It's not really goodbye.

My childhood is basically over.. Thinking i was just entering school when the books came out and going into highschool all of it  is over… I still cry about it. I met some girls who are going into my freshmen class who feel the exact same way. We want to keep the story alive in so many ways. We want the girls at our summer day camp to play a game of quidditch. I try to find costumes and capes to dress up in. We want to keep it alive so bad. I know for a fact it will be hard. SO HARD to give up such a good thing. Making my first best friend from reading the books. Having it be one of the greatest memories to read and watch the movies with my now deseased mother. I cry sometimes when i know, ACTUALLY KNOW, and remind myself its over. And i just don’t think i’m ready at all…

So, I haven’t written one of these up yet.  There are just too many memories I have - over a decade’s worth - and I’m just not ready to say goodbye.  I love this blog idea, and I love seeing what others have said; I’m just not ready to do it yet myself.

Maybe one day, in the near or distant future, if this blog is still going, I’ll share my memories and my goodbye.  For now, though, I’m just going to live in denial that it’s all over.  And, who knows?  Maybe I’m right.  After all, there’s the Tumblr fanbase and Pottermore now - maybe I’ll just keep on building memories and will forever avoid that goodbye.  :’)

— Page 224, Chapter 13: Nicolas Flamel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, JK Rowling 

Little background on myself, I have worn glasses since I was 2 years old…the big round ones. I have black hair that does grow in every direction, and I have always been small so clothes never really fit me right. I grew up with the books as many others did. I remember being at my grandparents house and listening to my grandma read the third book out loud to me, immediately hooking me to the series. My dad being a pilot picked up the first book on a flight to the U.K. and read it to me and my younger brother before bed every night. This was the story with all the books. When I got news that the first Potter film was coming out, my parents, brother, and I all went downtown to the big mall to watch the film. It was opening day and I remember buying the tickets and waiting in line for a very long time. Someone got up to go to the bathroom during the scene where Harry, Ron, and Hermione first met Fluffy and I got to hear a giant three headed dog snapping it’s jaws at the children making me even more excited for what was to come.  It was a tradition from then on that my family would go to the opening day of the newest Harry Potter film up until the Order of the Phoenix. My dad became too sick to go so we decided we would wait until it came out on DVD so that we could all see it together. I remember sitting at the same grandparents house with the seventh book in my lap, listening as my family told me that my dad was terminally ill with brain cancer. Three days after I heard that news, my grandpa whom I was very close to died. I read the last book on my own, never looking up to see what was going on around me because I didn’t want to know. My dad passed away in June 2008 and although he got to finish the books, he never got to see the end of the film series. My family decided to go to the last three film openings at midnight, dressing up for all of them. When part 2 premiered, We got up at 3:30 in the morning the day before and watched every film in one day. We went back downtown to the same theatre, and sat in the same seats we sat in when we first watched Harry Potter become a wizard. I was only 8 years old then, but finished the series being 18. Harry Potter was is and will forever be my past present and future. I waited 10 years to finish the films before I set off to re read the books. Going back, I vowed that my children will know the magic I saw in these books and films. I promised that they would have every book read to them before bed as I did. I close this great chapter of my life and open to a blank page entitled future, waiting to be written. It is a goodbye for me, and I can’t thank Harry Potter enough for getting me through so much in life and making me believe that there really is magic in the world. 

