In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, author J.K. Rowling and her partners at Wizarding World have launched an interactive site covering all things relating to the world of Harry Potter. The site, called Harry Potter At Home, was made not only for avid Harry Potter fans, but also to help children, parents and teachers who are stuck at home, by claiming it is “casting a Banishing Charm on boredom,” featuring magical craft videos (such as how to draw a Niffler), articles, quizzes, puzzles and more.

Harry Potter was one of my favorite series as a child, so I was definitely surprised, excited and nostalgic when I first heard about the project.

In addition to fun activities, Wizarding World has partnered with Spotify to bring weekly recordings of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s/Philosopher’s Stone. Along with Spotify and Spotify Kids, these recordings will also be available at the Harry Potter At Home website.

Each week, the next chapter in the book will be narrated by a new celebrity. Fittingly, the first chapter was narrated by none other than Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. More narrations by cast members of the Harry Potter movies including Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley) and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) are to come, in addition to stars like Eddie Redmayne, David Beckham, Jonathan Van Ness, Kate McKinnon, Alec Baldwin and Dakota Fanning.

Recordings for the first eight chapters are out now, and a new chapter will be released each week until all 17 are out by mid-summer.

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, escape from Zoom University and enter Hogwarts instead, or if you just want to know who the next celebrity narrator will be, head to Harry Potter at Home for more information.

With that, I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite quotes in the Harry Potter series that seems particularly fitting during these times:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light.” - Albus Dumbledore

Note: This article was written before J.K. Rowling’s recent posts on Twitter and is not an indication of North by Northwestern’s stance on the topic.

Thumbnail licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Credit: Gregory Varnum