Spellbound by Harry Potter and the museum of magic

The rooms are arranged by Hogwarts' school subjects

A crumpled piece of paper hanging on the far wall had me mesmerized. It was a sketch of a dark-haired boy with round glasses surrounded by his sour-faced relatives. The page is covered in wrinkles and stained with what looks like coffee. But there he is, the Boy Who Lived, drawn lovingly by J.K. Rowling herself, a full six years before the first Harry Potter book was published.

Behind an imposing castle wall, “Harry Potter: A History of Magic,” an engrossing new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society, traces the origins of Harry’s story, not just through the lens of