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Despite the huge success of the Harry Potter books abroad, or the promise of a Christmas release of the first movie adaptation, when the fan club Indo Harry Potter first came into being on Oct. 1, 2001, it only had two members. Three books and many movies later, the group now boasts a membership of over 5,000, with about 500 of them from Jakarta.

“A friend at the office read the book with her kid,” said Eduardi Prahara, 39, one of the club’s founders. “She liked it a lot and recommended it to me.”

Eduardi said the book appealed to him because it has the adventure and food descriptions found in Enid Blyton’s “Famous Five” series, combined with magic.

“After I read it myself, I was hooked. I wanted to be able to discuss it with other fans. Hence the group,” he said.

Later, after the first movie “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone” made a sizable splash, bringing the series to the attention of millions of Indonesians, the club began to draw new members. With the Internet not nearly as common then as it is now, most new members came from the ranks of college students and corporate employees who were online on a regular basis.

“It was this fact that first intrigued me about the group,” said Anne Mariane, 33, one of the group’s current moderators, who first learned of the local group when she googled Harry Potter fan club in Indonesia. “Harry Potter is a children’s book. And yet this group had a lot of adult members.”

The ratio had since changed as more school-aged fans joined when older members dropped away. “The older ones tend to become less active in the group after they meet offline. They figure they can always send SMS or chat on [instant] messenger,” Mariane said.

She added that adult members differ from the younger fans in that most came to love the series from reading the books. “The younger children usually don’t read all of the books but love the movies.” She noted, though, that younger members are now more apt to post on the group’s mailing list. “Back when the group was new, they were too shy to even introduce themselves.”

Anne said she welcomed the development, as younger members are usually eager to participate in group events, which have grown more elaborate with each offline meeting.

“When there were only a few of us coming to offline meetings we held every three or four months, all we did was sit, chat and eat.”

But with more enthusiastic newcomers joining with higher expectations, the core members had to come up with ways to spice up the events. “Starting from the fifteenth offline meeting in 2005, we designed the program to have a more adventurous flavor to it.”

Offline meetings are usually held outdoors now and participants can wear specially designed T-shirts and take part in games such as a non-wizard (known as Muggles) version of Quidditch, where players clutch broomsticks and trying to score goals while keeping an eye out for the Golden Snitch, a quick-footed person who wears golden, winged headgear. Catching the Snitch means an instant win and games have sometimes ended in a pile of bodies atop the winged target.

Tommy Noviar Asgar, 23, joined the group in 2005 after reading about it in a film magazine article on the fourth movie. Living in Samarinda in Borneo, Tommy said he knew plenty of Potter fans in the city who would line up for a new Rowling book before the bookstore even opened or for a ticket to a new movie the day before the premiere. “But none of them are as crazy as I am [about the series],” he said.

“Indo Harry Potter is beyond my expectations,” said Tommy, whose favorite character is Hermione Granger, because of her wavy hair. He first met other members of the group at an event called Chasing Harry Potter, an Amazing Race-like competition held by the series publisher in Indonesia the night the seventh book was released in Indonesian.

“And I won first place,” Tommy said, recalling the night he netted millions of rupiah in cash plus other gifts, including a copy of the book worth more than Rp 100,000 ($10). “It was worth the plane ticket from Samarinda to Jakarta.”

Tommy and many other club members joined because they wanted to meet other fans of the Potter stories who know the spells, where to buy wands and what magical creatures to avoid. Some turned to the group because their families did not share their passion for Potter. Herda Aprilia, 22, a Draco Malfoy fan who became a member after she saw the club featured on the Breakfast Club program on Metro TV, said her family is opposed to her enthusiasm for the series she has loved since 1999. “They’d say, ‘Why are you so fond of that fictional work? It’s so unrealistic. Better read something more true to life.’ ”

Dian Achdiani, 39, a mother of three from Bandung who first read the books in 2001 to make sure they were suitable for her children, said at times her husband is not so happy about her Indo Harry Potter activities. A passionate writer of fanfiction — stories that borrow the setting, characters and plots of the books or films — Dian said that at best her husband laughs at her stories, but at worst they have quarreled over her neglecting household chores to write about Severus Snape, her favorite character.

But just like Harry who at last finds a home at Hogwarts, neither Herda nor Dian are inclined to abandon the club. The group, after all, has scheduled a special viewing of the latest movie, “Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince,” on July 19 where the audience of mostly club members can wear their wizards’ robes, win merchandise and meet fellow fans.

The only fan club member who named Harry as their favorite character was Eduardi.

“It all begins with him,” he said.

IndoHogwarts' Other Movie Plans

Another Indonesia-based group of fans are also organizing their own private viewing of the new “Harry Potter” movie.
Linda Liang, 24, co-founder of the Internet-based role-playing writing forum IndoHogwarts.co.nr, which also has two other sites, said the group initially had no special plans to welcome the sixth movie in the series. “We usually just go to the [Indo Harry Potter] movie screenings,” she said.

But this year, they were unable to book seats for the IHP event so they decided to organize their own.

“This is the second time members of IndoHogwarts from Bandung have organized a special viewing of a ‘Harry Potter’ movie,” Linda said. “So two days ago, those of us in Jakarta agreed to do the same at Blitzmegaplex in Mall of Indonesia [Kelapa Gading] on July 19.”

In May, the IndoHogwarts forum grabbed the attention of the Indonesian literary community. It received the 2009 World Book Day Literacy Award for promoting reading. Members have also created interactive story arcs online, each acting as characters from “Harry Potter.”

“We’re still editing the stories. I hope we can complete them by the end of July so the book can go to the publisher by August. We want the book to be ready as a present for our members on IndoHogwarts’ anniversary in December,” Linda said.

The team that runs the IndoHogwarts forum picked and edited the stories for the book. “We haven’t told the members which story arcs were chosen. That way, when the book comes out and they see the stories and find the characters they created, it’ll come as a surprise.”

The online stories are set in the fictional magical school of Hogwarts from the novels. However, Linda said, due to copyright issues,
“We will set the book in an alternate universe. Our own magical world.”