Yep, even though the kids have neither read the books nor seen the movies, they are now completely absorbed with all things wizard. It started with mild curiosity about Harry Potter because of a mug I've drunk out of for years with Hagrid and the kids on it, the calendar and books I got for Christmas, the fact that Mama and I sent to see the movie, and especially the names of our cats, Albus and Hermione. But it exploded when they built the Hogwarts Castle out of Legos with Mama this weekend and have since been allowed to play with it.
And so they make up stories, knowing that the characters are magic and there are bad guys. In fact, I've explained it in Star Wars terms and have been struck by how superficially similar they are: Harry is Luke, Hermione is Leia, Ron is Han, Dumbledore is Obi-Wan, Voldemort is Vader, Death Eaters and Dementors are stormtroppers. The hero gets help from his friends to protect good and defeat evil while learning more about himself, his parents, and the past as well as experiencing devastating losses in the process, generally.
I've told them the colorful bits of the wizarding world, about owls and Quidditch, potions and the Cloak of Invisibility. But I'm trying not to share the "secrets" of the HP narrative because I don't want to ruin the books for them in advance (and I won't mention those here because at least one of my friends is still working her way through all the books!). The kids are free to make up their own stories based on what they know, which has had some funny results. For instance, in their HP world, Prof. Flitwick is a major character!
I realized this morning that Harry Potter has entered the canon of their play because the house is now different parts of the castle (the kitchen is the Great Hall, our room is Dumbledore's office) and we are now characters. I'm McGonagall, Sis is Harry (yes, she loves being the hero), and Bud is Hermione (who in this case is very interested in astronomy because the Lego castle has a telescope). We've just had Transfiguration class, where the students learned to transform themselves into animals (after learning how to change the colors of scarves and then change the scarves into small animals), and then we were attacked by some Dementors, whom we fought off with spells (which I am half remembering from the book, including "expelliarmus" and "transfiguro," which I made up). Right now, Harry is wandering around in his Cloak looking for the Sorcerer's Stone, a rainbow-colored kooshball, to help us defeat Voldemort.
Must get back to it because we're going to play Wizard's Checkers . . . .
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