Ask Elm (Vol 3)

Welcome to the third edition of Ask Elm. I’m getting lots of questions now! Couldn’t fit all my current questions in one entry, so if you’ve asked one and it’s not here it will be in the next edition. To ask a question: CLICK HERE.

Answers to questions below the cut…

I am in chapter 5 Diagon Alley and I can access ‘Arriving at Diagon Alley’ but it won’t let me navigate any further. At ‘Harry and Hagrid visit Gringotts’ it tells me to be patient and the page will be unlocked soon. Do I need to do something to unlock the page? If not, is this common to see as I work my way through book 1?
-Laura

hey, please help me, I have come to the chapter: HARRY AND HAGRID VISIT GRINGOTTS , but I do not know how to unlock my Gringotts account, and I could not go to the next chapter, how? please help me. thanks
-fitri zara

Answer:
I put these two together because they have the same answer, in order to go into Gringott’s you must first find your shopping list which is laying on the ground in Diagon Alley. That being said, there seems to be some glitchiness going on with this scene, as I have had a couple of people tell me they can see the shopping list but they can not collect it. If this is the case for you then you should report it to the Pottermore staff (go to HELP -> OTHER -> WHAT’S NEXT? -> NEED MORE HELP?) so that they can try to fix it.

Some people have reported that if they log off and come back later it allowed them to collect the list. Also, switching browsers has helped some people. Some switched from Internet Explorer to FireFox and it fixed this problem.

In the “Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection” and “The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)”, I am only able to practise a couple of them, how can I practise the other ones?
-Mary

Answer:
You can only practice one spell from the Standard Book of Spells (Fire-Making) and two from Dark Forces (Curse of the Bogies and Knockback Jinx). It is unclear if the other spells will unlock at one point later on down the line, but you aren’t the only one it is standard.

On Pottermore when can we access the ice cream parlor????
-Jack

Answer:
I wish I knew! In an interview the CEO of Pottermore talked about how more things in Diagon Alley would be unlocked over time. I really want to go in there though. Now if it follows the books, Harry visits the ice cream parlor in Prisoner of Azkaban so we might have to wait until then.

I tried to post the following comment about being hatstalled ”I was hatstalled with Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Gryffindor…go Gryffindor” and it was rejected by the All Seeing Eye. Do you know why?
-Sunny

Answer:
The automated moderation of comments is a pain in the… well let’s just say it’s very picky. Because it has word filters in place, so if you type a word that is not allowed or is not recognized by the system the comment is held for moderation. In this case I’m going to guess it was the ellipses (…) because there is no space between them and the word go. It could also be the word “hatstalled”. Sometimes I have to rephrase something a couple of times to get it to accept it.

The good news is that if your comment is held for moderation they will eventually read it and realize there is nothing wrong with it and post it anyway. They also tweak the filters when that happens to try to prevent it happening again.

Is there a way to get more galleons? I’ve noticed that cauldrons are expensive and I’m constantly needing to buy more ingredients cause I don’t have the hang of brewing potions yet. Thanks!
-Ian

Answer:
Aside from finding the occasional Galleon hidden throughout the moments you will not receive an additional allowance of gold from Gringotts until we start the second year. That being said it is important to moderate your spending. This is possible, as I still have half of my gold left after six months as a Beta.

You should go to Potions 101 and take a look at the list of renewable potions ingredients. NEVER BUY THESE INGREDIENTS AGAIN! Any item you find in the story will respawn where you found it when your inventory of that item is at zero. That should save you some gold right there.

I was wondering if those of us who were part of the Beta testing have to sign up again? When I log in it still says Beta at the top and I’m not sure if it is just me or if it has that for everyone. Thanks!
-Chelsea

Answer:
Fortunately us Beta testers did not have to sign up again, but it has not gone unnoticed that the Beta feedback buttons are still all over the site. Not really sure why they did not take them down, unless they were just so rushed towards the end they left them up.

The feedback forms still work, so feel free to leave them some feedback!

Do you have any idea when the Chamber of Secrets part will be opened?! I’m dying to find out!!!
-Rachel

Answer:
According to the CEO in an interview with The Naked Book there is a timeline in place to open up the next book but that it would take “months”. That is the extent of the official information we know on the release of Chamber of Secrets. Later on down the line I will make a CoS Watch just like I made for waiting for the opening. But I think we’ve got some time to wait.