Will the next set of COS Pottermore chapters be released July 20th?

After the first four chapters of Chamber of Secrets were released on Pottermore, we were told that the second of three sets of chapters would be released very shortly, however no time frame was specifically given to us fans.

My favorite theory is July 20th, though I feel like if they are breaking it into sections, they may be trying to spread the releases much further apart, possibly even a month between each release. Anyway, the reason July 20th sounds interesting is because we may have been given a clue already within the first four chapters! If you navigate to Chapter 3, moment #2 "The Burrow", you can see that the license plate on the car is labeled "COS 207". COS most likely stands for Chamber of Secrets, and 207 could represent 20/7 - or the 20th of July. Of course this could mean many things, or it could mean nothing at all. Maybe it means something else that might of importance, but not the release date.

I guess we'll just have to wait to find out.

De-gnoming the Garden - Tips for Pottermore Chamber of Secrets

While I'm not a fan of minigames on Pottermore, it seems many people are having trouble de-gnoming the garden, which I believe is required to move onto chapter 4. I'm here to share some tips on mastering this Pottermore Chamber of Secrets minigame, though I myself have not mastered it.

Tip #1: Release the gnome at the right point. This is the top tip, because without it, your gnome won't get over the hedge. If you are throwing a gnome from the back of the garden, you want to release the gnome just after it passes being perpendicular to the ground, as shown in figure 1. In figure 2, we see that as you throw a gnome from the middle of the garden, you want to release it a little further past being perpendicular to the ground, but not much further. And in figure 3, when throwing from the front of the garden, you want to release even further after being perpendicular. You might think releasing when perpendicular would shoot it straight into the wall, but by the time you actually let go of the mouse, it will end up with perfect timing.

figure 1

figure 2

figure 3

Tip #2: Only throw gnomes from the middle of the garden. Unless you are a pro and can thrown any gnomes perfectly, you'll find that throwing from the front will often end up in hitting the wall and from the back will not end too well either. Right in the middle keeps you closer to the wall, but not too close.

Tip #3: Grab the gnome from the air above it's head. You'll find that you don't actually need to grab the gnomes body, but you can actually grab the air around it. The place that you grab ends up being the place where the gnome's feet spin around. In order to be most successful, grab the gnome a bit higher than it's head- this will make the center of rotation higher, meaning the release point it higher, which means your gnome has a higher chance of making it over the garden wall. This can also be used when throwing gnomes from the front or back of the garden, For example. If throwing a gnome from the front of the garden, grab the air directly to the top-left corner above the gnome. This means the center of rotation and release points will not only be higher, but will be a bit to the left, so you won't hit into the wall as easily. When throwing from the back of the garden, do the same thing, but from the left. Basically, move the gnome as close to the center and as high as possible before throwing it!

Those are three simple tips, and I hope they make your de-gnoming process much more enjoyable. With enough practice, you'll be a de-gnoming master!

My Review of Chamber of Secrets on Pottermore [Chapters 1-4]

I've just finished exploring the first four chapters of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on Pottermore. The next set of chapters will be opening within the next few weeks, and tomorrow everybody will be able to buy their second year school books in Diagon Alley.

The first thing I'd like to mention is a slightly changed art style. In Chamber of Secrets, the art style seems to vary from chapter to chapter, unless it's just going a bit crazy (that has been known to happen!). Correct me if I'm wrong, but some (not very many) of the moments seem to lack a certain sharpness or level of detail that moments in the first book had. There are many exceptions to this- Borgin and Burkes, for example, is on par with the detail of the first book. But other moments fall a bit short of detail- don't get me wrong, they still look amazing and don't take away from the experience- I'm merely being a critic. For example, if we look at"The Egg in the Fire" from Philospher's Stone, and then we look at "Floo Powder" from Chamber of Secrets, the loss of detail is definitely noticeable. But if we look at "The Magic Word" from Chamber of Secrets, the level of detail has been greatly increased from the similar scene in Philosopher's Stone. I really like how in this scene, you can go through the front door. It may be simple, but it really adds to how normal and ordinary the Dursley's want to be seen as. Overall, however, I liked the higher level of detail that was put into Philosopher's Stone, which made the experience more fun to explore. That said, there seems to be many more hidden items in the Chamber of Secrets Moments.

The sound for Pottermore deserves it's own little paragraph here. Although Pottermore added sound to book 1, that happened after I went through it for the first time. Going through Chamber of Secrets (or the first four chapters, at least) with sound made the experience much more enjoyable, and I'm sure it would be very interesting to read along to the sound! The sound has been done very well and makes each moment much more dynamic.

