I found out that fans that attended the LeakyCon 2011 were given a small clue on the Magical Quill's challenge. They sent emails to everyone who attended the conference. Turns out that the clue for the day is in Diagon Alley. Words spread out and somehow it made it to twitter, as can be seen Diagon Alley was trending for a few hours in Britain as well as Worldwide. As the Pottermore staff mentioned in their blog that in the course of 7 days, 7 different clues from the 7 books will be given. So, there's 7 chances for the fans to register. It's been rumoured that the clue will be up at 8 a.m. London time, which was 3 p.m. Malaysia time. So I've been refreshing and refreshing but nothing came up. Finally, at 4 something (I wasn't sure if the clue was up at 4pm sharp since I only refreshed the site at 4.16 ish), the clue was up and it asked, "How many breeds of owl are featured on the Eeylops Owl Emporium sign? Multiply this number by 49."
I have already opened my illegal Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ebook and already turned to the page of Diagon Alley before the clue was up. The answer was fairly easy. 5 types of owls times 49 equals to 245. To submit the answer, I have to add 245 at the end of the website link http://quill.pottermore.com/ so technically http://quill.pottermore.com/245 (Registration is closed so the link doesn't work anymore). And I was redirected to the Sony website and I was dismayed at how slow the flash file was loading and silently cursed at my rotten luck. Thankfully, my slow Internet managed to load finish and I was shown to a beautiful flash file where quills are floating around. Clueless on what to do next, I pressed randomly and it told me to find the quill or something (since I was too exhilarated, I don't exactly remember the exact words). At the same time, I was screaming my heads off in Facebook for my friend to quickly register. Anyways, I found a quill that was glowing in blue, different from the rest, so I suppose that was the Magical Quill. And I was right. Woohoo!!! Then I was redirected to the Pottermore site where I can register.
After registration, there's another page where it told me I'm magical, and my name is in the list, among Harry, Hermione and the others. That was so oddly satisfying, my inner child can't contain her excitement. ^_^ Then I had to choose my username from a list of horrible usernames. -.- Apparently, it's for child safety or something. Anyways, I opt for MistQuill64. Or something like that. And then it told me that I will be receiving an email soon to validate my account. Well, that went fairly well. ^_^
Unfortunately, my email didn't arrive immediately and I was anxious again. After seeing so many people not receiving their emails as well, I was more reassured. By the way, Magical Quill was trending Worldwide, and it seems that Errol was trending in Britain, as well as #pottermore. So proud of being the potterheads. XD
Few hours later, I finally received my verification email. I literally jumped when I saw the message popping that I received an email from Pottermore. I promptly click on the link to activate my account AND I'M OFFICIALLY DONE!!! XD However, I still do not know whether I'm one of the lucky one million fans that get to be the beta testers. Still keeping my fingers crossed about this. >.<
For those fans that didn't managed to register, (registration was only open for around 2 hours?), you still have 6 more chances. Also, today's clue was from the 1st book, so tomorrow's clue will be from the Chamber of Secrets, and the 3rd day will be from the 3rd book and so on. So do not despair!!! And I'm sure it won't be released at the same time like today to make it fair for other fans in other time zones. So keep the heads up!
All in all, it was a pretty fun experience. Though I'm a huge Potter fan, I was unable to join in discussions and stuff like this in the past due to the lack of Internet. So, this Pottermore thing kinda made up the experience of fans that get updates from J.K. Rowling's site whenever the new books are out.
More importantly, today is J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter's birthdays!!! I most definitely did not forget about this!!! Harry is 31 years old today. Hard to imagine lol.
Happy Birthday to J.K.Rowling for being the person who shaped my childhood, and also a Happy Happy Birthday to Harry Potter, for being my childhood friend. :)
I'm so proud to be a Potterhead. XP
P.S. I was writing this post in the mindset that it's 31st July. Please disregard the time of the post.
