M. Giant's
Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks


Tuesday, September 27, 2011  

Sorted Out

Almost two months ago, I was up at the cabin with M. Edium and my family when I got a text from Trash asking me how many Deathly Hallows there are.

"3," I texted back. I didn't hear anything back from her for a while, but when I talked to her that night, she explained that it was for early application for her membership to Pottermore.

You've either heard of this and have stopped reading, or you've never heard of it and you're about to stop reading. Pottermore, as I understand it, is some kind of super-special online experience-slash-community for fans of the Harry Potter books. Fans like my wife. I dig the books too, although not at much as she does. And maybe I would have tried to get into Pottermore early during this super-special sign-up window as well, had I not been thirty miles from the nearest Wi-Fi connection. That wasn't really Trash's problem, though, was it?

M. Edium and I got home a couple of days later, to find her still excitedly awaiting her password notification so she could join the lucky 500 people who got to go in and check things out early. Or maybe it was 500,000, I could never remember.

A week went by. Then another week. Then another.

Every once in a while she would bring up the Pottermore notification she was so anxiously awaiting. And I started getting good at teasing her about it. She'd sigh and say, "Where's my Pottermore?" and I'd say maybe her Uncle Vernon had intercepted it. Trash actually has an Uncle Vernon, although his temperament is the polar opposite of Vernon Dursley's and as far as I know he doesn't intercept her mail from his home 300 miles away.Or I'd go outside check the mailbox and come back saying, "Nothing but junk mail and owl bones."

Or she'd idly ask me if I'd gotten any interesting e-mails and I'd say, "There's this Pottermore notification. Which is weird, because I don't remember—" "Shut up."

She's been biding her time for what seems like forever, eager to get in before the main doors swing wide open to the general public on the first of the month, getting what sustenance she can from previews like a short story about the Weasley twins that made her cry every time she thought about it.

"Maybe you should check your spam filter," I suggested helpfully last week. "I did," she said. "Daily."

Finally, this morning, it came in, with only a couple of days left in the preview period. As annoyed as she was at the brevity of her early admission, she signed right in and got to work, setting up her account and picking out her familiar and getting assigned a wand (ten-and-a-half inches, phoenix feather core, hard. My question: "How did they know what you're used to?)

Eventually, after making her way down the whole length of virtual Diagon Alley and getting through all the other preliminary stuff, it was time to get Sorted. This is what she's been looking forward to for months. Sure, we've all done online Sorting quizzes before, but this was the honest-to-God authoritative no-shit sorting of all time, and Trash couldn't wait to start connecting online with her fellow Ravenclaws.

She nervously read a few of the questions and the options out loud to me while I was working and thus only dimly aware that maybe she was doing that so I could hear them, even though I was tuning her out pretty effectively. But then she let out a noise that I couldn't ignore. I got up and looked, and she was staring at her laptop motionless, her eyes wide with shock. "What?" I asked. She couldn't speak. So I walked around to look at the screen, which was filled with the color green and the giant word, "SLYTHERIN."

"You know," I pointed out calmly as she tried to remember to breathe, "Harry Potter's son was named after two Hogwarts headmasters--"

"I think I'm done with Pottermore for a while," she alt-tabbed.

I had to agree. It's really brought her nothing but grief. Well, it and me.

But y'all go ahead and enjoy. Grand opening this week, I guess!

posted by M. Giant 9:15 PM 3 comments

3 Comments:

My Pottermore journey was exactly the same as Trash's. Except mine ended in "Hufflepuff". Hmmm.

By Blogger gorbash78, at September 28, 2011 at 10:43 AM  

Re: the office recap...the novel Daryl was reading was The Help...

By Anonymous Anonymous, at October 7, 2011 at 9:33 PM  

Tell Trash that, if it makes her feel better, I think that the Pottermore houses are based on the usernames, not at all on the answers to the questions. I mean...the top four Slytherins, point-wise, have the words "Blade," "Potion," "Ghost," and "Thestral" in their usernames. Top four Ravenclaws have "Flame," "Mist," "Sky," and "Ash". I got Slytherin (which is fine, because I'm a total Slytherin), and mine has both "Wormwood" and "Midnight". A friend who also got Slytherin has "Nox". So if she has a username that seems...dark, I think that might be what tipped her over.

I say she should register again when it opens up to everyone, and try to choose something more ethereal and nature-y as her username.

By Anonymous Scarlettb, at October 10, 2011 at 2:03 AM  

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