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Arts & Entertainment

Students Find Slice of Hogwarts at Golden Valley Arts School

At Arts High School, a student-led Harry Potter Club bonds students around a common obsession.

While Harry Potter mania is sweeping the nation with the recent release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, a group of Golden Valley students from Arts High School keep the world of Hogwarts alive every week.

The club, which meets Mondays from 12-1 p.m., celebrates Harry Potter in inventive and exuberant fashion.

Junior Ellen Anderson established the club because of her love for the books.  Perpich allows students to create any club they want as long as they find a faculty sponsor. Anderson wanted to make a club that she could relate to, that would be fun, and would create a way to make new friends around a common bond.

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"I was surprised there would be so many people who loved Harry Potter," Anderson said. "It's fun because there's no where else we can be obsessive of Harry Potter and not get made fun of." 

And obsessive they are. The classroom where their meetings take place transforms, in their imaginations, into the very world of Harry Potter. Students stroll around in black wizards capes, casting spells with wooden wands. They wear ties and old-world keys around their necks because they look "Harry Potter-ish."  They practice their British accents and quote lines from the story—phrases that sound much like inside jokes to those unfamiliar with the world.

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The only quiet moment comes when Shelli Erdman, the club vice president, begins a dramatic reading from the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The students sit entranced, listening to her read a scene in which one of the characters had to overcome his insecurities to destroy a magical locket.

The students bond over Harry Potter because they feel connected to it in many ways.

"It's a common interest thing, like a generation thing," said Riley LinDell, one of only three boys in the club. "The biggest thing is that Harry ages in real time, so we age at the same time he does."

Mary Harding, a Perpich dance instructor, agreed that students seem to relate to the character of Harry Potter well. 

"Extreme interests in art probably made them outsiders at their other schools," Harding said. "The sense of not fitting in in Harry Potter helps students identify.  Maybe their letter to Perpich was like Harry's letter to Hogwarts."

A recent student trivia game was an easy reminder of just how much these students embraced and valued Harry Potter. It was clear they know the stories backwards and forwards.

"The trivia game is so trivial," said Kevyn Burger, Communications Director at Perpich.  It was apparent even in the characters they chose to dress up as: One student was dressed as a sister of a secondary character.

"Their whole childhood is entwined with this story," Burger explained.  "Their voice, when describing things, their framework, is this story. They come together and out it pours.  It's a coming of age story, and they're now coming of age."

Though this most recent movie is the beginning of the end of the Harry Potter movies, the spirit of Harry Potter—of overcoming one's insecurities and embracing one's destiny—will live on.

At least at this Golden Valley high school.

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