Pottermore

[ganimede]

My Welcome email for Early Access to Pottermore arrived yesterday. It came at 12.10pm but I was busy out in the garden till nearly 4pm so I didn't get it till then. I signed in eagerly but within a few minutes, the site went down. I'd only been able to look at my profile and account settings! I tried refreshing the page but just got an error message saying it was unavailable and to try later, and when I tried 10 minutes later, the message changed to say they were doing routine updates. And that was pretty much how it stayed for the rest of the night. Alternating error messages and small pockets of uptime which lasted a few minutes before the site went down again. So frustrating. I'd been waiting weeks for the email and as soon as it arrives, the site crashes. It seems as though the server(s) couldn't take the strain of the extra active accounts which is completely ridiculous as there's barely a third of the million Early Access accounts active! How is it going to cope in October when the site is launched and several million people converge on it all at once?

With the select minutes of access, I managed to get up to the beginning of Chapter 2 by 11pm, although that had taken about 4 hours. After another half an hour later of downtime, I decided to get ready for bed instead. But before I actually shut down my laptop and went to bed, I decided to refresh the site just one more time. It was up! I didn't expect it would stay up for long so I thought I might as well make the most of it and take a look at Chapter 2. A good long uninterupted while later, I found myself in Diagon Alley and although it was way past my bedtime by now, it was extremely difficult to leave it at that point.

This is the part where you go shopping in Diagon Alley to get your supplies for Hogwarts, and more importantly, your wand. First you have to go to Gringotts to access your vault - this does not include a rollercoaster ride. You're given 500 Galleons which I believe is all the funds you have until the second book opens next year. Then you visit the shops and buy your supplies from the list that comes with the Hogwarts letter. There's 8 school books, the cauldron, scales, telescope, and the phials of either glass or crystal. I debated over the crystal ones because they did look nicer but they were an extra 4 Galleons and I was mindful of not having more funds till next year. After that it was off to Eeylops to choose an owl, cat or toad. I went for an owl as I'm not a big fan of cats or toads. The choice is limited to Barn owl, Brown owl, Screech owl or Tawny owl. Apparently they're out of stock of Snowy owls... I was a little confused by the selection though, because as far as I'm aware, there's no such thing as a Brown owl (outside of Brownies that is), it's just another name for the Tawny owl. I went for the Barn owl anyway because I prefer it and I have actually seen one in the wild. (I've actually held a Snowy owl and had it fly to me. You're jealous.) Finally, it was to Ollivander's for a wand.

Now, the wand chooses the wizard as I'm sure you're aware (not entirely sure what happens with witches though) and apparently Ollivander's has now come up with a simple method for doing this which consists of answering 7 questions, rather than the "here, try this one" that Harry went through. I believe these questions, like the ones for the Sorting, have been written by Jo herself. The first three ask for facts about yourself:

• are you short/average/tall for your age;
  
• is your eye colour brown/black, light brown, hazel, green, blue, blue/grey, blue/green, grey or other,
  
• and were you born on an odd or even numbered date.

The last four questions are more about your personality:

• which is your greatest fear - darkness, fire, heights, small spaces or isolation;
  
• what quality do you pride yourself on the most - resilience, intelligence, determination, originality, kindness, optimism, or imagination;
  
• you come to a fork in the road, do you go left towards the sea, straight on to the forest or right to the castle;
  
• and select an artifact from the chest - ornate mirror, silver dagger, glistening jewel, rolled up scroll, dusty bottle, old glove or a key.

I found it really hard to decide on an answer for the quaility question as I pride myself on most of those things! In the end, my answers were: short, blue/grey, even, heights, imagination, right to the castle and the rolled up scroll. After that, you are presented with your wand. There's a huge selection of woods but only three cores (unicorn hair, dragon heartstring and phoenix feather, the latter is supposed to be very rare). I would have preferred the dragon core but I didn't really have any wood in mind. The wand that chose me is ebony with unicorn hair, 10 inches and Surprisingly Swishy. There's a long list on the site that gives the properties of all the woods and the entry for ebony is quite apt for me which is pleasing in that slightly creepy way you get when some internet quiz manages to get your personality spot on. Ollivander gives ebony's properties as: This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

So! That's as far as I've got up to now. Pottermore has been down a lot this afternoon so I've not been Sorted yet. Besides, I think this post is long enough as it is! I know some of you are on Pottermore too so tell me your usernames and I can add you. Mine is SkullMoonstone152.