He is the real-life wizard headmaster giving Harry Potter’s Dumbledore a run for his money.

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, 68, has dedicated his life to studying the Dark Arts - even doing the shopping in his wizard costume and wand.

Now the magic master has opened the world’s only registered wizard academy, the Grey School of Wizardry, as he prepares to make Hogwarts and the world of Harry Potter a reality.

'If you've ever read Harry Potter and wondered if wizards really do walk among us, perhaps behind a secret train platform, or in secret communities, I can tell you that we are absolutely real,' says Oberon, from Cotati, California.

Today, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart’s Grey School of Wizardry is the first wizard school to be officially recognized as an academic establishment.

Like Hogwarts, the Grey School teaches 16 departments, including Alchemy, Beastmastery, Horse-whispering, wand-making and spell casting.

Pupils who attend unique ‘conclave’ magic schools are split into four ancient houses - Winds, Undines, Gnomes and Salamanders, and like Potter, students study a defence against the deadly Dark Arts.

'In the magic community I’m referred to as the real Dumbledore,' admits Oberon. 'But before Harry Potter, people just called me Merlin, or Gandalf.'

The former teacher and counselor was teaching spells to aspiring wizards long before JK Rowling even dreamed up Harry Potter.

Oberon rose to fame in the early 1980s as an eccentric who claimed to have created the world’s first unicorn. Unbelievably, the self-proclaimed 'master of wizardry' created a single-horned creature, using minor surgery on a goat, that made front page news in America.

The creature later toured America with a famous circus. 'It’s every wizard’s dream to have a unicorn, and we achieved that,' says Oberon, who lives with his wife, Morning Glory, 63, a witch. In 1985, he organized a diving expedition in Australia and New Guinea to investigate the age-old mystery of the mermaid.

The Grey School boasts 735 students, of which Oberon claims 100 are under-18 ‘trainee Harry Potters.’ For now, it is an online college with regular physical wizard camps, where muggles can study seven years to graduate with a journeyman degree in Wizardry.

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