Jurevics told The Bookseller: “When Pottermore first started, it was positioned for the next generation of readers, and that next generation was almost by default tagged to be children. So the current site gamified the content, making it very simplistic in terms of collecting things and casting spells. That was appropriate for children, but that wasn’t actually the core audience.” Jurevics said that the user base was “overwhelmingly young adult and female”, something she discovered “pretty quickly” once she joined the firm in October 2013 from Sony, where she was senior vice-president, responsible for the company’s marketing.

The relaunch also reflected technological advancements in the way users now access content sites, Jurevics said: “From a technology point of view, when Pottermore was designed and conceived the iPad had not yet been launched, and the population didn’t yet sleep with their phones on. The current Pottermore is really a laptop or desktop experience and that type of usage is going away.”The new site will be smartphone-first to reflect this “fundamental change in user behaviour”, with content designed for touchscreens and swiping.

She said: “[J K Rowling] finds these corollaries in the real world and evolves the magical world through a lot of the new writing, for example when she created the Quidditch World Cup.

For the first time, the site’s content will be made available to search engines and indexed, with additional content derived from numerous sources including filmmaker Warner Bros and other franchisees. Rafferty said the company was also “working closely” with original publisher Bloomsbury, which in October will release the first fully illustrated edition of the Harry Potter series, with drawings by Jim Kay. Pottermore will now provide greater opportunities for other franchisees to market their own Harry Potter-related content, Jurevics stated. Pottermore will also have its own editorial team, led by Rafferty, in order to establish Pottermore as what she described as “the digital heart of the wizarding world”, with content “shareable and listicle”. There will also be greater opportunities for Rowling to add more content more visibly. Rafferty said: “We want to give [the fans] more and we are now able to get this to them faster. It will become a real hub of information—and the authentic heart.”