Witches, black gowns and broomsticks - it's all just a game

[Photo provided to China Daily]

"It is a very intense sport, combining American football, basketball and soccer," Liu says. "A lot of universities in the US have their own team."

Before Li from Chengdu met Liu in Beijing in 2012, Li had been an experienced player.

"We used to play online through group chatting with instant messages. We input words stating our positions and movements, and referees would tell who got the balls and who scored first by the time we sent the messages. It was awesome and your fingers and your internet had to be fast enough."

In the fall of 2012, when Liu came to Beijing to study at Peking University, Li, then a graduate student at Beijing Jiaotong University found her, hoping to play the Quidditch with her. They then formed the Beijing Quidditch Club.

Coincidently, a company saw Li's Weibo (microblog) that said she also wanted to play Quidditch and decided to support her. As a result, they got the equipment for the game from the company - six hula hoops, six sticks, six parasol bases, volleyballs, soft volleyballs and tennis balls, and another 60 people who either were curious about how to play it or wanted to play.

After the first event, they had no other until the Beijing International Film Festival in June 2013, when Harry Potter fans could watch the eight films in the series in three days. Li and Liu met many other fans at the festival, and they later became club members.