Pottermore is a website by J. K. Rowling, developed by TH_NK and partnered by Sony. The website, according to Rowling, will serve as a permanent online home for the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Registration for the limited beta release began on 31 July 2011 (the birthday of both Rowling and her character Harry Potter) for the first one million fans, as beta testers, to complete “The Magical Quill” challenge and register. Pottermore finally opened to public on 14 April 2012. Thus far the interactive experience is only available for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, with the other books to come on undisclosed dates.
Now take a deep breath because I’m going to share you a long story about my experience on Pottermore so far. You may find some fundamental tips for beginners along the way, so stay tune (and beware of SPOILER). For those of you who are not even into it, I guess it’s about time you consider to stop reading my post :DD
1. Are you magical?
First of all, you have to join Pottermore by signing up yourself into it (duh). Just fill in general information about you. What surprised me a little bit, though, was that you can’t create your own username. This is due to ensure children’s safety or something. So you will be offered a list of 5 usernames you can choose, all are made up from two Harry Potter-themed words combined with series of random numbers. You will be told to choose one that you think is easy to remember, but seriously, they are too random to the point that you can never easily remember any of them. But don’t worry, anytime you have a problem logging in because you forget your username, you can ask them to send your username to your email. I’ve done this once, yes. Anyway, the username I finally chose is called ProphecyJinx18007 (feel free to add me as your friend!). The reason why I chose this username was because… well, there’s no because. The other ones suck!
2. The journey to Hogwarts
Your experience will be started by the beginning of Book 1, The Sorcerer’s Stone. You will be presented by the view of Privet Drive. Next we’ll see three figures that we’ve known as Dumbledore, McGonagall, and a giant figure on flying motorcycle, Hagrid. Mind the slow page loading, yes! In my 432.7 kbps internet speed, I still find it irritating sometimes. After all that whole the-boy-who-lived scene we’re brought to the life of little Harry; his room inside the closet under the stairs, his tour to the zoo, meeting a snake he could talk to, etc etc, until… the letters from Hogwarts arrived. The letter. Like, seriously, since the first time you read The Sorcerer’s Stone book, or in my case, since the first time I saw the movie, HOW LONG have we been waiting for our own letters from Hogwarts to arrive? It’s like childhood dream comes true, doesn’t it? To actually virtually open and read a letter from Hogwarts!
But sadly, because we follow the story of Harry Potter, we can’t just storm to Hogwarts Express right away no matter how excited we are. We have to go to the deserted island along with the Dursleys. Yeah, we sooo hate the Dursleys at moments like these, don’t we? Thank to God, Hagrid finds us! Well, not us, Harry Potter. So off we go… Hogwarts, I’m coming!
3. Gringotts Bank, and shopping at Diagon Alley
Next stop. Where can we find anything we need in London? You just have to know where and how to find the place; Diagon Alley! We should come by Gringotts Bank first, of course, to open an account. But because we’re not exactly Harry Potter who has inherited the wealth from his parents, we get only 500 galleons in our bank account. Well, it doesn’t feel right to say we get “only” 500 galleons, though. It turned out to be a lot of money! Lots enough. Before stopping at Gringotts, we already receive a shopping list. This one got me excited too! A shopping list! With all things we must buy as a new Hogwarts student! How cool is that. We must buy a pet too, this, we can personally choose between owl, cat, and toad. I bought a Siamese cat as my pet (I’m sure it has something to do with Bela Talbot from Supernatural). Be 100% certain, though, when selecting your pet because you will have to be stuck with it forever. Whatever pet you choose, it instantly becomes your new avatar on Pottermore.
Once we have purchased all the things in the list, we can go to Mr. Ollivander’s for him to select our wand. This is even more exciting than the shopping list! You will be provided seven simple questions, from basic questions like your height and your eye color, to more psychological questions like, in a chest of magical artifacts, which item you would choose. In the end, I got a 10¾ inches wand made of beech, the core is unicorn, with unbending flexibility. The length has something to do with my average height, no? While the unbending part, does it define my personality? Being conservative, not flexible, and rigid? Yeah, that sounds like me.
