Reese Thomas, who works in Malayalam films, recently published a book in which he has narrated the Harry Potter book episode. JK Rowling reacted to the story.

Reese Thomas with Devadas (R), the owner of the book shop from where he stole a copy of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter when he was a student.

Author JK Rowling recently reacted to the story of a Kerala man who stole a Harry Potter book from a bookstore when he was in school and 17 years later, how he returned to the same store as a newly-minted, with the copy of his own book as well as the stolen Harry Potter book.

Reese Thomas was in Class 9 when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling’s seventh and last book in the iconic series, hit the stands in 2007. A student from humble beginnings in the riverside town of Muvattupuzha in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, Thomas’s parents told him they were not planning on buying the tome for him. He was advised to rely on the local library instead.

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Around the same time, the then-teenager’s friends at school challenged him to steal the book from a bookshop if he was that desperate to read it. Inspired by hit movies “Dhoom” and “Don”, Thomas took up the challenge and managed to steal a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from a bookshop in Muvattupuzha.

“I felt heroic,” he told Hindustantimes.com, adding that he thought he got by as there were no CCTV cameras in the shop at that time. However, he was caught by the shop’s owner a few days later when he visited the store to buy another book as the man had his suspicions on the student after the book went missing.

“I did not ever go to that bookshop again. It was a dark episode in my life,” Thomas said

Seventeen years later, Reese Thomas narrated the episode in his debut Malayalam book “90’s Kid”. The newly-minted author mustered up the courage to visit the bookstore in his hometown with a friend last month. He made sure to carry a copy of his new book as well as the copy of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows he had stolen in 2007. Devadas, the owner of New College Book Stall in Muvattupuzha, had long forgotten the episode of confronting a teenager over a Harry Potter book.

Thomas reminded him of the incident and said that he is now an author himself.

“He sweetly welcomed me and we had a heartfelt conversation,” Thomas said. So did he return the stolen book to the bookshop owner?

“I will never return that book. I want to keep it with me,” he said, adding that the shop owner refused to take money for the book 17 years later. Instead, he made Thomas sign copies of his own book which were displayed in the store.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), JK Rowling reacted to Thomas’s story published in The Hindu.

“I know I’ll be accused of encouraging book stealing by sharing this, so please don’t steal books, book stealing is bad. Anyway, this is the loveliest thing and made me really happy,” the British author, who has over 14 million followers on X, said.

Take a look at JK Rowling’s post on X:

Emma Watson was a “childhood crush”

“It is an unexplainable feeling. I did not expect it all. I was telling my friends how I wish JK Rowling had read my story. And it actually happened,” Thomas told Hindustantimes.com.

He said he ardently followed the Happy Potter series in his teenage years mainly because of actor Emma Watson, who played Hermoine in the films, is a “childhood crush”.

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