Throughout the wait for book 2 to open on Pottermore, I have been very excited to see The Burrow. Many of my favorite chapters throughout the series take place at The Burrow. The Weasley residence is always full of interesting magic and it's always the place where we see the story happen without all of the drama and darkness of the rest of the wizarding world. Thus, I was very disappointed when I went though the three moments of Chapter 3, "The Burrow". The first moment was interesting, seeing Hedwig was cool, and Vernon's animation and sound effects made me laugh. The second moment, however, was a letdown (for me at least). Seeing the flying car is neat, but I would have loved to see a more in depth look at the Weasley home, because it only gets a very blurry spot in the moment. Hopefully my wish will come true sometime in Pottermore history. the third moment isn't really a moment, but more of a mini game for De-gnoming the Weasley garden. While I think minigames are better off in their own section, apart from the Pottermore storyline, I don't think Pottermore will listen to me. They really should, because I would much rather have an interesting moment to look at than a mini game. I started playing it, and found it to be tricky and slightly addicting. It's sort of buggy and could be redesigned to be more fun, but overall it wasn't that bad. However, it doesn't actually count towards any house points or anything, which makes it sort of useless in my opinion. There could have at least been some sort of leaderboard to see how you rank against your friends, but there isn't. Once again, I would much rather have 3 interesting moments than 2 moments and a relatively boring minigame.

Come on Pottermore, I want to experience the magic of The Burrow!

I'm not going to discuss the content, because you can experience it for yourself (and you have probably already done so), but I really like the content thus far. It's lengthy and interesting. The best thing would be if there were content on each and every moment, because we know tons of content exists that JKR hasn't shared with us, but it seems that we only ever get content on a few select topics for each book. I wish that wasn't the case, but the fact is that when content is shown from JKR, it's really, really interesting content.

One thing worth mentioning is that I really liked the moment with Dobby in Harry's bedroom. That was probably one of the more interesting moments in the book, just for the art alone!

Come on Pottermore, I want more info about The Burrow, the Weasley's, house elves, and Borgin and Burkes!

While I may have some negative things to say, I'm still a great fan of Chamber of Secrets, and I really like it a lot, especially since we've only seen 4 of the 18 chapters, which we're all very excited to see. I'm also fan of releasing the book in sections, so we don't all complete the whole book in a few hours.
If I were running Pottermore, I would do some things very differently, but overall, I give the first four chapters of Chamber of Secrets my approval!

Please post your thoughts and comments below. Am I being too harsh or do you agree with some of things I've mentioned?

Slytherin House to get Chamber of Secrets Early Access

The Pottermore Insider Blog has announced the Slytherin house will get a 24 hour Early Access to Chamber of Secrets on Pottermore. This will only be available to Slytherins who who made their account before the house cup was announced. Here's the notification Slytherin's are currently getting on their Pottermore accounts



Thanks to @PaulDomalaon for the image!

Slytherin wins Inaugural Pottermore House Cup!

Congratulations to Slytherin house for taking first place in the Inaugural Pottermore House Cup, followed in a very close second by Gryffindor, as well as Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, which were very near in points as well. It's neat to know that one house doesn't dominate over the other three or that one isn't left behind. That means that the House Cup will always be fast paced and excited, which is great for everyone!

On the Pottermore Insider Blog, it was announced that Slytherin house would be further congratulated on the Insider Blog tomorrow, and Mugglenet is speculating that this will mean Slytherin will get a sneak peak at Chamber of Secrets. I personally don't think this is the case and I don't think it would be very fair, especially if Slytherin would get a head start on racking up points. In addition, spoilers would leak out to everyone eventually, and would ruin the experience for a lot of people. No one starts at Hogwarts early, so why should anyone start on Pottermore early? Of course the Beta was different because it was for everybody from all four houses.

I think the congratulations could maybe be a bonus on Pottermore, or maybe a little snippet of extra content relating to Slytherin house.

It's a Conspiracy

New Batch of Welcome Emails:

A new batch of welcome emails has just been sent out, according to Pottermore. They just announced it via tweet:

"We’re sending out another batch of Welcome emailshttp://ow.ly/66Jyh"

And the Pottermore Insider as well:

"UPDATE: Another batch of Welcome emails was sent out on Wednesday 24 August, at approximately 3:00pm (BST)." 

Did you get yours?