'Harry Potter' Fans Unite for Social Change

Melissa Veighey was 10 years old when she moved from Oak Park to Royal Oak, leaving behind her only friend and first love to became the new kid — friendless and frightened. But when she was introduced to Harry Potter, she, like many, found comfort in the book's ability to take her away from reality for hours at a time.

"Man! What would it be like to go to Hogwarts and be Harry Potter or Hermione Granger and to do this magical stuff?" she said. "Not to be the girl who had no friends that everyone makes fun of."

Now, the 22-year-old said her life doesn't require the escape anymore. In fact, Harry Potter seems to have brought her closer to reality instead of drawing her away. She credits this to her involvement in the Royal Oak chapter of The Harry Potter Alliance, which she helped found, an international nonprofit organization that advocates for social change using the Harry Potter world as a point of reference.

Don’t get them wrong – they love the Harry Potter series and both women are eager to see the new movie, planning to get their fix as soon as possible this weekend.

For example, each month leading up to Friday’s premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the alliance focuses on supporting an issue, labeling the issue a “horcrux,” a reference to what objects with evil powers are called in Harry Potter’s world. 

May’s horcrux was child slavery and ethical labor violations in the manufacture of chocolate. Members of the organization were encouraged to protest Warner Bros., the producer of the Hary Potter movies, in its manufacture of nonfair trade Harry Potter-licensed chocolate by instructing members to mail wrappers of fair trade chocolate. Veighey said this was to send the message: “We can get chocolate elsewhere.”

This kind of activity is what makes The Harry Potter Alliance different from a fan club and a traditional nonprofit advocacy organization. The alliance uses characters and situations in the world created by author JK Rowling and compares them to real issues, helping members imagine the effects of abstract, seemingly far away issues such as child slavery and climate change.

In this way, child slavery was not just an issue, but was given a name, Dobby. In the Harry Potter world, Dobby is a slave for the Malfoy family — the same family who raised Harry's rival and nemesis, Draco Malfoy. Veighey describes the elf as a "skinny little thing" and throughout his time as a slave he is starved and beaten.

"It puts it in the context of: Wow, that is happening to kids in India," she said.

The Harry Potter Alliance strives to strike a balance between fandom and work. She warns that the group is not a fan club, but for people “who actually want to do something in their community.”

Catherine Nicolia describes herself as a “moderate” Harry Potter fan. The 22-year-old violin instructor and co-founder of the Royal Oak chapter said her admiration of the Harry Potter films is more fascination than obsession and her involvement in the group is motivated more by social justice than Harry Potter fandom.

Don’t get them wrong – both women love the Harry Potter series and are eager to see the new movie, planning to get their fix as soon as possible this weekend.

Initially writing off the group as “a bunch of kids running a fan club and didn’t have a clue about the issues they were trying to fix,” Nicolia delayed starting the local chapter for approximately four years. But after seeing the Alliance and its accomplishments validated and quantified on CNN, she started to think of them differently.

According to The Harry Potter Alliance’s website, the group helped raise $123,000 in two weeks for Partners in Health in Haiti, an organization that provides health care to poor communities. In addition, the group helped donate more than 87,000 books to community centers in the Mississippi Delta region and others.

Veighey said the Royal Oak chapter is relatively small at eight members. She has been posting fliers all around downtown Royal Oak in hopes to attract more members.

The energy Veighey said she spends raising awareness for issues and organizing for the group comes from a part of her that wants to reach others, a part that wants to offer the same sort of help her old friend Tyrone gave her when they were kids. Though she is contently married to a man she describes as her best friend, she still thinks of meeting Tyrone again and dreams — like many Harry Potter fans — of being accepted to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

"It is a dreamer’s life," she said. "One day I am going to get that letter."