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Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery RPG promises magic

You can't play Harry in the mobile role-playing game, but you can build your own character, select your own house and master magical spells.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper

Harry who? "Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery," the upcoming free-to-play role-playing mobile game for Android and iOS based on J.K. Rowling's famed book series, is set in the years when the Boy Who Lived is too young for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. (This is good, because it means most of those beloved folks who die in the books are still around.)

More on Harry Potter

Instead of playing Harry or Hermione, players create their own characters who then enroll at Hogwarts. Your character dons the Sorting Hat, but it doesn't dictate your house, so if you've always longed to be in Slytherin, go for it. Once you've picked your house, it's on to studying under professors such as Snape and McGonagall, and mastering spells and potions.

A new trailer for the game, released Thursday, shows players get to make choices and build friendships to help them progress through the game. Extra points for sightings of many of the franchise's best characters, including Hagrid and Dumbledore.

There's no release date yet, but interested would-be witches and wizards can sign up to be notified once the game from Jam City launches.