Quotes of the Day

Pottermore, the new, officially J.K. Rowling–sanctioned Harry Potter website, is now conducting what's known as a "closed beta." That means that it's not open to the public, but a bunch of lucky fans, about a million of them, have been invited in to explore it early.

I'm one of them. My daughter, whom we'll call Plum, is another. Plum is 7, but she's a voracious reader and no mean Potter scholar. She's about to finish the series for the second time. She is, needless to say, crazed with excitement. She also has a very short attention span.

Plum and I settled in for our first session with Pottermore the other day. I sat at the keyboard, since Plum doesn't use a computer yet, and she looked over my shoulder. We logged in, using the username and password Pottermore had given us. The Pottermore interface is elegant — a thing of twisted branches and silver filigree. There's an owl perched at the top of the screen.

Me: Look, there's an owl.

Plum: That's not Hedwig though. Maybe that's Hermione's owl.

[The owl turns out to be Pottermore's message center. Three people have asked to be friends with us already. Since I don't know who they are, I ignore them and head back to the main page, where the seven Harry Potter books are represented by symbols. For now only the first book is clickable.]

Me: [Reading] "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" ...

Plum: What's the philosopher's stone?

Me: That's what they call it in England.

[I click on the book and it shows me a picture of Privet Drive, where the book opens. It's not quite a still image [EM] it has little animations in it, like the fumes rising from the tailpipe of the Dursleys' idling car. Nearby a cat waves its tail.]

Plum: [Excited] There's McGonagall!

Me: [Reading] "You've discovered No. 4 Privet Drive." We can read J.K. Rowling's thoughts about Privet Drive.

Plum: You have to read them to me.

Me: "The name of the street where the Dursleys live is a reference to that most suburban plant, the privet bush, which makes neat hedges around many English gardens. I liked the associations with both suburbia and enclosure, the Dursleys being so smugly middle class, and so determinedly separate from the wizarding world. The name of their area is 'Little Whinging,' which again sounds appropriately parochial and sniffy, 'whinging' being a colloquial term for 'complaining or whining' in British English." [Pause.] That was interesting.

Plum: I want to get out of this darn place. I do not like Privet Drive. [I click to the next page, which is an evening scene.] Where in the world is this?

Me: Still Privet Drive. Look, if you click on McGonagall she waves her tail.

Plum: There's Dumblydore. [She uses the nickname given to him by the headmistress of Beauxbatons in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.] He's turning out the streetlamps.

Me: Interesting.

Plum: It's very interesting. But also kind of boring.

[Icons start appearing in the left-hand margin, which yield clickable menus.]

Me: Professor Dumbledore. Let's learn more about him.

Plum: Oh, come on. I already know every single thing about him. [She wanders away to play with her baby sister, then comes back.] I want to see other pictures of other places.

Me: Let me see if there are some. [I start clicking through more scenes.]

Plum: There had better be. I thought we were going to learn more about Dumbledore.

Me: I thought you said it was boring.

Plum: [Indignant] I did not!

Me: O.K., we can learn about him in a sec, but look what's happening.

Plum: This is Hagrid delivering Harry.

Me: Here's Harry's room.

Plum: A tiny little place under the cupboard. What a nice place. That's the most disgusting place in the world. I want something to happen.

Me: Let's see the zoo.

Plum: There's the python!

Me: [Beginning to show signs of impatience] We already know what happens in the story.

Plum: You always get bored. [She reads the title of Chapter 3 in a grand voice.] The Letters from No One!

[I'm beginning to get the hang of navigating in Pottermore. You can move around within an individual scene, sort of, by clicking, which moves you deeper into the picture. You can cycle through three different depths of field: foreground, middle ground, background [EM] they come into focus in turn, and each one highlights different details. You can bring up informational panes dealing with specific topics. Though sometimes you do so inadvertently.]

Me: Hang on, I want to get this thing out of the way. I want to see.

Plum: The Dursleys' kitchen! That's what you want to see.

Me: There's the letters from Hogwarts floating around.