When I was six years old, ten years ago, 9/11 happened. I live downtown and witnessed my entire world crashing down, my apartment, my school. Because my school was severely damaged, people sent gifts from all over the world to us and we got to go to performances such as Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, the Big Apple Circus, and Peter Paul & Mary came to our school. However, the greatest thing we received were tickets for the entire school to the New York premiere of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at Lincoln Center. Being six, I had no idea who Harry Potter was and the effect that the characters would have on my life. My Dad took me to the premiere and we were both in awe, picking up a copy of the first book when we left the theater. The night after, and continuously until I was about ten, my Dad would read me a chapter from Harry Potter, becoming just as entranced as I was in the magical world. Since that day, I have never missed a midnight book release or midnight movie release. I remember the first time that me and my Dad read it separately, it was the Half-Blood Prince and we raced to see who could finish it. Given that I didn’t have to go to work the next morning and faked sick from school, I read it in one night, beating him. Then, when I was twelve, around the time that the Deathly Hallows was about to be released, my Dad divorced my mom and moved out. The first night me and my younger brother spent at his new apartment, I brought over his copies of the Half-Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows. I had just finished the book and he was still halfway through it, and that night we spent the entire night with him reading the rest of it to me, while I tried not to spoil anything. When it was over, it was so bittersweet for me, but my Dad was reading Harry Potter to me again. I remember him asking me “are you going to cry when the final movie comes out?” and vowing that I would not, I was too old for that. Well, four years later I sat in a crowded theater with a scar drawn on with eyeliner, a twig for a wand, and a gryffindor tie bawling my eyes out. There wasn’t a moment starting from the point where Neville came through the portrait where I wasn’t shaking, tearing up, crying or flat out bawling. When the epilogue came, I was finding myself somewhat content with the fact that it was over, until the original music from the first movie started to play, that really melancholy but insanely beautiful song “Leaving Hogwarts” and that’s when I realized, sobbing, that I would never be okay with the fact that it all ended. Even though it’s been almost two weeks since the movie came out, I still find myself crying when talking about it. When I saw it for the third time, with just my Dad, we both cried not because it was over, but because seeing Ron, Harry and Hermione grown up with families, and the fact that I grew up with characters and a world so real to me. We all grew up alongside the three of them. I can’t wait for the day that I read six-year old son or daughter the first book, a chapter a night simultaneously until we get to the lines “all was well.” I can’t wait for the nights when I can show them the movies, and our favorite characters brought to life. I can’t wait for the day when they realize that Ron Weasley is quite possibly, one of the greatest characters of all time and some one to look up to. Although that’s probably twenty years away, now all I can do is reread the books, look at Harry Potter pictures, watch interviews, and watch the movies hundreds of times remembering my childhood and the world that will always feel so real to me. Thank you Emma Watson, for showing the world that books don’t suck, thank you Daniel Radcliffe for being the perfect Harry, thank you Rupert Grint for embracing the role of a sidekick with immense integrity and hilarity and thank you J.K. Rowling for my childhood, and the rest of my life. Mischief Managed. 

I still remember the day i got my first harry potter book (although my grandma had bought me #2 thinking it was the first. i managed to read the whole series without the first book. shocking, i know.) Harry potter has ben everything to me, even more as i went to grade school that banned the series. I fought tooth and nail in 7th grade to be able to do a book report on the Goblet of Fire. And hell yes i was allowed to. I still have the book report and diaramma. I remember going to almost all of the midnight book releases and movie premiers. I spent so many nights reading by flashlight until the early morning desperately trying to finish the books. The books took me on a journey far away from my life in a boring midwestern town. I cried with the characters when ones i loved died. Like sirius and dumbledore (both instances i threw my book and had to walk away for a while). I laughed at the antics of the trio and fred and george.  I considered the trio like my best of friends, and found their traits in the people i hung out with. I remember vividly reading the books to my sister when she was little, she wanted to know why i liked them so much. I loved being able to share the magic with her.

By high school i was a pro at all things harry potter. The games, the books, the trivia. I remember the day i got the last book and the fear knowing it would be over after i read the last page. I grew up with the trio, and as i closed the final book i was entering the final chapter of my youth. I was a senior in high school, about to graduate. I figured harry potter would be less a part of my life in college.

