I don’t know about you guys but one thing that always annoyed me about Harry Potter was whenever Harry and company complained about having to do homework. I would take my book and shout ‘GODDAMMIT HARRY, YOU GET TO LEARN ABOUT MAGIC AND MAGICAL BEASTS WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING, YOU USED TO HAVE TO DO MATHS!!”. I just couldn’t understand how he didn’t find everything he learnt fascinating. I was begging for there to be more information on everything he learnt in classes. I still remember that Mars’s moon Io is covered in ice and not mice and that you get rid of a Boggart with the spell Riddikulus. In fact I’m pretty sure I remember more from Harry’s classes than I do my own. I spent a lot of my childhood and my teens wondering what it would be like to attend all the classes Harry got to attend, and learn how to cast spells and how to read the signs in the sky and learn all about magical history. For me, and everyone like me who always wanted to walk the halls of Hogwarts, our time has finally come!
On the 14th of April 2014, Hogwarts Is Here was launched online.
Hogwarts Is Here is a fan-made online Hogwarts experience. It works the same way as an open university course but with some added perks. You can sign up with your own name or create a magical alter-ego with a rich backstory that you can use when you’re talking to other students or writing essays. When you enroll you get to choose your own house – Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, or Slytherin. Next you set up your Gringotts account and are given a starting amount of 101 Galleons, 7 Sickles and 4 Knuts, which you can use to buy textbooks. You start off as a first year and when you visit your common room you can pick a specific dormitory to stay in. Included in the common rooms are the top points earners of your house and a live common room chat. The last step in starting your online Hogwarts journey is actually enrolling in the courses. There are seven courses available for first years- Astronomy, Charms, Defense Against The Dark Arts, Herbology, History Of Magic, Potions, and Transfiguration. In order to advance into 2nd year you must complete these 7 courses, which are each made up of 9 lessons. Once you finish the reading material for each lesson, you either take a quiz or do an assignment. Volunteers then grade your work and you receive house points depending on your grade. The work that you learn mirrors what Hogwarts students would have learnt- all the information is canon and is derived from muggle knowledge, the books, the movies, the games, Pottermore, and interviews with J.K Rowling.
You can communicate easily with the teachers and with other students, just like you could in any Hogwarts classes. There are lesson discussions made up of 100 students where you can ask questions if you’re stuck on an assignment, or debate about whatever topics you learnt about in that week’s lesson. There are a huge number of specially made books available to read on the site, some of which are the same books a Hogwarts student would read like, ‘A History Of Magic’ by Bathilda Bagshot and ‘Standard Book Of Spells: Grade One’ by Miranda Goshawk. You can also read non-course related books such as ‘Wand Lore’, ‘Preparing For Your Future: Choosing Your Career’ and ‘The Kneazle’. You can even write your own book and submit it. There is also a Hogwarts Student Newspaper called The Daily Owl that contains information about events around the wizarding world and both in-character and out-of-character written articles.
Hogwarts Is Here is more like what we thought Pottermore would be than Pottermore actually is. Most of the knowledge you gain from this site doesn’t serve any real life purpose, but that’s not the point of it really, it’s just fun. For an hour or so a week you can escape into the world of Harry Potter in a way that you never could before. The best part of my Hogwarts Is Here experience so far was learning all about the magical plants in Herbology and getting to write an essay on a hypothetical situation where I got trapped by some Devil’s Snare (I got an 80% on that one), but I am about to foray into the dangerous recesses of Defense Against The Dark Arts, which I am very excited to learn about. The best part about the whole thing is that it’s completely free (although there is an option to donate for those who have the money to spare).
As someone who would give up my life, and even my wifi, to board the Hogwarts Express and become a student at Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hogwarts Is Here is the perfect compensation. So go ahead and start your wizarding journey, it is well worth your time.
[Words, Lissa Breen]
