In lockdown, children are more powerless than ever. But they have a secret weapon: imagination

I wake up to a cry of “Wingardium Leviosa!” The boys are starting the day as they mean to go on, with a wizarding duel.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - JULY 21: A Harry Potter fan rushes to read the opening lines of the new and final novel by author J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" during a fans day at The Carriage Works on July 21, 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Rowlings announced that it will be the seventh and final novel in the Harry Potter series. The book went on sale in Australia at 9.01am on July 21, with children's and adults' hardbacks, an audio book and a deluxe gift edition being published simultaneously across the world. The previous publication in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," sold over two million copies in Britain alone on its day of release. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

Our house has sprouted turrets and spiral staircases. Magical portraits have appeared on the walls. The sitting room has turned into a great dining hall with a starry ceiling, and our bedrooms into dormitories. The patio is now an enchanted forest; mandrakes grow in our tiny plastic greenhouse.

I wake up to a cry of “Wingardium Leviosa!” The boys are starting the day as they mean to go on, with a wizarding duel. For days on end, they have been living and breathing Harry Potter. Larry, who is ten, pretended to grow out of his Potter obsession a year or so ago, and started talking about football and computer games like all his friends. But now school is a distant memory, and any need to be cool has evaporated along with his social life. The world of magic has opened up and beckoned him back in.