J.K. Rowling Unveils Exclusive ‘Pottermore’ Details!

The wait is almost over Potter fans! The blogs have been all abuzz lately with talks of “Pottermore,” the biggest thing to happen to Harry Potter fans since The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at Universal Studios. Yesterday during a press conference, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling revealed, “Pottermore has been a really great way to give back to the Harry Potter readership, who made the books such a big success. It’s just been a phenomenally exciting project. We’ve been working on it for a couple of years.”

But what exactly is Pottermore? While the website won’t be up and running until October, there is a teaser message on the home screen that reads, “Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books.”

Thankfully for all the superfans out there, during the conference J.K. gave the world a better peek into the new material Pottermore will be offering. “I would say that I have had more than half of the new material already written – and I’ve also generated some new content, particularly the introduction to the houses. That was a fun opportunity to go back, rethink how it might have been if Harry followed a different course. So I’ve generated quite a lot. 18,000 words at launch but I’m adding to it. In fact I’ve already given material on the other six books. We’ve been working on this for about two years so this has been in the works quite a long time."

Not only has J.K. written new material, but Pottermore will also give fans a chance to be “sorted” into their own Hogwarts house, just like title character Harry did in the first book! “The Sorting was some of the best fun I’ve had on this project. I was writing the Potter books for 16 years and during that time I had just had this real sense of where people belonged, in what house they belonged. It was something I was unconsciously doing a lot of the time when I met people. If you’re not sorted into Gryffindor, if you’re sorted into one of the other three houses you will effectively get an extra quarter chapter because you will go off to your own common room. If you are sorted into Gryffindor you just follow Harry. But if you’re sorted into Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin, you go to your own common room, you meet your own prefect, who will tell you about famous people who were in your house and what the true nature of your house is.”

Pottermore is looking like a chance to really dive into the world of Harry Potter superfans! Fan website The Leaky Cauldron has the entire press conference interview, for all those fans out there who just can’t get enough. And the Pottermore website is telling fans to return on July 31 for the chance to “enter Pottermore early.” Get your wands ready!