Harry Potter Fans Aim to Buy Their Own Hogwarts

So maybe us Muggles won't ever get a chance to attend Hogwarts, but the College of Wizardry's IndieGoGo campaign is helping us come close. This group of Harry Potter fans banded together to create a live-action role play universe, better known by its abbreviation as LARP, during a four-day wizard school event in a Polish castle. But with its new fundraising campaign, the College of Wizardry hopes to purchase a $1 million castle all of its own.

For four days, 130 Harry Potter and other wizardry fans gather together in Poland to attend their version of Hogwarts, called "Czocha College of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Though, keep in mind, this is unauthorized by J.K. Rowling and it will make no mention of Harry Potter characters, storylines, or names. Instead, it hopes to build its own real-life — depending on how you look at it — wizard school inspired by the book series. In a LARP, if you're not familiar, people wear costumes and pretend to be someone they are not. In this case, "students" dress up as wizards, witches, and even ghosts as they attend school at the Czocha College of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If you sign up to attend a session at the college, you can expect to do the following, according to the IndieGoGo campaign:

• Attend classes as a witch or wizard and learn the magical arts
• Be selected to represent one of the five ancient Houses of Czocha Castle
• Explore the castle and meet the magical creatures that roam the grounds
• Make new friends and form long lasting bonds with like-minded people
• Get into discussions, stir up shenanigans, and play games
• Perhaps even a little (in-character) romance?
• Spend 3 nights at a castle in Poland and have a once-in-a-lifetime adventure
• Breakfeast, lunch and dinner each day is of course included

And yes, before you ask: There is a tavern to enjoy beer, just like the Leaky Cauldron. Currently, these sessions take place at Czocha Castle in Poland, but if fans can raise $1 million, the College of Wizardry already has its eyes on a castle they can use entirely for themselves. A real-life Hogwarts.

Here's what the College of Wizardry has to say about it:

At this level of funding, we'll be able to buy an actual castle in Poland, so that we can do future events at our OWN freakin' castle. This will permit us to buy and refurbish a honest-to-Merlin castle in Poland. And if THAT happens, you can be sure that we'll be doing more awesome events in the future. Put simply, if we reach a million dollars, we're going to buy a castle and throw the craziest opening party ever.

This is not a drill. I know, I'm squealing, too.

The campaign has already raised more than $25,000 just since it opened on February 28, halfway to the first goal of $50,000, which would fund a College of Wizardry event this November that, yes, I am already looking into attending of course. That event would include the standard LARP, plus "boating sequences" and fireworks.

I mean, could this description of the Czocha College of Witchcraft and Wizardry be more awesome?

Imagine our world, just as it is today. Except that magic is real. The world of magic exists in the shadows of our own mundane world — undiscovered by billions, but known to the initiated. It’s a world of tradition and old bloodlines, of secrets and mysteries. It is a world of wise sorcerers, powerful witches, and dark-hearted conjurers.

OK, so let's all band together and see how quickly we can reach $1 million.

Images: College of Wizardry (2)