...at this exact moment, I had completely finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact I had finished it a few hours earlier, sped off to work and spent my 5 hour shift feeling emotionally spent and trying not to cry while restocking the candy isle at Walgreens.
It is almost strange to me how well I remember that night that I finally got Deathly Hallows as well as the initial feelings that I had while reading it and immediately afterwards. I'm also afraid that I might lose them after years of filling my brain with other things so here goes, my memories from the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I went to the Books-A-Million by my house with my good friend Laura and my little brother. Laura was not very into Harry Potter. She liked the books mostly, actually all, due to me making her read the books during our senior year of high school (it took me three years to convince her to read them!) But she did not consider herself a fanatic and was tagging along as a good friend. I brought my brother with me because he was, and still is, the best free loader anyone has ever seen. I had not read any of the leaked parts of the book online. The only thing I came across, and could not help myself but read, was the first few opening lines in the books because they were on even the legit Harry Potter fan sites and I could not resist.
While I was there I semi-participated in a Harry Potter trivia contest because apparently the older you were, the more likely they wanted to eliminate you so a cute little 8 year old could win it. All I could think of was, this kid probably wasn't even born when I first read Sorcerer's Stone. I also walked around and asked random people the question set from PotterCast about what they thought would happen. I kept that tally sheet for a long time but now I can not seem to find it. Sad. But finally I got my copy and went to the car. I was somewhat afraid of getting the end ruined by some jerk that would flip to the end (like the "Snape killed Dumbledore" fiasco at a few bookstores with Half Blood Prince). More so because I had to drive to Toys R Us and Barnes and Noble so that my brother could pick up their Harry Potter cut outs that had the countdowns on them. I had asked for the one at Books-A-Million almost a month earlier and my brother thought it would be a good idea to do the same thing at other stores so we could have several Harry Potters.
We got home spoiler free and I started reading until about 6 am and then went to sleep woke up around 11 am and started reading more. I was on a tight schedule because I had to finish before work at 5pm. That and the fact that I could not put it down caused me to finish with 30 minutes to spare. So I went to work with my mind swimming with everything that was going on and I could not wait to get home and chat up a storm with people on the message boards.
I really liked my experience with getting Deathly Hallows. It is not particularly unique, I did not really have anyone to share it with (like as I was reading or something), but it still felt very special to me.
I contrast this with my experience with watching the last movie. It was also not particularly unique, but it did not have the same level of impact on me. I think at this point it is because I was not able to fully share it with friends that are fanatical as I am. When I talk about with my fan friends and see other people's reactions, it gives me more an emotional reaction than going to see it with my friends that are not really big fans.
I think another part of it was because I was scared of the direction that the Harry Potter fan base was going after the final book. Turns out, it flourished and got bigger and better. And so now with the end of the movies, I don't think that it will deter the fandom. The movies have never really dictated anything in the past (at least not correctly), so why should they now?
But that is about it. I think this will be my last Harry Potter centered blog for a while just because I will be heading back to UT in another week so there will be a few other things on my mind.
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