Hey, Harry Potter fans! Here’s how you can take online classes at Hogwarts — for real

You may still be waiting for your letter from Hogwarts, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get a jump on your wizarding education while social distancing due to the coronavirus.

Harry Potter’s alma mater is offering free online classes.

Web developer Keith Cardin launched the website Hogwarts is Here — a massive open online course — in 2014, The Washington Post reported.

“A group of creative, passionate Harry Potter fans got together and built an online, fully functioning Hogwarts where thousands of fans can come together, participate in online courses, earn House Points and so much more,” the site says. “It’s Real for Us - and it’ll feel real to you, too. Welcome to HiH.”

The website resembles online learning portals and libraries of muggle academic institutions and offers courses such as Charms, Herbology and Defense Against the Dark Arts for students years one through seven.

Each course has a number of modules. For instance, Potions is compromised of classes on vocabulary, tools and cures and features a mid-term and final exam.

Sound like the classes of your dreams? Signing up is easy.

Use your email address to make an account on HiH then choose whether you’re a Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

You’ll earn points for your house by completing homework assignments — one point for every 10% of an assignment you complete, the website says.

Students will receive grades and promotions to the next year of schooling. They can even apply to be Head Boy/Girl and professors’ assistants.

Since the onset of the virus, the HiH teams says they’ve seen an increase in traffic, ultimately taking time offline to help tune up the system to better keep up with the influx of visitors, they said in a Facebook post.

“The absolutely staggering amount of witches and wizards on the site is amazing, but we’re definitely feeling the strain,” the April 9 post said. “We’re working on our servers to cope with the extreme traffic, but as more and more people keep joining, things may be a bit slow over this weekend… and it seems that Peeves is loving all the attention and wreaking even more havoc than usual.”

By Saturday, the site was back up and running.

You can start your Hogwarts journey here.

This story was originally published April 12, 2020 at 9:55 AM with the headline "Hey, Harry Potter fans! Here’s how you can take online classes at Hogwarts — for real."