My first 145 after a very very long time.

Pottermore Insider recently announced that they will open the site to everyone in early April of this year. “The wait is nearly over,” as they said.

Only a small percentage of the fans, especially among the Beta users, are excited by this statement. Most of us, both those with Beta accounts and those who are waiting for the public launch date, are taking it with a grain of salt. Still others, mostly those who were either bored or very disappointed with Pottermore, either no longer care or they want Pottermore to change into something else altogether.

Now, I can understand everyone’s frustrations with Pottermore. During the first week, I kept getting logged out for no reason. I’ve had cauldrons blown up for Merlin-knows-what. I am still dealing with the bulky it-takes-a-hundred-clicks-to-get-something-done Friends List. So yes, I understand the frustrations of Pottermore. I am one of those fans who won’t believe that Pottermore will really be launched to the public unless I see it happening.

What I don’t understand, however, is the harsh reactions that I’ve seen from some of the beta users. I get the complaints about the games or the very slow comments module or the Magenta Screen of Death* — hell, I am one of those people complaining — but I don’t get people saying that Pottermore has failed or that it needs to be redone or changed. I think most of these people’s disappointment stems from the fact they expected Pottermore to be something else. Maybe they expected it to be an RPG, or to be more like social media sites, but Pottermore is neither of those. Pottermore is a new way to experience the Harry Potter story and everything else — the games, the interaction with other fans — are just “add-ons”.

So now, with these articles in Mugglenet and the Telegraph prompting some fans to comment that Pottermore has failed, and with Insider announcing that they will be opening to the public in April, I thought it was time that someone points out the good things about Pottermore:

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Link: Pottermore Points Tracker 

The site contains line graphs that track several trends of the House Points on Pottermore. I made it a few months ago because I wanted to track the gap between Gryffindor and the other Houses. (Sadly, the points difference between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw/Slytherin is showing no signs of decreasing.) I’ve just updated the site and added point-difference graphs for the other three Houses.

Screenshots:

I’ll need spectrespecs to see this one.

Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus.

Sources: [1], [2]

Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground. And while you’re searching—

Oh wait. Wrong clue.

The seven Pottermore clues may not have been sung by sirens, but they sound (or look?) just as beautiful to those of us who stayed up all night and waited for hours and hours for the clues to be posted.

Here are all seven:

I’ve just registered for an account in Pottermore (woohoo!), so I thought I’d give those who haven’t gotten an account an idea of what they’re going to see. If they want to register, that is. Although, at this point, getting an account requires a lot of patience and not very little love for Harry Potter.

Registered for Pottermore! Woohoo!!

First preview for what’s to come in the Pottermore site: an introduction to Book 1, Chapter 6 (The Journey From Platform Nine and Three Quarters).

Look at the menus! Spells, Potions, Trunk, Friends (friends!), Favorites…. This really is going to be a fun, exciting, interactive, and magical experience.