‘WIZ’ KIDS!

Potter fans scoop up new ‘book,’ U.K. play opens

A BIG APPLE bookstore was transformed into Hogwarts School Saturday night as costumed Harry Potter fans awaited the midnight release of the new installment of J.K. Rowling’s saga.

Fans eager to get their hands on the hardbound copy of the script for the stage play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” thronged the Union Square Barnes & Noble.

Young and old decorated their own magic wands as staffers dressed as witches and wizards passed out balloon animals.

Kate D’Auria (photo), 24, beamed after she became the first Union Square customer to buy the book after the clock struck 12.

Alena Alvarez, 23, tingled with excitement as she picked up her copy.

“I always dreamed of becoming like Harry Potter since I was little,” said Alvarez, of Flushing, Queens. “It just feels wonderful to feel that magic experience and how J.K. Rowling brought it to life.” The exuberant scene in the city came hours after the new Harry Potter stage play had its gala opening in London’s West End. “I’d like as many Potter fans to see it as possible,” Rowling said on the red carpet outside the Palace Theater.

There’s already talk of a Broadway run, and Rowling said: “I’d like it to go wider than that.”

The play is both an eighth instalment in the Potter saga, following Rowling’s seven novels, and a stage spectacle aimed at pleasing even the uninitiated.

The play has been in previews for almost eight weeks, but few details about the plot have leaked.

People leaving the show are handed buttons urging them to “#keepthesecrets.”