Happy Birthday Fred and George Weasley and April Fool's Day to all of our fans

As April Fool's Day 2012 comes to a close, we hope you enjoyed our fun posts - YES! They were all fake except of course for the interview with the lovely Evanna Lynch.

Although MuggleNet fully supports an 'International Harry Potter Day' on May 2nd, that too was a false report...sorry!

At this time though, we do wish to pay homage to the real pranksters of the Harry Potter world, Gred and Forge Weasley, and wish them a terrific Happy Birthday!

May 2nd to be officially declared 'International Harry Potter Day'

As of this year, May 2nd will officially be declared International Harry Potter Day!

Below is the official statement that has been released by Prime Minister David Cameron:

"There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Ms. Rowling's work has had a huge and undeniable impact on the literary world as we know it. In order to fully commemorate and immortalize her work, we have to decided to officially declare May 2nd as an official international holiday, in honor of the date that protagonist Harry Potter conquered the main antagonist of the series, Lord Voldemort. We hope that children and adults alike will be reminded of Harry Potter’s strong and courageous character on this day, as well as of the true credit that Ms. Rowling has made to society.”

As ‘Potter’ fans, we feel it’s about time!

Rita Skeeter poses for WitchBoy Magazine

The former writer for the Daily Prophet and current scandalous author of The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore takes another dive into the world of self-promotion with her recent full exposure in the adult magazine WitchBoy, which is due out later this week.

When Rita, 53, from the outskirts of London, was in her prime, she was well-known as the Daily Prophet journalist with a sharp tongue and even sharper Quick Quotes Quill. Her primary focus was creating tabloid-esque fabrications of well known witches and wizards of the day including the like of the beloved Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and his star pupil Harry Potter.

Her writing has been proven to be one-quarter truth and three-quarters rubbish. During a period of nearly one year, Rita mysteriously disappeared from her unconscionable story lines only to turn up with the story of her life on Harry Potter in the Quibbler publication followed by the book that made her as famous as "Dangerous" Dai Llewellyn, the quidditch player that was tragically eaten by a chimaera.

Now, with her failed writings over the last 14 years, Rita Skeeter tries to resurrect herself once again by posing in this month's issue of WitchBoy. Is this something we really need to see? Or is the WitchBoy magazine stooping to an all-time low? You can see the full image from the magazine right here (viewer discretion is advised). This image was produced by Katherine Proulx.

Potter audiobooks to be re-released on vinyl

Harry Potter is coming to vinyl! That's right. The seven-volume story of the boy wizard will soon be spinning at 33 1/3 RPM under the Random House Listening Library label.

This news comes to us just one week after the books were made available in e-book format, for popular iPad and Kindle owners. According to an industry spokesperson, these vinyl audiobook collections will also tap into a new market:

"Vinyl records, once thought to be an outdated and extinct method of listening to music, actually have seen a resurgence in recent years," says industry insider Ben Fort. "Nielsen Soundscan reported in January that vinyl record sales topped 3.9 million in 2011, a 39.3 percent gain over 2010. This proves that there is a market for vinyl still today, and we definitely wanted to tap it."

New music by rock and pop musicians alike is finding its way to vinyl, including Adele's billboard juggernaut album "21." However, there may be just one setback to consider. The 33 1/3 RPM vinyl record holds roughly 25 minutes of audio per side. We have calculated that the vinyl versions of the audiobooks would take up the following number of records (if both sides are used):

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: 10 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 11 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 14 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 23 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 31 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 22 vinyl records
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: 24 vinyl records

That's a total of 135 double-sided records, weighing approximately 904.5 ounces of material, or 56.6 lbs! We hypothesize that the boxed set of all audio books will likely be designed like Harry Potter's school trunk. Wouldn't that be awesome? We'll let you know more details as they surface.

Title of latest J.K. Rowling project revealed: 'Lairs of Lady Po'

A little over a month ago it was announced that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would write an adult novel due out later this year.

And while we still don't have a concrete release date, we now have a title.

Lairs of Lady Po

The full image depicts the printed title of the book with the author's name on an old-fashioned type-writer and blood spattered in the upper-left hand corner of the page.

From the press release issued from Little, Brown & Company:

"It has become tradition for Ms. Rowling when announcing her projects to always have a bit of mystery at the onset.'Lairs of Lady Po' is no different. We look forward to seeing how her fans react to the image."

What do you think it all means? Given the blood, has Rowling penned her first horror/mystery novel? Let the speculation begin!