Pottermore :: I'm in! One of a million!!!

When the Pottermore announcement was made at the end of June, one of the things that I keyed in on was that there would be early access for 1 million people starting on July 31st. Of course, I would have LOVED to have been one of the first million to gain access to Pottermore because of my love for Harry Potter over the years, but I really wasn't expecting anything and was trying to tell myself that waiting until October when everybody else would also have access would be fine. Late last night, I remembered that and just checked around on the Internet to see what was going on with when the Magical Quill clue was going to be released.

7 books, 7 days, 7 chances.

Here are the instructions from the website:

Those of you who would like the chance to gain early access to Pottermore must find The Magical Quill and then submit their registration details. Each day, from 31 July to 6 August, a clue will be revealed here. Solve the clue and you will be taken to The Magical Quill. Be quick, The Magical Quill won’t be there for long and registration will only be open while spaces are still available each day.

Each day the clues will be related to each of the books in order. Your job is to solve the clue and find the magical quill.

From the Pottermore website:

The Magical Quill detects the birth of magical children and writes their name down in a large book. To find out if your name is in the book, you need to find The Magical Quill and then submit your registration details on Pottermore.

How did I manage to get a spot into Pottermore?

A little bit of my Internet and social media skills (from being on twitter, facebook, and tumblr) came in handy, but mostly it was sheer dumb luck.

I live in the Pacific Standard Time Zone so I was on my computer from about 9pm to 1pm. I saw the Internet leaks from the email sent to Leaky Con (a Harry Potter Convention) attendees that the first clue would be released sometime after midnight PST (or 8am in the UK) and that it would be about Diagon Alley. People all over Tumblr and Twitter were furiously studying Chapter 5 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone while obsessively refreshing the webpage in hopes that the clue would pop up soon. I appreciated the people that posted up notes of significant numbers on Tumblr. It really helped me with the answer!

There was an intense fervor online leading up to midnight PST, but alas midnight came and gone and there was no clue released. I stayed up just because I had a long afternoon nap and found the Harry Potter fandom online very amusing. I decided to stay up until 1am PST and right before I went to bed, by sheer dumb luck, I refreshed the Pottermore webpage and there was the CLUE! I actually had to look at it several times before realizing that it had changed!

In my frenzy, I managed somehow to capture screenshots of the whole process that I want to share with you. I think I wanted proof that it was really happening to me!

So the first clue was:
"How many breeds of owls are featured in the Eeylop's Owl Emporium sign? 
Multiply this number by 49."

I couldn't figure out my math fast enough and then I didn't read the directions that I had to type in my answer after the website "http://quill.pottermore.com/answer" and not "http:/www.pottermore.com/answer" because when you do it without the "quill" part, you end up with a page that looks like this:

It's pretty cute how they mention the Invisibility Cloak. I think page this prevents anyone from just purely guessing the answer.

Finally after I figured out my mistake, I typed in the CORRECT web URL and it led me to a page where I had to click on the Magical Quill. I didn't capture any screenshots of this because I was frantically trying to click on it. Plus, I too busy was thinking that the faster I filled out my information, the higher the chance I'd be one of the first million.

Well, once I clicked on the Magical Quill. It led me to this page:

I clicked on "Begin Your Journey" and then:

Now for the registration page! I loved all the graphics and the backgrounds were beautiful! First, you had to enter your age because there are special restrictions for children under 13.

Then you selected your country:

Your first/last names, gender and email:

Your password:

And lastly, whether you have read all the books or seen all the movies. Uh, HELLO?! OF COURSE!!!

Then, my favorite part of the whole registration... it listed your name in a book and says "Congratulations! You are magical!" *sniff* It lists your name amongst names of famous characters from the story. I know it might sound silly, but it was so cool to see my name amongst theirs.

Next, you had to pick your username from a list of 5 optional names. I chose "RosePhoenix45" because it sounded the most beautiful to me. Plus, I couldn't pull off "PotionThorn" or "GhostMarauder."

Then, you had to wait for your confirmation email. Instead of obsessively refreshing the Pottermore website, I was (like many others) now obsessively refreshing my email... wondering if I typed in everything correctly because it seemed like it took FOREVER to arrive. It was probably more like 20 minutes, but it felt SUPER long, especially when people on Twitter and Tumblr were posting photos of their confirmation emails and posting their usernames.

20 eons later, I finally got my confirmation email!

I clicked on my link and got to this page:

...entered my password and got this!

I GOT IN!!! *does happy dance*

I am still in shock that I just so happened to be on my computer at the right time because going to work this week, I couldn't afford to pull all-nighters to wait up for the elusive clues to be posted. I am curious to see what the clues are the rest of this week, but I am so very happy to be one of the first million people to explore and experience Pottermore. I plan on sharing my experiences with you here on the blog so make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed (by click on "Subscribe to Posts" on the right sidebar) and/or click on my Pottermore label.

Overall, I hope that fans of Harry Potter will enjoy searching for the clues this week. It feels a little bit like searching for the 7 horcruxes like in the 7th book. I kind of liked having my own quest in order to get in early. The registration process felt like receiving my very own letter from Hogwarts itself.

If the rest of Pottermore is anything like the the fun I had simply just registering, then I am SO excited and looking forward to what's coming next!

What a wonderful way to celebrate Harry Potter's (and J.K. Rowling's) birthday today!

Good luck to those of you who are going to try to get access as well. I hope sharing my process will help you in yours! If you do get in, please share your username with me and let's "friend" each other in Pottermore! 



Now I just have to wait for my email granting me access... Apparently, this can take weeks... Off to *refresh, refresh, refresh* away! :)