“Shut up, Malfoy!” Eileen yelled at Spring in an obnoxious attempt at a British accent, while barely holding in her laughter.
This January, in the dark-pitched alleyways of the Indiana Jones Adventure attraction at Disneyland, we found a mutual love in spewing out our favorite lines from the “Harry Potter” franchise.
As we scared our friends and received worried and judgmental looks from nearby adults, we pranced through Main Street U.S.A., yelling lines like “Wingardium LeviOsa,” and “Give it here, Malfoy!” Soon, we were singing the repetitive “Harry Potter Puppet Pals” song from YouTube and enlisting our friends as a capella backup voices.
As little kids, and now as high school juniors, we have always have been fascinated with the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where Harry, Ron and Hermione learn various spells and battle with the Death Eaters, the followers of the infamous Lord Voldemort. Minutes after the Pottermore website went public on April 14, 2012, we completed the Sorting Hat quiz — Spring is a reluctant Hufflepuff while Eileen is a proud Gryffindor — then brewed potions and casted charms. As of now, we are currently counting down the days until the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens at Universal Studios on April 7.
But when author J.K. Rowling announced last month on Pottermore that there are three new wizarding schools that have previously been unknown to both Muggles — people who lack any sort of magical ability — and wizards, everything changed. Aside from the several known schools situated in Europe, she introduced Mahoutokoro in Japan, Castelobruxo in Brazil and Uagadou in Uganda.
The new wizarding schools shocked us, as we have only familiarized and associated wizarding schools with Europe. Castelbruxo is located in the Amazon forest and excels in Herbology, the study of magical plants and how to utilize them, and Magizoology, the study of magical creatures. Uagadou students can cast spells with just their fingers and often transform into lions and cheetahs.
Apparently, according to a BuzzFeed quiz, we both belong at Mahoutokoro, not at Hogwarts with the rest of the Harry Potter crew. In Mahoutokoro, young wizards attend school at an extravagant jade palace on a volcanic island and wear magical robes that change color from faint pink to gold according to the levels of academic success.
Having experienced the academic rigor and inevitable stress of junior year at SHS, both of us have serious concerns about the GPA-branding robes. Who knows what misfortune would befall our future valedictorian in the hallways?
Also, although students are accepted to Mahoutokoro starting age 7, students under 11 cannot stay at the school overnight and must fly back or return to their homes on a daily basis. There is also no Hogsmeade, no Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes Emporium and essentially no Harry Potter — leaving us with no motivation to leave our routine lives as Muggles and hope for owls to deliver Mahoutokoro-embossed envelopes on our doorsteps.
Even though we are avid Potterheads, we must admit that these three new schools have missed the mark for us; they are unnecessary and actually detract from the original magic of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We can only hope that the upcoming two-part play written by Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” (to be published on July 31 and performed at the Palace Theatre London) and film “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” (premiering on Nov. 18) adapted from Rowling’s novel about magical creatures, will add to our ongoing list of memorable quotes.
In the meantime, however, if you hear a random “Bloody brilliant!” or “Yer a wizard, Harry” echoing through the halls, you can assume it’s coming from one of us.