4. Hogwarts, and the long-awaited official house sorting (and a long babbling about Hufflepuff)
Finally, I think we all come to an agreement that the sorting is the most exciting part of Pottermore. I mean, we all have tried hundreds different Hogwarts house sorting before BUT none of them is OFFICIAL. Now, we get the chance to get sorted by a sorting process under J.K. Rowling herself? Another childhood dream comes true! I was nervous, but excited (so I started singing a song called “Nervous But Excited”, no, I passed that). Once again we are presented by a sequence of questions. This one, I think, is all psychological. I tried to answer the questions honestly. I really wanted to get sorted to the house where I should belong. I really suggest that you all do the same. Just concentrate to the questions and answer them truly ;-)
A little back story, before Pottermore, I liked to believe myself as a Ravenclaw. That, of course, not a fact, because I’m not that brilliant as a person. When I do a Hogwarts house sorting application online though, I mostly will get Hufflepuff, no matter what kind of questions they offered, both an obvious one and a subtle one. I thought that’s cool. Cedric Diggory is a Hufflepuff! A little of the time, just a little, I got sorted into Slytherin. Like, WTF. Not that I despise Slytherin. But Hufflepuff and Slytherin, they are just two houses with very different characteristic, even the opposite! Never I got sorted into Gryffindor because, well, I’m a wuss.
So what house should I belong, J.K. Rowling? The sorting ended and… all I see is YELLOW. I kinda expect that. I mean after years of sorting history where I almost always get Hufflepuff, I can’t help but to believe that I’m a Hufflepuff at head and heart. Simply because I’m not that brave, not that smart, and not that ambitious so I have to be a Hufflepuff. Thank God J.K. Rowling agreed with me. At least that means I don’t have to suffer from identity crisis after the sorting. And I like to mention the welcome message for a new Hufflepuff student, it was great and very nice (and very long). I like to believe J.K. Rowling spent an additional effort to that, since Hufflepuff is the underrated house. Some people are very upset after finding themselves belong to Hufflepuff. But not me, J.K., not me. I’m proud to be a Hufflepuff. In fact, when I think about it again, I always wanna be a Hufflepuff sooo freaking bad.
5. Find hidden objects
So what are we doing along the chapter of the story actually? We read summaries about what happens in the chapter, we read about the characters that are in the chapter, and some character background stories, new and exclusive from J.K. Rowling herself. Other times, we look for hidden objects in each chapter. Not actually hidden, because those things, they flicker when our mouse hovers on them. So all we do is wandering the screen with our pointer, zoom it in and zoom it out, until we find a flickering object. We collect that object and stack it in our trunk. Some are cool books, cool potion ingredients, but the other things seem useless. Until the end of Book 1, I still can’t find the use of them, or whether they are collected for a certain purpose or we just randomly pile that up in our trunk. The experience of the first book ends when you find the sorcerer’s stone in the last chapter. The good thing, for each object we find, we are added by 1 house points, but that, of course, not until we get sorted into a certain house.
Speaking of house points, what I can’t understand is why even in real life, Hufflepuff house gets the least house points of them all. Seriously, whyyy?? Are we, Hufflepuff, not caring at all about competition and just wanting to have fun? Yeah, that sounds like a Hufflepuff.
6. Brewing potion and wizard dueling
Turned out, I finished Book 1 just in one gloomy Saturday. When I started preparing myself for the experience of exploring the next book, I discovered that the Book 2, Chamber of Secrets, has not been released for public yet. Sooo, what to do next? Well there are two other ways to collect house points. One is brewing potion, the other one is challenging other Hogwarts student in a Wizard’s Duel. Wizard’s Duel sounds so scary at first because of the word “duel”. So I took potion first, thinking it would be just like a cooking game.
