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Developed by digital creative agency Think (in close partnership with Rowling) and sponsored by Sony, Pottermore sets out to entertain and inform readers as they follow the books’ storylines. It is hoped that Pottermore inspires a new generation of readers to engage with the Harry Potter books. The platform features a host of newly commissioned illustrations and interactive gaming elements. When you register, you get to choose a magic user name and then travel through different parts of the book, joiningHogwarts in the virtual world just as Harry does in the books.

In each chapter there are interactive “moments.” In the first book there are 44 of these moments. One such example includes Diagon Alley, where you can enter Gringots (the wizard bank) and pick up 175 galleons — the in-game currency. You can then use this to buy items on your shopping list from shops such as Wiseacre’s Wizarding Equipment.

On the journey to Hogwarts you can explore a virtual train carriage, finding digital trinkets such as magic beans and different spell cards that you can add to your personalized trunk for use later. The trunk can be accessed on your profile page, which shows all of your friends, digital wallet, all of your digital items, details about the wand you have and the house you are in.

The Sorting Hat, which allocates users to a Hogwarts house, is a lot of fun. You go through a series of multiple-choice questions to assess your character. Based on your unique responses, you get allocated a house: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. I volunteered to be sorted into a house in the press conference and got sorted into Gryffindor.

Having been sorted into a house, you can challenge fellow students to wizard duels or by successfully mixing potions in order to win points for your house. This part seems to play a little like a multiplayer game — with leagues of point-winners competing against each other.

You can also see what your friends are doing on Pottermore; you can find out where they are in the storyline and go and meet them should you so wish.

Rowling took a hands-on approach to Pottermore and came up with questions for the aforementioned Sorting Hat and for the Wand Chooser — which selects the appropriate wand for each user for one of thousands of possible combinations. All of these extra details appear to be the Harry Potterencyclopedia that Rowling has alluded to in the past. Think has previously worked with Sony to createLittle Big Map — a huge Google Maps mashup that allows fans of the game Little Big Planet to connect with each other.

Pottermore will be first opened in beta on July 31 (Harry’s birthday) to a million fans, who will be required to find a Magical Quill in an online treasure hunt. They will be able to feed back their comments and criticisms of the site in order to shape the final look and feel of the website before it opens to everyone on Oct. 1. This will also be when the Pottermore shop will open, allowing people to purchase the e-books and digital audiobooks in a selection of languages. The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, will go live in early 2012. Other books will follow later.

My friends and I haven’t gotten the second email yet… should we be worried…? I got in 3rd day, a few friends 4th day, and one friend 7th day

Reblof if, after Deathly Hallows part 2 suddenly:
U feel like there is nothing left for u to get excited about (apart, of course, from the pottermore welcome letters)
U cry everytime anyone mentions fred, remus, tonks, moody, hedwig, dobby., or snape…
U love JK rowling for having written this amazingly wonderful story
Snape has become one or ur favourite characters or even ur hero
U can’t hold the tears everytime u see a picture of Snape holding lilly in his arms (TT_TT) specially cuz u knew all along his wasn’t the bad guy
Ur certain that harry potter is far from over and that u’ll never forget the story or the names
And finally…and most importantly to me….Reblog this if suddenly the word ALWAYS has just acquired a totally different meaning to you (it just breaks ur heart :(  </3)

I JUST WANT MY WELCOME LETTER….T.T

CAN’T WAIT FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR IT….REBLLog if u can’t wait for either