Project Potter
A North Georgia college class takes an encyclopedic view of our hero Harry

Dahlonega — Sure, he could have found wizard wands on the Internet or at the novelty shop. But that wasn't magic enough for Brian Jay Corrigan and the class he calls "Harry Potter and the Legion of Night."

"I carved these myself," the English professor said, pointing to the array of gnarly sticks atop the minifridge in his office at North Georgia College and State University.

Now he has another carving job ahead of him: whittling hundreds of thousands of his students' words into the Encyclopedia of Harry Potter.

Who says Potter books have to stop just because J.K. Rowling says she won't write any more of them?

As the world awaits the final installment of the Potter saga Friday night, Corrigan and his students are collaborating on what they believe will be the first definitive reference book on all things Harry. They're eager to get their hands on the new volume so they can feed it into the maw of academic inquiry.

"I've never taught a course where I didn't know how it would end," said Corrigan, a Renaissance literature scholar whose boyish bangs and owlish glasses give him a vaguely Potterish look.

Corrigan warned prospective students that while the class would be fun, it wouldn't be some summer camp for fans. He figured it would require as many as 50 hours a week of homework. The idea was to produce the raw material for an encyclopedia that he'll finish after the course ends next month. A published author whose debut novel ("The Poet of Loch Ness") has won several literary awards, he hopes to have a manuscript and publisher by Christmas.

Despite the warnings of hard work ahead, more than 125 students applied. Corrigan picked 44 of them.

"This is the biggest literary phenomenon of our lifetime, and we wanted to be in the middle of it," said Kaleigh Mulderig, a senior at Reinhardt College in Waleska who arranged to take the class as a transient student.

On Tuesday, a dozen students demonstrated their devotion by showing up hours before class to research encyclopedia entries in a temporary library set up for the project. Known as the "room of requirements," it's stocked with hundreds of books on relevant subjects like folklore, British slang and child psychology. On a table in the middle of the room stood Lego models of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, created from descriptions in the novels.

Most of the students wore custom-made golf shirts emblazoned with logos they had created for the four houses of Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

On the first day of class, they chose which house they would belong to by drawing marbles from a wizard's hat. Since then, the students seem to have assumed the character traits members of their houses exhibit in the Potter books and movies.

Take the Hufflepuffs.

"We're kind of like Care Bears," explained Jessica Howie, a graduate student from Cumming. "We hang out together and have sleepovers, and we all have nicknames."

"I'm Snugglepuff!" one of her colleagues volunteered.

"I'm Cutiepuff!" another chimed in.

"I'm Craftypuff!" a third announced.

Corrigan couldn't suppress a smirk. "It takes you back to the days of the Smurfs, doesn't it?"

Once a week, the houses take to the field for quidditch, the game Harry and his mates play as they swoop around on brooms. Corrigan wrote a 39-page rule book for the earthbound version, which is a cross between hockey, ultimate Frisbee and Trivial Pursuit. He also improvised equipment that includes foam baseball bats from Wal-Mart and hoop goals made of irrigation tubing.

Two hundred spectators turned out for last week's match. Afterwards, a player for Slytherin told a TV reporter that his team, known for its dark and devious ways, was leading the competition. The scoreboard outside Corrigan's office tells a different story: Slytherin is in last place.

"They'll say anything," Corrigan said.

On Tuesday, the students held a different sort of competition. After all the Potter patter of class was done, they repaired to the alumni house for the Mr. and Miss Hogwarts Pageant. Over tea and scones, contestants displayed their talents —- dancing, fortune-telling, singing "I Put a Spell on You."

Two of the four entrants for Mr. Hogwarts were actually misses. Potterists call that sort of thing transfiguration; Muggles, as the nonmagic populace is known, might call it cross-dressing.

On Friday night, the class plans to hit the Barnes & Noble near North Point Mall for the midnight release of the seventh and last in Rowling's series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

A few of the students believe Harry will die.

"She killed Dumbledore. She'll kill him," predicted senior Jason Barnaby, adding that Rowling is European and that explains everything.

But most of the students — and their instructor — disagree.

"If Harry died," Corrigan said, "she'd be signaling to children that evil triumphs over good."

Besides, there's the franchise to think of.

The professor pointed out that Universal has announced plans for a Harry Potter theme park in Orlando. "You can't build a theme park," he said sensibly, "if Mickey is dead."

Harry and his world

In his syllabus for the course, North Georgia College and State University professor Brian Jay Corrigan gave several (abbreviated) examples of the kinds of entries that would be in the Encyclopedia of Harry Potter:

> Hogsmeade. A village located south of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where the Hogwarts Express terminates.

> Hogwarts Express. A "steam locomotive of vast proportions with a red engine" that transports Hogwarts students from King's Cross Station to Hogsmeade.

> King's Cross Station. Main London train station serving the north of England and Scotland. This is where, on Platform 9 3/4, the Hogwart Express takes students to Hogwarts.

> Nearly Headless Nick. Greets the Gryffindors in the Great Hall.