As with many students, Harry Potter was a lifelong obsession that started young for the pair. Dallaire read the books when she a child, but didn’t realize how deep and involved the culture was until recently.

“Then I realized just how much of it is sharing. The cool part about Harry Potter is just how much it is shared and how much you can continue to share it,” she said. “So my senior year of high school the very last movie came out, and I thought that was very much a good bookend to my Harry Potter life. This is the end, this is when I start my adult life. Little did I know.”

Their research abroad consisted of examining fan interaction in three physical spaces, and three online spaces. The physical spaces being Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling wrote most of Harry Potter, the WB Studio’s Tour and Platform 9 ¾ in King’s Cross Station.

“It was to see the difference in how fans react in spaces dedicated specifically to the book, specifically to the movie, and to both, like 9 ¾.” Dallaire said.

Elephant House, in particular, was a favorite between the two.

“We knew through the fan grapevine that there was kind of a shrine dedicated to J.K. Rowling, and Harry Potter there,” Turner said. “In the bathroom there, you walk in and it is just covered in love notes, and book quotes, and little scribbles and drawings.” 

Even the sinks, toilets, and ceiling were covered by fans leaving their mark.

For online spaces, they examined Mugglenet.com, the-leaky-cauldron.org and an online blog where fans recruited other fans to create original content.

“It was really more in depth than other fan blogs we’ve seen. They had probably seven members and you had to apply and create original content every week,” Turner said. “It was very much like an internship or a job, where you had to have the skills to keep up with that content and be part of that culture.”

Participation, they quickly realized, was an important part of a space. They went on a tour around London of places where the movies filmed, and came back disappointed. 

After they reflected on the reasons why, they realized that compared to events where they could lead their own experience, tours and commercialized components didn’t have the same depth.

Their research will be presented at the annual University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) in May, under the title "Harry Potter Fandom and Participatory Memory." Both said theyare excited to start showing off their research, especially in a formal setting.

“We’re going to be in the humanities room, but we’re going to be in the same building as people who do science ... And we did ours on Harry Potter. It’s such a cool thing to say we spent a year researching Harry Potter,” Dallaire said.