Potter site developed by a muggle, for muggles

It’s a strange coincidence that Emerson Spartz, webmaster and founder of Mugglenet.com, the largest Harry Potter fansite in the U.S., looks eerily similar to the boy wizard whose adventures he’s been following since his early adolescence. At first glance, his picture on Mugglenet.com could easily be a promotional shot for one of the Potter movies: he’s lanky, scruffy and surprisingly young to be at the center of such a phenomenon.

Spartz started the website when he was 12, because "I was bored out of my mind, basically." A home-schooled student with too much time on his hands and a great enthusiasm for the early Harry Potter books, he started fiddling around with Web design, "something I knew absolutely nothing about."

Spartz said he entirely wrote, edited and designed the site’s earliest iteration, a blocky and clearly homemade page.

The site and the popularity of Rowling’s books, however, grew in synch with each other. People who saw the website and liked it e-mailed Spartz, sending in articles or asking him to take them on as staff members, Spartz said.

"My parents realized I had something really big on my hands before I did," he recalls.

It wasn’t until two years ago, when Mugglenet officially became the most heavily trafficked Potter fansite on the web, that the success really struck him. Now, the site receives more than a million hits a day, according to Spartz.

Spartz attributes the site’s success to his own competitive streak. "I just got really motivated, and I kept wanting make it bigger and better," he said.

With a staff of more than 25, most of the writing and technical work on the site is taken care of these days, while Spartz’s role is primarily administrative. He has met with Rowling twice, most recently at the release of her sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Rowling called personally and invited Spartz to attend the book's launch party and gave a private interview to him and Melissa Anelli, webmaster of The Leaky Cauldron, another major Potter fansite.

A freshman this year at Notre Dame University, Spartz is majoring in management and plans to continue with a business career after he graduates.

"This is what I’ve been doing with the site all along – management – so it makes sense to continue," he said.

A few concerned fans have asked Spartz if he will shut down Mugglenet after the seventh and final book of the Potter series is released, a suggestion that makes him laugh.

"Mugglenet’s not going anywhere," Spartz said.