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But part of the music's charm, Schuyler said, is that it is accessible to children who might want to start their own Wrock band or at least identify with the people on stage. While many bands have an indie or pop sound, they can take on all musical styles, including the '50s and '60s sounds of the Blibbering Humdingers.

"There's this community of kids that is taking a chance and doing something that means something to them, whether people understand it or not, and created this amazing experience for themselves," Schuyler said. "They are literally rock stars to a select group of people, and that's a cool experience for any musician to have."

The brothers DeGeorge

Harry and the Potters played their first show in 2002. Joe DeGeorge said his brother, Paul, had the idea.

"He tried to get his hipster friends to start it, but they were too cool for school," said Joe DeGeorge, 21, who just finished his sophomore year at Clark University.

Little brother Joe, who was 14 at the time, wasn't.

On stage, they're both Harry Potter, referring to each other as HP. Their lyrics are written from Harry's perspective.

They both resemble the character, especially with their unruly brown hair, and that strengthens the gimmick.

Promoting literacy is a central goal of the band, along with the Wizard rock groups that followed them. The brothers expected to play at libraries and kids' birthday parties. But word spread on the Internet and among Harry Potter fans.

They began touring, hitting 49 states and several foreign countries so far. Paul quit his day job working on smallpox vaccines (seriously). They are the subject of a trivia card in the Swedish version of Trivial Pursuit.

"It's phrased like this, as translated: What do brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge call themselves when they rock out?" Joe said.

"No hint," he marvels. "As if we're household names or something."

The DeGeorge brothers were rock stars at Cat's Cradle on Tuesday.

"Tonight we are one giant Harry Potter," yelled Joe on stage, " ... vanquishing all evil within a 500-mile radius of Carrboro."

The crowd of several hundred launched into some high-energy rocking and Rowling.

Charmed lives

Nancy Merritt of Chapel Hill screamed and sang so much she was hoarse the next day. Wizard rock is a constant in her life, taking up most of the space on her iPod. She traveled to Missouri in May to attend the Wizard rock festival, Wrockstock, and will be in Dallas for a major Harry Potter symposium this week, where she'll see "The Wizard Rockumentary."

Nancy and two friends have started a North Carolina chapter of the group, the Harry Potter Alliance. The Potter Alliance and wizard rockers have joined to register people to vote at Wizard rock concerts. Merritt signed up a few at the concert at Cat's Cradle.

"Without Harry Potter, I cannot see myself even recording my own stuff or volunteering to register people to vote," she said.

Wrock won't go away anytime soon, she said. Schuyler agrees.

Even with the book series complete, there is plenty of fodder for more music, fans say.

There's a whole future that's been left undefined by Rowling, said Schuyler, who lives in Washington state. Generations have yet to read the story about the boy who saved the world.

"The possibilities are endless," she said. "People are always discovering for the first time how cool Harry Potter is."

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