Pottermore: Two Days Left? Could Be One For Some

It’s Day 6, and maybe Day 7 of the Pottermore Magical Quill Challenge.

Day 6 and 7? Yep, at least according to the Pottermore Insider, the official Pottermore blog.

For those keeping track, the sixth challenge will focus on the sixth book: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a darker tale than the ones that came before it. According to the blog, have your copy of the book at your disposal between 8:30 – 11 a.m. today, Friday, Aug. 5, as that is the timeframe in which the next clue is expected to be posted on Pottermore.com.

If you miss that opportunity and you live in the Eastern Standard Time zone of the US your final chance might come later today. The Pottermore blog is reporting that the Day 7 clue (from the seventh and final book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) will be posted between 12:30 – 3 a.m. British Summer Time on Saturday, Aug. 6. For those of us who live on the East Coast of the United States (five hours behind our peers in London), we will have the final opportunity to get a quill between 7:30 and 10 tonight, Friday, Aug. 5

A little help from some friends:

Confused about how to submit your answer and then how to find the quills? Several Web sites, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages have been dedicated to notifying people when the challenge has been posted and even offering up the answer.

Here are just a few of the ones that have been recommended by readers or discovered by Patch editors:

• Potter for the People
• Pottermore Field Guide
• Mugglenet (also found on Twitter @mugglenet)
• @Pottermore

When you answer the question correctly you might not be sent back to the Pottermore registration page. Instead, you might find yourself on another site altogether. If this is the case, look for a banner-style Pottermore advertisement. You’ll eventually see a bunch of quills floating through the ad. Find the magical quill (it will look different from the others), click on it and the link should take you to the Pottermore registration page.

If the site is swamped you might just bypass the whole “find the quill” game and be sent directly to register.

Some words of caution:

While many Potter fans are ecstatic about the chance of gaining early acceptance into Pottermore, nearly just as excited could be those who hope to illegally or immorally capitalize on the readership’s adrenalin rush.

Several blogs, including the Pottermore Insider and the GFI Labs Blog, are warning against scammers who are trying to make a profit off the free registration service, in addition to infecting your computer with a virus.

In an Aug. 4 post on The Register, an online technology publication in the United Kingdom, the writer warns that “cyber-tricksters” are hawking Pottermore accounts or offering to pre-register Potter fans for a fee, according to information from net security firm GFI Software.

(A quick check of E-Bay late Thursday night did not yield any opportunities to purchase registered accounts, but did offer an opportunity to spend about $5 on a 2011 Comic Con Harry Potter Pottermore sticker.)

The official Pottermore Insider blog reminds users that “access to Pottermore is, and always will be, completely free…”

Don’t let a fun experience be ruined by those who are practiced in the dark arts.