Daniel Radcliffe Is Returning To Harry Potter For A Spellbinding Project

Allow the boy who lived to read the works of J.K. Rowling to you: Daniel Radcliffe has returned to his Harry Potter roots in a new project with Spotify. Rowling has partnered with the music streamer to launch an audio recording of the first book of her beloved wizarding series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Available on Spotify, Spotify Kids, and Harry Potter at Home, each chapter will be read by a different celebrity, and released weekly. In the inaugural 26-minute reading released on May 5, Radcliffe reads the first chapter of the series, “The Boy Who Lived.”

“Daniel Radcliffe introduces the Dursleys, who don’t like anything mysterious,” Spotify's description reads. “Enter a cat reading a map, owl-filled skies and whispers about the Potters.” Other celebrities slated to lend their voices to the reading include Fantastic Beasts stars Eddie Redmayne and Claudia Kim, David Beckham, Stephen Fry, Dakota Fanning, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s Noma Dumezweni. And to be one of the first to learn which celebrities will read the upcoming chapters next, readers can register for the Harry Potter Fan Club at Harry Potter at Home.

Rowling’s collaboration with Spotify comes after the author launched Harry Potter at Home, a subsidiary of the Wizarding World website, in response to COVID-19 quarantine in April. “Parents, teachers and carers working to keep children amused and interested while we’re on lockdown might need a bit of magic,” she tweeted on April 1. “So I’m delighted to launch harrypotterathome.com.”

Radcliffe’s “The Boy Who Lived” reading comes after the actor appeared on Stephen at Home, Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show in quarantine, on April 1 to dispel rumors that he caught coronavirus. “I think it’s just because I look ill all the time, so you can believably say it about me ’cause I’m very pale,” Radcliffe joked. When Colbert suggested that Harry Potter was an ideal model for those sequestered since “he spent 11 years living in a cupboard,” Radcliffe responded, “I think that’s really the message of the books… is, ‘isolate yourself and wash your hands.'”

If you think you’re showing symptoms of coronavirus, which include fever, shortness of breath, and coughing, call NHS 111 in the UK or visit the CDC website in the U.S. for up-to-date information and resources. You can find all Bustle’s coverage of coronavirus here, and UK-specific updates on coronavirus here.