Well I just went into the site. So far I'm not sure whether or not it's up and running. Did a quick explore and was told to type something in. So far all I have found was pictures lots and lots of pictures. I found some of the writing. For anyone who is interested:

The Potter family is a very old one, but it was never (until the birth of Harry James Potter) at the very forefront of wizarding history, contenting itself with a solid and comfortable existence in the backwaters.

Potter is a not uncommon Muggle surname, and the family did not make the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’ for this reason; the anonymous compiler of that supposedly definitive list of pure-bloods suspected that they had sprung from what he considered to be tainted blood. The wizarding Potter family had illustrious beginnings, however, some of which was hinted at in Deathly Hallows.

In the Muggle world ‘Potter’ is an occupational surname, meaning a man who creates pottery. The wizarding family of Potters descends from the twelfth-century wizard Linfred of Stinchcombe, a locally well-beloved and eccentric man, whose nickname, ‘the Potterer’, became corrupted in time to ‘Potter’. Linfred was a vague and absent-minded fellow whose Muggle neighbours often called upon his medicinal services. None of them realised that Linfred’s wonderful cures for pox and ague were magical; they all thought him a harmless and lovable old chap, pottering about in his garden with all his funny plants. His reputation as a well-meaning eccentric served Linfred well, for behind closed doors he was able to continue the series of experiments that laid the foundation of the Potter family’s fortune. Historians credit Linfred as the originator of a number of remedies that evolved into potions still used to this day, including Skele-gro and Pepperup Potion. His sales of such cures to fellow witches and wizards enabled him to leave a significant pile of gold to each of his seven children upon his death.

Linfred’s eldest son, Hardwin, married a beautiful young witch by the name of Iolanthe Peverell, who came from the village of Godric’s Hollow. She was the granddaughter of Ignotus Peverell. In the absence of male heirs, she, the eldest of her generation, had inherited her grandfather’s invisibility cloak. It was, Iolanthe explained to Hardwin, a tradition in her family that the possession of this cloak remained a secret, and her new husband respected her wishes. From this time on, the cloak was handed down to the eldest in each new generation.

The Potters continued to marry their neighbours, occasionally Muggles, and to live in the West of England, for several generations, each one adding to the family coffers by their hard work and, it must be said, by the quiet brand of ingenuity that had characterised their forebear, Linfred.

Occasionally, a Potter made it all the way to London, and a member of the family has twice sat on the Wizengamot: Ralston Potter, who was a member from 1612-1652, and who was a great supporter of the Statute of Secrecy (as opposed to declaring war on the Muggles, as more militant members wished to do) and Henry Potter (Harry to his intimates), who was a direct descendant of Hardwin and Iolanthe, and served on the Wizengamot from 1913 - 1921. Henry caused a minor stir when he publicly condemned then Minister for Magic, Archer Evermonde, who had forbidden the magical community to help Muggles waging the First World War. His outspokenness on the behalf of the Muggle community was also a strong contributing factor in the family’s exclusion from the ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight’.

Henry’s son was called Fleamont Potter. Fleamont was so called because it was the dying wish of Henry’s mother that he perpetuate her maiden name, which would otherwise die out. He bore the burden remarkably well; indeed, he always attributed his dexterity at duelling to the number of times he had to fight people at Hogwarts after they had made fun of his name. It was Fleamont who took the family gold and quadrupled it, by creating magical Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion ( ‘two drops tames even the most bothersome barnet’ ). He sold the company at a vast profit when he retired, but no amount of riches could compensate him or his wife Euphemia for their childlessness. They had quite given up hope of a son or daughter when, to their shock and surprise, Euphemia found that she was pregnant and their beloved boy, James, was born.

Fleamont and Euphemia lived long enough to see James marry a Muggle-born girl called Lily Evans, but not to meet their grandson, Harry. Dragon pox carried them off within days of each other, due to their advanced age, and James Potter then inherited Ignotus Peverell’s Invisibility Cloak.

PS
No mention of Dorea Black and Charlus Potter which has always held much speculation. Perhaps Harry wasn't as closly related to the Blacks as we thought.

 

The most annoying thing about Pottermore, for me, is the way it dives back into established material instead of extending the universe. Like, there are so many ways the Potter family could have got rich, but instead JKR decided to attribute to them the creation of a load of established parts of the HP world. Similarly, the "Sacred 28" consisted mostly of Harry's peers and people we meet in the books, rather than introducing new names of previously unmet prominent Pure-bloods.

