I first met Harry Potter when I was in fifth grade. I was just as much of a bookworm then as I am now, and my parents knew the easiest way to get me out of the way was to capture my imagination with a new book. So, when it came time to move to a new house, they presented me with a brand new hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I don’t think they had any idea just what they had started.
I devoured that book. I still remember lying on my stomach in the empty living room of that house in Tucson, completely enraptured by the world of magic, wizards, and friendship that J.K. Rowling spun out of thin air as though she were magical herself. I don’t remember exactly how I got the next two books, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, both of which were released shortly after I started reading the series, but I know that I read them just as quickly. Those books were like friends themselves in a time when I had very few real friends. I read them over and over and over, so many times that I lost count after 15 each, and they are the most clearly loved out of my books today. I was captured.
When the first movie came out, I read the newspaper articles and reviews almost as avidly as the original books. I begged and begged my parents to take me to see it. However, this was still in the midst of the “Harry Potter is teaching our children witchcraft!” phase, and while my parents didn’t stop me from reading the books, they weren’t exactly eager to take me to see the film. I was a sad, obsessed child. I wanted to go see that movie so badly that I repeatedly dreamed about seeing the movie, meeting the actors, even being in the movie. Finally, after what in my memory was a month but could really be any amount of time, I got the see the movie, and I was even more in love than before.
Each year, as a new movie or new book came out I would await it with the highest expectations. As Harry, Hermione, and Ron grew up, I grew up with them. I was almost always the exact age that the characters themselves were, and as such their struggles were often similar to mine, minus the whole magic thing. When the fifth book came out and Harry was pining after Cho Chang, I was experiencing my first real crush as well. When the sixth book came out and new responsibilities and realities were laid upon the characters, I was discovering the harsh realities of life after moving to a new state. And when that final climax arrived and Harry fulfilled the goal he’d been working towards for seven years, I had just graduated from high school and found comfort in the shared ending with those characters I had loved for so long.
Beyond the connection I had with the characters and events of the books themselves, Harry Potter fostered great memories and friendships in my own life. I still remember my first midnight book event, which was probably the first time I was out past midnight ever. It was when the fifth book came out, and Sammy and I waited eagerly at the Barnes and Noble for hours, until midnight when we discovered we were supposed to have numbered tickets. Needless to say, we were very far back in line and didn’t get our books until after three in the morning. When the seventh and final book came out, Miriah, Kelsey, Katie and I didn’t hold back in the slightest, but proved ourselves true fans by dressing to the hilt as Professor Trelawney, Tonks, Bellatrix, and Professor McGonagall. Our costumes were so impressive that people actually asked to take pictures with us at Borders. I still remember that feeling of sharing something I loved so much with people I loved, as we rushed home and all sat in my basement for hours devouring the words J.K. Rowling had crafted until we physically couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. When the second to last movie came out, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Sammy and I were reunited in our love for the boy wizard, now 21 years old but still as much in love with the story as we were when we were 14. And now, the final movie is coming out, and I’m somehow supposed to say goodbye.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to say goodbye to this amazing series that has meant so much to me. Part of it is that feeling that, with the passing of Harry Potter, is the passing of my childhood. As a recent college graduate, I really have to grow up now. Maybe I’m not at my ‘Nineteen years later’ yet, but I’ve gone beyond what I can experience with Harry and Co. That doesn’t mean, though, that I can’t take them with me.
As I’ve grown, my appreciation for and love of the series has grown as well. My favorite characters have changed (with a few exceptions). I have started to appreciate the crafting of the words that Rowling uses just as much as the story she tells with them. I’ve taken life lessons and personal convictions and so much more from these books. And, perhaps most of all, I have learned to look back and appreciate how far those seven books and I have come.
In a way, it all comes down to Neville Longbottom. Neville has long been one of my favorite characters, perhaps because I can so identify with him. As much as I seem to be a Hermione at times, when I was first reading these books I was the lonely, awkward, chubby child who was picked on and didn’t quite seem to belong, just as Neville was. So, it was with delight that I watched Neville grow and develop and learn throughout the series. At the end, Neville proves to be one of the bravest of them all! I hope that I have grown as Neville has, and looking back, I think I have. While I might not have slain a snake/Horcrux, I’ve stood up for what I believe in, taken risks, and become truly myself, just as Neville grew into a fully realized character.
I find myself dragging out this blog entry because I’m not prepared for the end. I don’t know what my life will be like after Harry Potter. My recent complete re-reading of the books simply emphasized what these books mean to me. I suppose, though, that my life won’t ever really be without Harry Potter. My books will continue to travel with me to everywhere I live. Someday, I look forward to reading these books with my own children and watching them discover Harry’s magical world for themselves. I suppose, in the end, it all comes down to the words of J.K. Rowling herself:
“No story lives unless someone wants to listen…the stories we love best do live in us forever. So whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.”
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