I have a confession to make. It’s a lengthy confession, so you’d best make yourselves comfortable if you decide to continue reading this. It’s going to be a rant, for the most part, and it will be, I admit, utterly cliche. But I feel it needs to be said. So. Here it is.
As I walked home from work tonight, I cried. I cried because in 24 hours Harry Potter will be over and done with.
I know what you’re thinking. “What? Groan. That’s so cliche.” Well. Okay, maybe you aren’t thinking it, but I’m sure a few of you are.
Even as I reread that bolded statement, I feel a bit silly for admitting it to you all, but it’s been said and there are no take backs now. I could always press the backspace key on my keyboard and pretend I never wrote it, but I refuse. I need to get this out.
In the past, I’ve gotten angry at people who say things like “once the movies are over my childhood will end”, because, to me, the movies aren’t the end of Harry Potter. Harry Potter ended in 2007 when the last book came out. It’s not like we don’t know how this movie is going to end tomorrow night. They’ll destroy the horcruxes, McGonagall will be a bamf, we’ll all cry during Snape’s flashbacks, the epilogue will be just as crummy as it was in the book, and good will prevail. Knowing all of this, I spent the longest time refusing to get worked up over this movie. I will admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of the movies, which is probably why I’ve been so biased… Well. Okay. I lied. I adored the movies as a kid. I saw the first movie opening day when I was ten years old and thought it was the most utterly fantastic thing I’d ever seen. Now that I’m older, I know the first movie is pretty awful. I’ve liked things about a few of the other movies, but as a whole I just couldn’t get into them. Too much stuff was changed. I will admit that the last movie was my favorite though, by far.
Anyway.
As I was walking home, I began thinking about how my day’s going to go tomorrow. I’m meeting with a friend at 4pm, then I’m going from there to work, and from there I’m going to stand in line for the midnight Harry Potter premiere. I was trying to figure out what to do with my Luna Lovegood costume; whether I should pack it in my bag and get changed after work or if I should just wear it all day tomorrow. After a lot of thought I finally decided, “Fuck it. I’m gonna wear it downtown to Starbucks, and I’m going to wear it when Isaac and I hang out, and then I’m going to wear it to work. I don’t care if the world knows I love Harry Potter.” And that’s when I broke down sobbing in the middle of the street at ten o’clock at night.
What hit me hardest is that this is it. This is it, folks. This is the last time we get to stand in line, dressed up, anxiously anticipating the next installment of something Potter related. This is the last time we get to do a countdown. This is the last Potter-related release we’re going to have. Ever. Even I have to admit, that is goddamn heartbreaking.
Harry Potter’s always been there for me. It’s an overused line and it sounds corny, but it’s true. I remember being eight and first learning of the boy with the lightening bolt scar. My mother brought the first book home from her school library one day, and she told us of the story over dinner. After dinner, she had my twin and I sit our little butts down on the TV room couch as she took the spot betwixt us. She then opened the pages of the book and began to weave a story that would stay with me thirteen years later. Thirteen years. That’s more than half the years I’ve been alive. Jesus.
And it stayed that way. My mother read my brother and I a chapter or two of the first four books every night after dinner. We laughed. We worried. We complained. We fidgeted. We commented. We gasped. We grinned. We imagined. It was glorious. My mother did the best voices. She’d make her voice high and squeaky for Dobby, gruff and low for Hagrid, and bat-shit crazy for Filch. I remember sitting on our couch, imagining what these characters would look like and if they’d want to be my friends were they real. A couple years down the road, the movie came out. The movie was, of course, followed by my (horrible) attempt at fanfiction, and then all my fangirlness with my middle school friends. We’d write raunchy tales abut ourselves with the Hogwarts boys, which, of course, by any normal person’s standards were not really all that raunchy at all (to a twelve year old, making out can be very sexual). We’d have sleepovers and watch all the movies that were out, eating popcorn and gabbing about who was the cutest.
When we finished reading the fourth Harry Potter book I remember telling my mom that I didn’t want her to read to me anymore. I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I was eleven. I was practically an adult. I didn’t need someone to coddle me. I was fine on my own. My mother told me she understood, but even then I recognized some sadness in her voice. Three years later my mother passed away. I remember, the night she died, lying awake in my basement, wondering if she had died of a broken heart because I told her she couldn’t read to me all those years ago. What I would have given to hear her do her Dobby voice one last time.
Harry Potter was there for me at the hardest of times. Harry was there when I longed for my mother’s embrace. Harry was there throughout my constant depression during high school. Harry was there for me to relate to. My friends often complained about how all Harry did was whine about how his parents were dead, while I found it highly powerful. Here was a boy who had lived in my imagination for years upon years, and he faced the same problems as I did. It was so easy to empathize. So easy to feel like I wasn’t alone.
And the books brought me such joy in rough times. Through the years I fell in love with all of the characters; each and every one of them. Harry’s courage, Hermione’s persistence, Ron’s loyalty, Dumbledore’s wisdom, McGonagall’s sarcasm, Luna’s love, Neville’s stoutheartedness, Hagrid’s kindness, Draco’s smugness, Snape’s undying devotion, Dobby’s duty, Ginny’s strength, and this list goes on, believe you me. I’ve come to know most of these characters better than I know most people in my life, and for any other fandom that statement may be considered absurd, but for Potter? Nah. Because everyone can. My generation grew up with these characters and knows them just as well as the back of their own hand. It’s considered common knowledge.
And yet, we still must say goodbye. I know I’m going to sit in that theater tomorrow night and I am going to cry. I’ve accepted it. Because, once the movie ends, then it’s over. Right?
Not exactly.
The books are over, and tomorrow the movies will be over as well, but it’s not the ending. No. Never. Because, y’know, the books and the movies, they’re still going to be there. If you or I or anyone ever wants to revisit the magical wonderfulness of Hogwarts or Hogsmede or Diagon Alley or Grimmauld Place or Privet Drive, all we have to do is flip to the right page or turn on the TV. And I may have spoken too quickly when I said this is the end. We must not forget Pottermore, which I know for the most part is just the ability to read the books, for free, online, but there are going to be unread pieces on the site, and the very thought of that invigorates me. Then there’s the Harry Potter theme park, which - oh my Rowling - I swear I will go there one day.
And the future. Ah. I can’t forget to mention that. Because, I don’t know about you, but one day, in the far off distant future, I’m going to have children. Little versions of myself running around, terrorizing neighbors, doodling comic books and putting on plays for their parents, and living in a world of pure imagination. I know that when they are seven or eight that I’m going to take them by the hand, sit them down on our family couch, and follow in the steps of my mother: I’m going to read. I’m going to weave them the tales of Harry Potter and friends. I won’t expect them to want me to read them all of the books, but the first one? That one is mine to give to them, and no one’s taking that joy away from me.
So this, I suppose, is my farewell to Harry. I think it’s clearly evident how much these books have shaped me into the person whom I’ve become. They’ve been there for me, and they’ve taught me about life, love, friendship, and doing what’s right. And the movies, well, though not my favorites, I will admit that I am terribly sad to see them ending. I know I’m going to be cry a lot tomorrow night. So many, many tears of sadness. But, oh, so many tears of joy as well.
Thank you, Harry.
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