The Witching Hour: Harry Potter Mania

The witching hour began midnight Friday when the newest book in the Harry Potter series went on sale. Bookstores and toy stores across Tucson entertained muggles and sorcerers alike with festivities including wand making, costume contests, and face painting.

Glossary muggle: a non-wizard or nonwitch Hogwart's: the boarding school that Harry Potter and his friends attend

If you weren't on the pre-paid waiting list at Barnes and Noble, 5130 E. Broadway Blvd., you couldn't buy the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but you could join in the celebration elsewhere.

Mrs. Tiggy Winkle's Toys, 4811 E. Grant Road, invited children to dress up as their favorite characters, like Harry and Hermione. A wizard did magic tricks and kids made wands with wood, sequins and feathers.

Just minutes before midnight Borders Books and Music, 4235 N. Oracle Road, doled out raffle tickets in increments of 30 to manage almost 900 customers in the first day of sales. The store also held wand making crafts and bean counting contests to keep some of the more youthful customers entertained.

Waldenbooks-Waldenkids in Tucson Mall held special classes modeled after those offered at Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school Harry Potter and his friends attend in the book.

"We had the kids sorted into different houses like in the book by a sorting hat. We had different stickers for each of the houses and the kids blindly took them out of the hat," said sales associate Genephur Archer. In the book, the three houses separate the children into distinct dormitories ÷ Gryffndor, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.

The coursework included chess games and herbology ÷ the kids put plants in paper cups and took them home, said Archer.

The muggle who showed up with the best costume won a free copy of the new book. "It was funny because all the girls dressed up as Hermione," said Archer. At the end of the day, the book's sales rang in at almost 5 million copies, according to the U.S. publisher, Scholastic.