbaldore and Professor Severus Snape to urge all to wear double masks.

An Australian scientist, Steve Richards, spotted the creature in 2016 and took a few specimens for genetic tests and research. The cocoa-coloured frogs have turned out to be a new species — and an addition to our knowledge of the animal kingdom.

It is called Litoria mira, inspired by the Latin adjective mirum, which means surprised or strange, stemming from the scientist’s surprise in discovering an undescribed member of the predominately Australian Litoria genus of tree frogs.

Richards, a frog specialist with the South Australian Museum, and Paul Oliver, from the Queensland Museum and Griffith University, who carried out the genetic analysis, announced the discovery in a paper published in the Australian Journal of Zoology on May 20.

Newsletter | Click to get the day’s best explainers in your inbox

An Australian relative

The Litoria mira has a well-known relative — the common green tree frog of Australia called Litoria cerulean. Except for the colour of their skins, the two seem alike — until you study them closely.

Litoria mira can be distinguished from all other Litoria by its unique combination of moderately large size, webbing on hand, relatively short and robust limbs, and small violet patch of skin on the edge of its eyes.

A link from the past

The reason that the chocolate frog from New Guinea and the Australian green tree frog are similar is that Australia and New Guinea used to be linked by land for much of the late Tertiary period (2.6 million years ago), and share many biotic elements.

Today, the island of New Guinea is separated from the ‘horn’ of Queensland by the Torres Strait. New Guinea is dominated by rainforest, and northern Australia by the savannah.

“Resolving the biotic interchange between these two regions is critical to understanding how the rainforest and savannah habitat types have expanded and contracted over time of both…,” Oliver said to Sci-News.com.

“Estimates for divergence of the new species in our study shows that in the Pliocene (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) there was still connectivity between the two species across lowland tropical habitats of northern Australia and New Guinea.”

Why the discovery took so long

The chocolate frog was discovered in one of the world’s most unpleasant places for humans, a hot rainforest swamp infested with malarial mosquitoes, spiky trees and crocodiles and without roads. It is the kind of terrain that does not encourage exploration.

This post was created by a member of the BuzzFeed Community.You can join and make your own posts and quizzes.

Harry Potter fans rejoice because a phone hack has been brightening up people’s day and it works just like magic.

The nifty trick was shared on a Facebook group and thousands of people commented, tagging fellow Potterheads alerting them of just what their android phone can do.

A woman posted on Facebook group UK Extreme Couponing and Bargains UK.

READ MORE: Edinburgh hotel wins ‘best of the best’ spot in whole of the UK on Tripadvisor’s travellers choice

She said: “Bet there’s some Potter fans like me on here.

Did you know that every android phone has a Harry Potter Easter egg, if you hold the home button until Google pops up and say lumos it turns on you flash light and if you say nox it turns it off. Try it trust me”

It didn’t take longer for the post to gain 1.5k likes and 2.4k comments with people tagging their mates demanding them to try it.

Tagging a mate, one Potter fan said: “it works I’ve just done it!!!!”

Another wrote: “Luckily for me I’ve known this for a few years, it’s really cool and does feel magical”

Never miss out on Edinburgh Live news and features again

Want more news from Edinburgh Live? Our FREE daily news email goes out every afternoon and offers a comprehensive overview of the day’s latest general news updates.

All you need to do is type your email address into the ‘sign up to free daily alerts’ box – found at the top of this article as well as on any other stories on the website.

Simply click ‘subscribe’ and you’re all set, and can expect your first newsletter the next time one is released.

A third added, along with five laughing emojis: “This made me so happy!!”

One turned to their android owning friend to see if it really works, tagging her, she asked: “Can you confirm?”

“I can confirm [torch emoji]” She replied.

And since I too am I Harry Potter fan, I couldn’t help but give it a go.

Just like magic, I said ‘lumos’ and the torch lit up.

And yes, I do feel like a witch.

I expect my Hogwarts letter any day now.

Australian audiences won’t be getting the abridged, one-night version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child soon to open in New York – at least not this year.

The epic, smash-hit show has run over two nights in Melbourne, as it has in London since its 2016 opening. But it has been re-staged and cut for its return to Broadway in November, as well as in San Francisco and Toronto.

The Australian production has been seen by 326,500 people at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in its first year of playing. A spokesman said there were no plans to adopt the new version here at this stage, though they didn’t definitively rule it out.

“We have a new batch of tickets going on sale on Friday for performances through to January 30 next year, so we’re very committed to the two-part format,” he said.

Fans of Harry Potter have had to come to terms with a lot in recent years. Author J.K. Rowling has shared her transphobic views online, and then, when she received backlash, wrote an essay doubling down on her transphobia to make it clear that she does not consider trans women to be women. Her transphobia is clear and has hurt those in the trans community who looked to the Harry Potter series for guidance. But more than that, her transphobia has led to her fans going on the attack on her behalf and causing a lot of harm towards the trans community.

But now, Rowling is using her platform to, essentially, play the victim. Time and time again, she’s used her platform with 14 million followers to share misinformation on the trans community and weaponize her hatred, and has given others who share her harmful views a figure to idolize.

Rowling took to Twitter to share that she’s been receiving threats because of her transphobic presence online.

Yes, but now hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me I’ve realised that this movement poses no risk to women whatsoever. pic.twitter.com/qb1RrCFqy0

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 19, 2021

I don’t condone sending anyone death threats, but the problem with this is that kind of hate, targeted at much more vulnerable people, is exactly what Rowling brings upon others by spreading her anti-trans views. She won’t realize it, though, because she’s using the response to her transphobia as a means of justification. She’s used her 14 million followers and made her own army. There are plenty online who will take it upon themselves to defend Rowling, including making threats just like this, to anyone who challenges the Harry Potter author.

Project manager Nicola Spurling said it best in her tweet about Rowling.

So JK Rowling has had hundreds of threats sent to her because she’s transphobic? Well, I’ve had thousands of threats sent to me because of JK Rowling. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but let’s not forget who started this fight, Jo, and let’s not forget who has the bigger hammer. pic.twitter.com/g0IoZoFArg

— Nicola Spurling (@NicESpurling) July 19, 2021

Rowling hasn’t spoken out once against the threats her own fans send to those who rebuke her transphobia. But Rowling being sent those same threats is her problem? It shouldn’t happen either way, but Rowling, as Spurling pointed out, started the fight by spreading hatred towards a group of individuals because Rowling somehow saw the trans community as a threat.

Maybe she’ll realize she’s in the wrong now that Ben Shapiro is on her side …

This alone should tell JK Rowling she is getting it wrong. pic.twitter.com/1R6HTegUoT

— Edd Jefferson (@EddJefferson) July 20, 2021

No one should receive death threats, but J.K. Rowling using her huge platform to share harmful transphobic rhetoric has done a lot of harm to the trans community, and Rowling needs to recognize that this isn’t a one-sided thing. Her fans attack those in the trans community and those who support the trans community all because Rowling uses her platform with 14 million followers to share hatred, and that’s the truth she doesn’t want to talk about.

(image: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!  

 —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]