Until the day i registered for classes and my First Year Seminar was i kid you not, based on harry potter. The 4 credit college class was writing intensive. As a freshman, my 30 other classmates and i were sorted into houses in the class. I was a Gryffindor. We read the 7 books through out the semester, watched the movies. We had discussions about outside influence on the books. It opened my eyes to the sheer genius behind this epic series. During the hour long class we acted as a house, earning house points, and even attempted a quidditch match in a dorm hallway. it was the most amazing class i have taken at college. At the end of the semester we had to write a 7-12 page paper on a theme in the books. While everyone chose good v evil. I ventured on the topic of Voldemorts quest for immortality, and what options awaited characters upon their death. Then with our houses we had to do a hour long re-enactment of a pivotal scene from any of the books. My house and i chose to do the scene of Dumbledore’s death. I got to play Draco and a few death eaters, and it was the most amazing experience. it to this day was the only paper i enjoyed writing to the maximum page limit.

When HP deathly hallows pt1 premiered im am pretty sure it was the only premier i had thought about leaving. I had been to this theater in milwaukee before and i had never once had to wait outside until an hour before the premier. This time was different.I waited outside for nearly 9 hours in frigid temperatures in no more than leggings, a skirt, flats and a sweater. The line of people waiting outside the theater for this movie wrapped 3 times around the theater the size of store like home depot. it was crazy. I was numb by the time i got into my seat at the theater. for two reasons, the cold and the realization that a constant part of my life was slowly coming to an end. It brought tears to my eyes, more tears than i shed for the end of the written series.

Now i’ve just bought my ticket for the last installment of the deathly hallows. 12:06 pm will begin the end of one of the only constants in my life. My best friend is venturing to the movie with me. Were both potter-heads, and i think i may not be the only one to shed a tear or maybe more. unlike the first part where i cried and none of my other friends did. Every day that the my bestie and i are on twitter and tumblr its being more permanently set in stone that it all will end shortly. We joke about needing the aid of booze before, during or after the movie to cope with the feelings. But behind the jokes i think there is a real emotion. its unknown and scary. What will i have to look forward too now that its over? Its comsummed me for so long that i think an inevitable emptiness will present. One thing that harry potter has taught me is that you’ve always got your friends. So when the credits role on july 15th i know i’ve got my best friend by my side and a book shelf of my favorite 7 books and movies.

As i look to my future, now a senior in college going to graduate and become an elementary school teacher. With middle school english as my concentration, i look forward to the day i can use harry potter, and other fantastical books to bring magic into the lives of children like Harry Potter had for me. I will jump for joy when a little boy or girl wants to use harry potter for a book report, or project. I will be the teacher who will no doubt encourage “house” competitions and games like harry potter. It not only builds comraderie, but friendship, and a little healthy competition. My future children will know the wonders of harry potter from the youngest of ages. when their imaginations and creativity can harness its wonders. I can only hope the books and movies will mean as much to them as it did and still does to me.

Now that it has been a mere few weeks since the ending of the series, i’ve come to terms with the initial loss i felt. I cried and i felt sad for a day or two. I soothed myself with watching the movies and reading the books again. I am embarking on a memorial tattoo, of which i am not sure where it will go. i know for sure the signature lightning bolt scar and the infamous “always” will be part of it. wether it be simple or dramatic, i know it will have more meaning then the two other tattoo’s on my body. 

When i was little, i wasnt allowed to go hang out with my friends like regular kids. i was really allowed to have a social life. While other girls were at sleepovers, my bedtime was 9. When i turned 6 years old, my friend gave me the first harry potter book. I thought it looked interesting since i love reading but i didn’t think it was anything special. Boy was i wrong. With just the first chapter, i was drawn to the book. i read it and reread it that summer. When i found out harry potter and the sorcerer’s stone as part of a series, i got so excited. i’d spend my summers rereading these books even to this day. To be honest, i grew up with the trio. Hogwarts… was truly an escape for me. i’m really grateful for having the honor of reading such a magical story. Thank you Ms. Rowling for being such an amazing, humble genius. The series may be over but you will continue to have my support. Thank you Dan, Emma, Rupert, and (to all my neville fans -ahem @ronthedistance-) Matt for staying with me for all these years. 

Last but not least, i think you potterheads on Tumblr are pretty amazing too :] Continue to stay true to the franchise and fandom.