Harry Potter website adds Google magic

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. AP

SAN FRANCISCO – Author J.K. Rowling’s website devoted to fictional wizard Harry Potter will feature a bit of Google magic when it debuts later this year in the United States, according to the Internet titan.

Rowling’s beloved Potter titles will be available on Google eBooks platform at Pottermore.com and Google Checkout will be the preferred payment system, according to Larissa Fontaine of Google Books new business development.

“When you buy a Harry Potter ebook from Pottermore, you will be able to choose to keep it in your Google Books library in-the-cloud, as well as on other e-reading platforms,” Fontaine said Wednesday in a blog post.

The Pottermore team reportedly plans to use Google-owned video sharing service YouTube for online broadcasts.

“Pottermore and Google are teaming up to integrate Pottermore with a number of Google products,” Fontaine said. “Stay tuned for more Pottermore and Google wizardry on the web.”

In June, Rowling unveiled an interactive website featuring new material about the boy wizard’s world, while his adventures will also now be sold as e-books for the first time.

The free website, www.pottermore.com, will go live from July 31 for one million Potter fans who pass a special online challenge, and to the general public from October.

The seven e-books will be available through the website from October in partnership with Sony.

Rowling said Potter fans will be able to register on the free website using one of the young sorcerers from the books as their online identity, then play games and interact with elements of the fictional world.

The site will also have previously unpublished material that she has written on the backgrounds to the characters and their lives at Hogwarts Academy, a fictional school for young wizards.

The author laid down her pen — and Harry’s magic wand — when she finished the seventh book in 2007, with a stunning record of 400 million copies of the series sold around the world.