Harry Potter fans are all set for a magical year ahead as the new play hit Asia on Sunday morning and all the aspiring witched and wizards crowded into bookstores to get their hands on the first copies of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child".
The new play will tell an "untold part" of Potter's story portraying him as an adult. But the author J.K. Rowling made it very clear that the play was "not a prequel."
The play's premiere was organized in London and hours after that the launch parties for "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" were held to create a stage for a return of the Harry Potter series that has captivated readers and movie audiences worldwide.
Almost 300 fans were present at Kinokuniya bookstore on Singapore's Orchard Road at 7:01 am (23:01 GMT Saturday) to become one of the first people in the world to witness the new script.
A 24-year-old student, Samantha Chua, wearing a Harry Potter-themed sweater, said she had been waiting outside the fourth-floor bookstore since 5 am along with her boyfriend.
"We were here so early that the mall wasn't even open yet so we had to come up through the cargo lifts," she told AFP.
"I grew up reading the books and I have a special place for them on my shelves but this will be my crowning glory," Chua added.
The new play is set 19 years after the end of the last book and features a grown-up Potter living with his wife, Ginny Weasley and three children. He works at the Ministry of Magic. This new Harry Potter play is the eighth part of the series.
Potter now helps his younger son Albus to confront the dark past of the family. But he still has his trademark round-rimmed glasses and the scar on his head which was a permanent reminder of his nemesis Lord Voldemort.
Some of his fans in Singapore held a prize-giving ceremony and a hunt for the Snitch -- a type of ball used in the wizard sport of Quidditch in the Potter books.
Other fans of Potter were spotted sitting at different corners around the store eagerly flipping through its pages.
Valerie Wan, a 10-year-old Potter fan, was "decked out in a Gryffindor robe and a wand along with a stuffed toy version of Hedwig, the snowy owl that was Potter's pet in the books".
