Harry Potter's End

I used to love Harry Potter. And I mean love in the most literal way I can: for all of almost four years I though of, read, and spoke about nothing else. I was famous in my fourth grade class for having read all four of those thick, 800 page books sixteen times each, and I was crushed when a new girl could top that with her twenty-one reads. Of course, this inspired a fervor which led me to read them even more, to the exclusion of all else. At one point, in an effort to get me to read something, anything, except Harry Potter, my father threatened to take the books away, which led to multiple fights and countless tears until my mother intervened on my behalf.

Buy the time I was eight, I was living a full-blown Harry Potter lifestyle. I looked into to buying an owl on the Internet, I spent all of my allowance money on action figures, and I spent a Christmas giving a receiving nothing but Harry Potter-related gifts. I ordered the British editions of the books from a catalog I found in the library, and despite the fact that nothing more than the covers and a few select words were changed, I buried myself in them as if they were entirely new books, not coming out for days. I wrote my own Harry Potter short story, entitled creatively enough, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Fortress, and sent it to J.K Rowling, receiving a typed letter and fan club membership for my trouble. (I later framed that letter.) I referred to cups as goblets, I researched the Latin roots of all of Harry's charms, and I beat both the insanely difficult computer games twice. (I used to brag in the cafeteria about having found all of the dozen or so "Wizard Cards," hidden in the electronic crevices and passages of Hogwarts, enabling me to access hidden levels and privileges within the game. I was quite envied, if I do say so myself.)

I remember waiting anxiously for my eleventh birthday, certain that a brown parchment letter would arrive via owl, and even though I always knew it wouldn't, I cried anyway, despite my new found "maturity" and excitement at being a middle schooler. I remember that as soon as Internet roumers about the fifth book (still my favorite, by the way) began to surface, I was there, neglecting my typing in tech class to read any informative snippets of information I could find. And while none of it (seriously, NONE of it) turned out to be true, that didn't matter to me because as soon as I had that huge 861-page book in my hands (midnight the day it came out, of course) nothing else mattered. I entered a world beyond computers and keyboards, beyond classmates and teachers, and lived, for the eight-hours it took me to read that book, as a pupil at Hogwarts, learning magic, breaking rules and riding centaurs.

And now, J.K Rowling has announced that the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released in July, and I have no doubts that I will be among the people waiting in the middle of the night for 12:01, when I can open the book and begin to read, and pretend, for as long as I have that book open, that the world is a magical place.