(1) Cardinal Ratzinger's brief comments from two years ago don't justify the headline on this story, "Pope Opposes Harry Potter Novels." I realize that headline-writes have to do something to attract our attention --- and a dollypartonesque lady with a wardrobe malfunction can't really be insinuated with no connection whatsoever --- so we have to have the "Pope" opposing "Harry" as if this were a new development in dogma.
News Flash: It's not.
(2) I've read all the Harry Potter novels thus far, and in my judgment Rowling treats magic as a fantasy "alternative technology." Handy kitchen spoons that make their own cream sauce, and so forth. When things get really occult, as in being obsessed or possessed by a perverted entity (e.g. Voldemort or the Dementors), Rowling successfully communicates that "This is something different, this is truly evil." So that's what I'd want her to say, I'm pretty sure.
(3) Though Card. Ratzinger's 2003 note to Gabriele Kuby is not a doctrinal motu proprio from the Pope, I nevertheless have the highest respect for Ratzinger's moral goodness, knowledge of Catholic teaching, and intellectual sophistication with regard to literature. This gives me a much-higher-than-common respect for his opinion, as well as a curiosity about what Gabriele Kuby had to say.
So, I'm all ears.
"When things get really occult, as in being obsessed or possessed by a perverted entity (e.g. Voldemort or the Dementors), Rowling successfully communicates that "This is something different, this is truly evil." So that's what I'd want her to say, I'm pretty sure."
Well, Mrs., we've agreed on quite a few things, but I really think you've missed the point on this one.
Rowling does what you say, but this has the effect of dividing the occult into the "good" occult and the "bad" occult, teaching children that part of the occult is "good" when in fact the entire occult is evil.