Plum: Hahahahaha! [Laughs delightedly and starts to sing.] Letters are floating around the Dursleys' kitchen! The washing machine is on, because it's moving around! And that's kind of boring, kind of boring, kind of boring ... [A pop-up informs me that we have noticed the salt-and-pepper shakers on the Dursleys' table, and we have the option of collecting them.] Why do I want them?

Me: I don't know. Maybe we should get sorted or something.

Plum: I want to get sorted! I want to know what we are like. I hope both of us are not in Slytherin. I really hope that.

Me: Oh, I see. When we get to the part in the story where Harry gets sorted, then we can get sorted.

Plum: Yeah! I want to get sorted. Let's hurry up and get sorted.

Me: There's the end of Chapter 3. I'm just going to sort of speed through.

Plum: But I want to see things!

Me: I thought you were getting bored.

Plum: I am! But I still want to see things.

Me: O.K., we're going to see everything we can see. Like Hagrid arriving. Look how huge and shaggy he is. [He really does look like one of the Wild Things.]

Plum: Happy birthday, Harry!

Me: Here's Diagon Alley.

Plum: [Scanning the crowd] Where's Hagrid? I thought he stood out. Apparently not.

Me: Maybe we're seeing it from Harry's point of view.

Plum: But wouldn't Harry be looking at Hagrid?

Me: [Defeated by her unassailable logic] Hm, there's a lock here. It's not letting us go on. What's this? Look, we can get the Daily Prophet. Oh, and we can get clothing. Wait, no we can't.

[At this point we hit a wall: Pottermore wasn't letting us click further into the story. Like wizard Moseses, we stood on the brink of Diagon Alley, but we couldn't go in. The site wouldn't let us until we'd explored the earlier pages more thoroughly, though it took me a while to figure that out.]

Me: Let's read about owls. "Owls are magical creatures most often used ..."

Plum: They're not magical.

Me: It says magical.

Plum: But they're not.

Me: Maybe they are. They can understand what people say to them.

Plum: They're not. They're just a normal kind of animal.

Me: I wonder what's in our trunk?

Plum: I really want to get a wand. I wonder what mine will be. I wonder if we're allowed to go to any other shops. I wonder if that's Gringotts. It looks like how Gringotts would look.

Me: Let's read about Draco Malfoy.

Plum: Why do I want to learn about him? I already know all about him! Which is that he's so stupid!

Me: I don't understand why we can't read further into Chapter 5.

Plum: I'd like to buy some felix felicis. I really want to get out of this scene.

Me: Mommy wants to go in five minutes.

Plum: We have to finish this! Try collecting that teacup.

Me: "You found a chipped cup."

Plum: [Imitating the Potter Puppet Pals] Yaaaaay! We found the chipped cup!

Me: [Looking around for something we can do, I take the plunge into the social-networking features.] Shall we make friends with those people?

Plum: Look, his name is EyeNiffler.

Me: Now we have three friends. They're in different houses. EyeNiffler seems to be in Ravenclaw.

Plum: What's IceDragon in? Hufflepuff. Oh, I hate LightMoonstone! You're in Slytherin! I hate you! Yay, he only has one house point.

Me: I really want to get sorted. [I read the FAQ.] Looks like we have to get to the part about the sorting ceremony in Chapter 7.

Plum: I want to go to Chapter 7. I want to get sorted. Someone get me sorted.

Me: Clearly this will be an ongoing project.

Plum: What does that mean?

Me: It means we probably aren't going to get far enough to get sorted right now.

Plum: I wish we could at least get some house points. [She frowns.] But we can only get house points if we get sorted!

Me: [Once again I'm defeated by her logic.] It's a paradox. Maybe we haven't explored enough. Do you want to leave a comment?

Plum: My comment is, Hurry up and get to the next chapter! Pottermore, I hate you because you're so slow. That's what I think of Pottermore.

Me: O.K., I'm calling it. That was Pottermore Session 1.

Plum: [In a grand voice] Session 1: completely unsuccessful!

Grossman is a senior writer at TIME and the author of the new novel The Magician King, a New York Times best seller. Find him on Twitter at @leverus or at levgrossman.com.

• Lev Grossman
• Two world-class "Harry Potter" scholars read about owls, do some "whinging," and try to get sorted on J.K. Rowling's not-quite-public online venture