Harry Potter is a series of books and films that will live on in infamy for children growing up in the early 2000s. Wands, owls and magic are all key to the success of the franchise.

One of the more underrated parts of the franchise may be its mythical sport, Quidditch. Point Park’s Campus Activities Board (CAB) decided that it was time for students to indulge in the sport themselves.

CAB member Leah Sero helped to put on the event and, not to her surprise, it was a success.

“The turnout was much larger than last year, but all that we were concerned about was the students that did come, had fun,” Sero said.

CAB offered events on three different floors of the Student Center last Tuesday. One floor was a snack lounge with a Harry Potter theme that served the signature “Butterbeer” from the franchise (non-alcoholic, of course).

Another floor offered a picture station where students could gather with friends and take a picture with various items related to Harry Potter.

Students also had the opportunity to search for six horcruxes, items from the movie that were significant to the plot. The main villain of the film hid his soul in six random items, and the only way to defeat him was to find and destroy the horcruxes that housed those parts of his soul.

In this case however, students were tasked with finding the items on a sort of scavenger hunt. Prizes were awarded to those who were able to find all the horcruxes.

The grand stage was on the 5th floor where CAB members turned the ordinary basketball court into a Quidditch arena. Three goals were set up on opposite ends of the gym, labeled with 10, 20 and 30. Teams were ideally set up with seven players, but some teams only managed to get five or six participants.

For hours students raced back and forth, up and down with brooms between their legs, trying to score on their opponents. At one point, a Point Park police officer even joined in for a game.

Students could either take a forward, bludger or chaser position. The forwards were tasked with scoring, bludgers were charged with throwing gray dodgeballs at opponents in order to freeze them for 15 seconds and chasers had to chase the golden snitch.

The snitch was a random individual who wore golden shorts and was allowed to run anywhere in the student center. The first chaser to catch the snitch won the entire game for the team. If the snitch was not caught, the team with the higher score at the end of 15 minutes won.

This event marks a third straight year of Quidditch for CAB, and this year’s event shows promise for next year.

“Quidditch was a really fun event because it only happens once a year at Point Park,” junior Nicholas Poprocky said. “CAB lets kids geek out about Harry Potter and play a competitive sport at the same time, and I just thought it was a unique experience.”

Several students participated in as many games of Quidditch as they could, with no surprise that the event succeeded with how popular Harry Potter is with young people and CAB was very proud of their staff for putting on the event.

“The event was great,” Sero said. “Morgan Sealy chaired it and did a fantastic job of making each floor a different experience for the students.” 

Sealy herself was thoroughly impressed with the event as well.

“I thought the event went really well,”  Sealy said.  “It seemed that everyone who came really enjoyed themselves, even when they were struggling to find the horcruxes. I’m really glad at how the event turned out overall.”