Back-to-school shopping is always a little weird. But this year’s back-to-school shopping is especially strange, with the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic zapping the entire ritual of fun and turning it into one surreal, dangerous minefield. But The LEGO Group has announced a new LEGO Harry Potter Diagon Alley set that aims to bring some of the magic back into back-to-school shopping by letting us escape into a world where you can shop for a new semester at a wizarding school.

If going back to school means being potentially exposed to a dangerous virus, we’d rather escape to a magical world where back-to-school shopping means looking for new wands, tinkering with potions, and running into rivals at a back-alley dark arts shop. And we can do that, to a degree, with the new LEGO Harry Potter Diagon Alley set, which the The LEGO Group announced will be released on September 1, 2020.

Get your first look at the new LEGO set, which at more than 5,000 pieces, is the “longest Harry Potter set to date,” below.

The 5,544-piece Diagon Alley set includes fan-favorite shops that appear throughout the books: Ollivanders Wand Shop, Scribbulus Writing Implements, Quality Quidditch Supplies, the Daily Prophet, Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor, Flourish & Blotts, and Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Per the LEGO Group press release:

  • The set brings the two worlds together in a magical hybrid: a rich and versatile display model, with a modularity aspect that allows fans to choose how to display the shops (all in a row, swapping them around, or even placing individual shops on different shelves!)
  • Measuring more than a meter wide and made up of over 5,000 pieces, LEGO Diagon Alley features the iconic stores packed with authentic details from the movies to truly capture the ambience of the street.
  • Includes 14 minifigures: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Ginny, Molly Weasley, Ollivander, Fred and George, Gilderoy Lockhart, Lucius Malfoy, Hagrid, as well as Florean Fortescue, the Daily Prophet photographer who have never been seen in LEGO form before.

The total set costs $399.99. See some of the 14 minifigures below.

In addition to the LEGO Diagon Alley set, an animated AR experience called “Through the Bricks” takes fans alongside Harry and Hagrid in their first trip to Diagon Alley. Per the press release, the AR experience, which can be accessed through the smartphone here, “will enable fans to see some of the amazing detail that have gone into recreating each shop, as well as see some of the minifigures interact with the set including; Harry Potter with his brand new wand from Ollivanders and the Weasley twins showing off a new item from their joke shop, Weasley Wizard Weezes.”

Minifigures of Fred and George Weasley, voiced by the movie actors James and Oliver Phelps, will also appear to welcome fans to Diagon Alley through the AR experience.

“It was really fun to challenge Oliver to see who could build the QR code the fastest– and the AR once you’re in the experience is fantastic,” said James Phelps, who played Fred Weasley, on the AR experience. “It’s a great way to see how the set comes to life and how all the shops have been transformed into a LEGO universe. Even better that our characters introduce fans to the experience too.”

Oliver Phelps, who played George Weasley, gushed about the level of detail in the LEGO set, adding, “We loved that our characters owned their very own joke shop and we are huge LEGO fans, so to see ‘Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes’ come to life in LEGO form has brought back lots of happy memories. We were both so impressed with the level of detail that has gone into each element of the set – the wackiness of the shop is really brought to life, including a hidden lever that allows the statue in our store to tip its hat to customers. = There are even little packages of Dungbombs and Puking Pastilles!”

See the box cover for the LEGO set below.

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