Founded in Norwood, Massachusetts, in 2002, the group is primarily composed of brothers Joe and Paul DeGeorge, both of whom perform under the persona of the title character from the Harry Potter book series.

[3] The band is often backed up by musicians such as Ernie Kim, Andrew MacLeay, Brad Mehlenbacher, John Clardy, Mike Gintz, Jacob Nathan, Ben Macri, Phillip Dickey, Jason Anderson and Zach Burba.

They also co-founded charity organization The Harry Potter Alliance, and formed the Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club, an extended play syndicate.

One of the other bands in Eskimo’s stable of talent included an act called Ed in the Refridgerators [sic],[9] which was fronted by Paul's 14-year-old brother Joe.

During a barbecue at the DeGeorge family’s Norwood, Massachusetts home, Joe organized a concert in his backyard featuring Ed and the Refridgerators, the Secrets, and Soltero.

[13][14] To rescue a nearly lost opportunity, while waiting hopefully for a band to show, Harry and the Potters came into existence over the next hour when the two brothers wrote seven Potter-themed songs.

[15] After recruiting drummer Ernie Kim, the band recorded their eponymous debut album over a weekend in the DeGeorge family living room.

"[18] The DeGeorge brothers quickly developed an onstage persona of dressing in the fashion of wizard-school Hogwarts: white shirts under gray crew-neck sweaters, red-and-yellow striped ties, and wire-rim glasses.

[5][14] During May and June 2004, the band worked on their next album, Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock!, in the DeGeorge family shed.

The two brothers drove 13,000 miles across the U.S. and into Canada in their "Potter Mobile", a silver 1998 Ford Windstar minivan with a black lightning bolt emblazoned on its hood.

[20] The two later settled upon a gentlemen's agreement that, in essence, would allow Harry and the Potters to continue to sell music online and tour, but all other merchandise could only be sold at live shows.

The web based music ’zine Pitchfork Media even hailed Harry and the Potters as having one of the best five live shows in 2005, quipping that "The Decemberists wish they could lit-rock like this.

[18] While Harry and the Potters play infrequently at rock clubs and other venues—a Yule Ball at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in December 2005 attracted an audience of 600 with 200 turned away at the door[22] The previous year was the watershed when a simple joke between two brothers had developed into something they had never imagined.

[25] While in the earlier albums the band's musical style was goofy inept pop-punk, the EP Scarred for Life became musically darker reflecting the penultimate book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, as it takes as its central conceit a Harry Potter who has started a hardcore rock band.

[28][29] By 2007, Harry and the Potters and their unexpected fan based indie music genre of wizard rock have grown into an international phenomenon.

The festivities became an excuse for a meet-up of a number of wizard rock bands including The Hungarian Horntails and their nemesis Draco and the Malfoys which all played to a large crowd of Harry Potter fans in the Cambridge, Massachusetts college venue.

The website led users through a series of images and eventually to a forum, which contained much speculation concerning the nature of Unlimited Enthusiasm.

Harry and the Potters undertook a summer tour, Unlimited Enthusiasm, with Math the Band, Uncle Monsterface and Jason Anderson.

[40] In April 2010, the group announced a series of shows in the Midwestern United States, Scandinavia, and Ireland for July and August.

[43] In 2015, Harry and the Potters released the EP Hedwig Lives for digital download, which included the tracks "The Great Motorcycle Explosion of ’97" and "Ridin' in the Night".

At a live show on March 30, 2018, the band debuted songs from their forthcoming fourth studio album that will be about The Deathly Hallows.

Backers could also choose rewards that include an additional album entitled Mostly Camping, as well as a vinyl single called the "Harry Potter Boogie.

The straight-forward but quirky presentation of adolescent concerns and direness in the simplest of worries gives an easily likable quality to fans.

"[2] The band is organized quite simply with Paul and Joe playing their songs in a simple basic guitar-synth-and-drums indie pop style and they sing in the semi-deadpan way; a review found the vocal delivery similar to that of They Might Be Giants.

I think that’s really encouraging to people ..."[5] Paul sees the brothers as a "bridge between this mainstream phenomena of Harry Potter and the indie rock underground.

[48] The Washington Post describes the brothers as having vast quantities of both passion and ability to engage an audience: the "combination of their happy, who-cares personalities and Harry Potter fanaticism has cast a spell over book-loving teens across the country.

The Harry Potter Alliance raises awareness for these projects by holding wizard rock concerts and by selling memorabilia to help fund these campaigns.

Wizard rock bands generally play all-ages shows at libraries, bookstores and schools, as the promotion of reading is a hallmark of the genre.

[48] The brothers' do-it-yourself musical ethos has caught on with bands forming as fellow Potter fans are picking up instruments for the first time.