Note: This is abysmally late. It got saved in my “drafts” folder and was never published, but since I’ve already spent the time on it, I might as well publish it, right? It’s never too late for a little Potter-Mania…
It’s a good thing I really love my job at MSYC, because it kept me from the midnight premiere Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but I’ve been at the midnight premiere for every Harry Potter book or movie that’s come out in the past six years. And I’m one of those super nerdy people who dresses up:
See?
Anyway, after being far too bitter and seriously contemplating leaving my kids with the co-counselor while I snuck out to the premiere (hey, she was 18 - they would have been okay, right?), I accepted my fate and went with a group of MSYC counselors and friends on Friday night.
It was good. Very good. The fact that it didn’t follow the book’s plot perfectly didn’t bother me as much as it has in other movies, mostly because the character development and mood was SPOT ON. After all, by the end of the series the books weren’t so much about the world and the magic (as delightful as they are) as they were about beautiful things like love and courage and sacrifice and friendship and good triumphing over evil.
And when I got up to leave I felt like crying, not because the ending was sad, but because I knew that as I left that theater I’d be leaving a bit of myself behind. Harry Potter, in many ways, is a defining piece of my childhood. I first discovered Rowling’s books when my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Vaclavik, read us the first chapter, but the real magic began after the Christmas book exchange. I’d received one of those I Spy books (if a leaf of paper with about 5 words to the page can count as a book) and I wasn’t too thrilled. Brittany Oliver had gotten a copy of The Sorcerer’s Stone but was desperately looking to pawn it off because her mother, Debby, a wonderful woman, was one of the many mothers of the day who thought that nice, Christian children who read Harry Potter would become devil-worshipping, magic-practicing, pagan antichrists. I happily traded with her, landing myself the beginnings of a 10+ year addiction, and probably saving Brittany’s immortal soul in the process.
I grew up with Harry and his friends. Since the books only came out every year or two, Harry, Ron, Hermione and I were always about the same age and as they grew up and their thoughts and emotions and problems became more complex, so did mine. I remember vividly the anticipation of waiting a year or more for the next book, only to stay up all day and night, ravenous to complete it. I remember identifying deeply with the characters, especially bossy, perfectionist, know-it-all Hermione. That Hermione grew up to be a pretty cool young woman while maintaing her intelligence and drive gave me hope that I could loosen up and have fun while remaining true to myself.
So when I walked out of the theater, recognizing that the Potter saga was once and for all complete, that Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville and everyone else were grown-up and had left Hogwarts forever, I was struck with the reality of my own adulthood. It didn’t help that I was turning 21 in just a few days.
So… anyone up for a roadtrip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando?
