the boy who lived

Pretty fan-freakin-tastic, huh?

I might as well admit it right away: I am a huge Harry Potter fanatic. There. It's out.

I grew up on the series. The first book came out in the US when I was seven, and my brother Jamie received it for his birthday a few months later. We read it together as a family--all four of us would squish onto the not-quite-black, not-quite-blue, not-quite-grey couch after dinner, my brother and I would curl against our parents drowsily, and they would take turns reading aloud. Daddy did Hagrid's voice better, but Momma could say the spells right.

We read other books together, but I always loved Harry Potter the most. By the time Prisoner of Azkaban was released, we were going to the midnight release parties at the local bookstore. We tried to read them slowly--only a chapter or two every night--in order to make them last. Jamie and I weren't allowed to read ahead (though we often did), and nights when one or another member of the family was at a meeting or had to work late or was sleeping at a friend's house were torture, as the book lay unopened until the four of us were together again.

When the fifth book came out, we were far too engrossed to adhere to our strict after dinner regime, and took to gathering in the front yard while my dad worked on his car; Momma would have to project through the balmy summer air, and Daddy would poke his head out from under the car to ask her to repeat lines. After we completed the book, Jamie and I discussed theories for weeks. I poured through our copies--the paper covers were beginning to turn soft and cloth-like from years in the hands of children.

Half Blood Prince came out while I was on a school trip to England and my brother was at a creative writing program in Southern California. Before we left, we agreed to wait until we both returned home to read the book, so that we could once more read it as a family. It was a torturous three weeks for me--I was even in Harry Potter's country, and I couldn't read the book!--but I held out. I was furious when I found out that Jamie had caved and read the book. I still might be holding a tiny grudge. We read the book together anyway, though at nearly-fourteen and sixteen respectively, it was much more difficult to fit the four of us on the couch. Jamie would sometimes sprawl on the rug. I still curled up against Momma. Daddy still did Hagrid's voice better, and Momma still said the spells right.

I had begun getting the audiobooks for my birthday a few years before, and I listened to them obsessively--while doing the dishes, folding my laundry, completing my math homework, or simply lying in a patch of sunlight on the floor of my room. If you asked me, I could have quoted whole chunks of dialogue to you, voices and all.

The seventh and final book came out the summer our entire extended family took a trip to Europe, and I was once again in England the day of the book release. It was incredibly bittersweet. The movies were well underway--we had just seen the fifth movie before flying across the pond--but they different entirely. The books carried a huge symbolism and meaning for me, and held so many memories of my family. The culmination of the series meant the culmination of a family tradition that had held strong for ten years and created some of my favorite memories with my family. So while I was excited to the point of fanatical--would Harry defeat Voldemort? How would he do it? Could Dumbledore come back to life? Who else would die in the process? Could Harry and Ginny ever be together forever???--there was also a tinge of melancholy in the air as the four of us stood in line in a bookstore in Cambridge to purchase the final book.

We couldn't read the book on our couch back home, since the release was at the very beginning of our trip, and we were surrounded by a ridiculous number of cousins, aunts, uncles, and other family members, so we decided to read it separately. Once the four of us got to Italy, maybe we would read it aloud together, while the adults sipped limoncello and I ate nutella from a spoon, but in the meantime, the important part was the final installment of an epic series. Jamie and I devoured the book, and it's a good thing we finished so quickly, or else we would have missed the spectacular sights in St. Petersburg and Rome. When I finished the book, an incredible nostalgia consumed me, as I thought back to days on that colorless, squishy, sunk-in-the-middle couch. Once we got to a lovely house on the Amalfi coast, the book came out of the suitcase again, and we sat on a deck overlooking the Mediterranean and everyone sipped wine and Daddy still did Hagrid's voice just right.

Now, the final movie is coming out in forty-two days, and while the movies do not hold anywhere near the significance that the books hold for me, it is still the ending of an era. The story of a boy wizard, a scrawny kid with glasses, has captivated me for thirteen years, and I have continually looked forward to see what new adventure he will have. Now, his last adventure is about to conclude. Of course, Harry Potter will live on, in my well worn books. And maybe someday, I will sit on a sunk-in-the-middle couch with a girl and a boy and a Mr. Right squished in around me, and then, I will know how to do Hagrid's voice and say the spells just right.