But the problem, potion is not that simple either. I failed, like a hundred times, on the practicing section alone. The instruction says crush into a fine powder, but seriously, HOW fine, how could I know? It also says heat the mixture to 250 degree, but the cauldron temperature indicator doesn’t have a freaking NUMBER on it! It says wave your wand, but if it’s your first time, you’ll wonder “where the heck is my wand, how do I wave it?” News flash, your wand is located behind your potion ingredients and all you need to do is just click on it. Yes, that easy if you already figured it all out. But don’t be glad just yet, because your time is ticking, so you must finish your potion under a certain period of time. Do it fast, but don’t rush.
The lag is not helping at all. Sometimes you have already put 2 amounts of certain ingredients but Pottermore still recognizes it as 1 amount, so then you FAIL the potion AGAIN. I once made my brass cauldron (which costs 21 galleons) blown up because I overheated it. Another word of advise, if you already feel frustrated with potion, at least watch a tutorial video first until you understand what’s what, and start brewing again. Me for example, I may suck at potion at first, but I pretty much enjoy it now and have been brewing all potions in my potion book. Practice makes perfect! Plus, as long as you don’t screw up so bad (like make your cauldron explode, that’s pretty bad), you will not lose any house points for failing brewing a potion.
Here are potions you can brew until the end of Book 1:
Cure for boils – easiest, in fact, you’ve learned it in practicing section, but also gives you the smallest point (3), and it needs 34 minutes to brew with copper cauldron (any other cauldron will need 5-10 minutes longer to brew), so my advice is don’t do this once you have practiced enough
Antidote to common poisons – gives you 7 points for succeeding and needs the shortest time to brew (30 minutes with copper cauldron) plus only 5 seconds heating in the process, I say this is the most efficient potion BUT one of its ingredients, bezoar, costs you 10 galleons
Wideeye – gives you 9 points and needs 42 minutes to brew with copper cauldron, the difficulty level is medium/hard (meaning do this when you have practiced enough)
Herbicide – gives you 9 points and needs 45 minutes to brew with copper cauldron, the difficulty level is medium/hard
Forgetfulness potion – gives you 9 points and needs 45 minutes to brew with copper cauldron, the difficulty level is medium/hard
Sleeping draught – gives you 11 points for succeeding, but also needs the longest time to brew (53 minutes in copper cauldron), this is actually my favorite potion because while it’s still brewing I can do something else long enough before coming back again, and it gives you the highest point, but like on Wideeye, 30 seconds heating in the process can really feel like hell, you have to keep switching the blue and the orange button in order to keep the temperature in range
The Wizard’s Duel, ah, what can I say about the wizard’s duel. First of all, it’s not scary at all. It’s just a game of clicking on your screen in the right place and in the right time, following a certain line pattern, to cast a spell. And just like potion, you may suck at first but it all gets better with practice. There’s a story, be careful with what spell you choose on a duel. The full body-bind spell a.k.a petrificus totalus seemed pretty hard at first so I never used it. Instead, I used spells that I easily mastered (thus, producing a high score of spell cast potency). Spells like leg-locker curse, fire-making spell, and tickling hex. The higher the score you get, the bigger the chance you’ll win the duel. I won several duels with those spells, but mostly I still lost. So I wandered through my spell book once more time and practiced the spells one by one until I realized the full body-bind spell, when you do it right enough, can produce the highest score of spell cast potency among all spells. So folks, practice your full body-bind spell, it’s the only shot you have in order to win a duel! What happens when we win a duel is we get 5 house points. But even if we lose the duel, we don’t lose house points, but it also means that our opponents (which obviously come from other houses) will get 5 additional house points. So choose your opponent wisely.
A few closing words… Can’t wait for the 2nd book. I don’t want to spend my life just dueling and brewing potion, dear J.K. Rowling. Can’t wait for The Prisoner of Azkaban too, so I can find out what my patronus will be. That’d be cool.
Happy Saturday night all! And for my fellow Hufflepuffs out there: Brew hard. Duel hard. Our patience is our strength. We can win the first house position… one day! :D
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