 

...And this really begs the question if Rowling had gone senile and forgot that she added a Charus Potter (and his son) to the tapestry. You'd think she would add something about them.

Anyway, great to read some Potter family history, I've long been interested in the topic, and it also solves the family fortune issue. Wish she'd specified which family Euphemia came from.

Also, just realized that Fleamont created the hair-taming potion to tame the notoriously wild Potter hair.

 

Wait, the Potters don't get their own Family Seat in the Wizengamot?

Thank you, Rowling, for officially making that piece of Fanon not-Canon. How long will it take before FanFiction writers start denying Rowling ever said that?

 

So glad she didn't mention Charlus. As Sesc has pointed out countless times, the dates really don't add up for Charlus to be Harry's grandfather.

 

Am I the only one who finds it weird that a family as ancient as the Potters doesn't seem to have any skeletons? All of them seem to be upstanding people.

 

Ok, I've reached this page about the spells Harry taught the DA, and apparently he taught them Levicorpus, even though he only learnt it in sixth year.

Yup, Rowling had definitely gone senile.

 

Firstly, that page is about the movies.

Secondly, the "Features" page isn't written by JKR, it's written by Pottermore staff.

 

Probably for the same reason that all the ministers from families we know have views similar to their descendants (Diggory seeming competent and Flint, Parkinson or Lestrange anti-muggles). You know, choices matter more than birth, but somehow everyone but a few Blacks choose the same as their family. So of course no Potter ever was a bad guy or a pureblood supremacist.

I know it can rationalized but it's probably my worst peeve concerning Pottermore.

 

Ooh. Tell me more. How old would Charlus have been as a parent?

 

It's easy enough to pass Charlus off as a grand-uncle or great-grand uncle. But, the thing with James parent's ages has always bothered me. Witches and wizards can live a long time. Dumbledore was 109, and the lady who tested him for his NEWTS (Marchbanks) is older and still alive, not to mention Bathilda Bagshot who was older still. So, like, how old can a woman be in the wizarding world and still be fertile? 10 years older perhaps than normal (ignoring outliers), so in her 50s - I hardly think dying in their 60's or 70's would be considered "advanced age". That's also ignoring the fact that Muggles have lived longer than Dumbledore, so adjusting the fertility range might not even be correct, not when we haven't seen that many cases beyond the extreme end of the muggle life expectancy.



I'll be honest, I've always hated Pottermore, with how much seems to be revisionist history and fan-catering there seems to be. I had high expectations too, but it's mostly just been all disappointment.

 

Honestly I'm so used to the fanon idea of Charlus and Dorea as James parents that I've practically come to accept it as headcanon. The idea that their official not James parents feels...weird.

I think I might just stick to the Charlus and Dorea being James parent fanon idea since it feels more familiar to me and this new essay on Harry's family so so unfamiliar. Don't get me wrong, I like some things about it, but I can't seem to wrap my head around the existence of Fleamont and Euphemia.

 

Charlus and Dorea officially proven not to be James' parents?

This is great. In fact, this is the best news I've heard all day.

Once again I am able to point a huge middle finger to fanon and laugh.

Oh you are mad, you are so mad about this.

I can almost taste the salt, it's that real.

 

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/images/blackfamilytrees/official-final-version.gif

Isn't fanon. BUT, it does suffer from the same syndrome that a lot of JKR throwaway stuff, in that she can rarely keep her own facts straight. Also, the family tree doesn't say how Charlus + Dorea Potter relate to Harry

 

Sure, the two existing is canon. But nowhere does that tree show them as being James' parents.

For all we know, Charlus could be Fleamont's brother, or perhaps a cousin.

 

Did you even read my post? That's pretty much exactly what I said...

 

I'm not really pissed, I'm just so used to seeing the fanon portrayal of James parents, that it being replaced is going to take me a while to get used to, and it simply might be easier for me to just stick to the fanon portrayal.

I guess one could compare my feelings over the situation with the whole Disney tossing out the old Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was so used to that EU that when Disney tossed it out a made the new canon, it took me months to get used to and accept the idea.

I probably eventually accept Fleamont and Euphemia as James parents in a year or so.

Speaking of Charlus as Fleamont's brother, it'd actually be ironic if that were true as last week I read a HP fanfic where that was very much the case(though James father's name was Henry instead of Fleamont). A week later and this happens...most curious...

 

Well thats different...

 

Pottermore... fleshing out background that nobody ever cared about.

Where in the unholy fuck is my horcrux ritual?

 

I'm convinced that Rowling's answer to that will be "Fuck you that's how", but I digress that's the million dollar question.