Note from author: I do not own Harry Potter, Pottermore, or anything else that may have come out of JK Rowling's head. The majority of the characters and story, however, are mine.


Congratulations! You are magical.

The four words Taylor had been dying to see all week. Only one million Pottermore beta accounts were created, and she had finally gotten one! Her screen was filled with the image of an old book and a striped quill glowing with blue light, displaying her name on the page alongside the likes of Harry Potter, Oliver Wood, and the Weasleys. She had grown up with the series, reading and rereading those seven books, all but memorizing Harry's adventures at Hogwarts. When she turned eleven, three years after she had discovered the series, the girl had been seriously disappointed when no owl appeared at her bedroom window clutching a Hogwarts-embossed letter in its talons. And now she had the chance to get in on this website early, to help give feedback and help shape the website for the hordes of others who had similar experiences with the novels? It was as if that owl had arrived after all…just a few years late.

"Alright, I did it; I'm in!" the girl exclaimed, her red-tipped blonde hair fanning out behind her as she jumped up, pumping her fist in the air.

"Sweet, we both got in!" A redheaded girl about the same age as Taylor grinned, peeking over her friend's shoulder to get a look at the computer screen. "I wonder if they give you a wand and sort you and everything…how cool would that be? Think we'd end up in the same house?"

"Hm…not really sure," Taylor shrugged. "Wouldn't be a huge deal if we didn't, though, right? We might just have a friendly rivalry going."

"Right."

It was always nice to have someone to talk to about random, slightly geeky things like this, and even better when the person on the other side of the conversation had the same interests. Taylor and Kate had met early in high school, only a couple of days after their freshman year started, and had become fast friends. They both had similar interests in writing, art, and literature, both played video games a bit more than the average girl, and didn't seem to fit in as well as they'd hoped with any of the other students at their high school. It formed a sort of odd kinship between them as school went on and a couple of years had passed. Now juniors in high school, they had gotten used to sitting apart from the majority at lunch and discussing creative exploits, upcoming novels, or even the occasional bit of boy trouble. For the past couple of weeks their conversation had revolved almost exclusively around Pottermore, and now that they had both been chosen for beta testing that's where their conversation turned. For the next few hours the girls sat cross-legged on Kate's forest green bedspread, swapping guesses about what the site would be like once the beta accounts went live.


Meanwhile, an ocean away, a middle aged man with salt and pepper hair leaned away from his laptop, eying his handiwork. As he stretched out his shoulders, both letting out an audible pop as if irritated at the sudden flex, a young woman materialized behind him.

"Still playing with your pet project?" she asked, green eyes narrowed and arms crossed as she approached. "This is highly unlikely to produce any significant results. And your method…its accuracy is questionable at best."

"Yet it's better than doing nothing, and more effective than the old methods. Much less time consuming."

"So you're being lazy." The disapproval in her voice was palpable, hanging heavy in the dim café. "I cannot believe the school was left to the likes of you…"

"But it was, so I will experiment and do things my way for now, Serena," the man responded, his violet eyes fixing on her over the thin rims of his wire framed glasses. His gaze was suddenly sharper, more determined than it had been moments ago. In that instant, the hawklike woman realized what had convinced the council to entrust him with such responsibility. While unassuming, the man before her was cunning and inventive, unwilling to compromise his ideals to take the safe or popular route to appease the masses. While controversial, even she had to admit this plan had a certain air of inventiveness to it. Certainly nothing like it had ever been conceived before.

"…very well, Richard. For now I have to trust you know what it is you're doing. Muggle technology has never been used on such a scale—by us, anyway—and certainly not like this. Fusing magic and technology, then marketing it as a recreational website may earn you some bad press, at least at first. If it works, you may redeem yourself." As a strand of raven black hair fell forward into her eyes, almost automatically her hand reached up to tuck it behind her ear. "Show me what it is you're doing, and how you're doing it." Like many young witches and wizards from magical families, Serena Marks was less-than-familiar with the more advanced technologies. Part of her was still convinced that Google was created by a rogue wizard, not some tech-savvy Muggles. Richard Alban, on the other hand, was a bit of a techno-prodigy himself. Before he had discovered his magical abilities, cyberspace was his society. Creating and marketing a website under false pretenses was child's play. And the YouTube video, the scavenger hunts…simply icing on the cake.

"Oh, I think you'll like this. I've based it on a very popular book series that's even managed to gain quite a bit of notoriety in our culture." Richard rotated the laptop and tilted the screen so Serena could see properly, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a pleased smirk as she caught site of the title running across the top of the page. Yes, she had certainly heard of the series. More than once she had confiscated one of the novels from a student during class.

There, written across the top of the screen in metallic silver letters, was the word Pottermore.


Note from author: Thanks for reading! My updates are kind of sporadic, but it's been far too long since I posted something on this site and I wanted to get working on this piece again. By all means leave a review and let me know what you think! I hope you'll be hearing from me a bit more in the future. -T