Harry

This is going to start off structured... and then just kind of fall apart as I remember things.

I was 8 the first time I heard of Harry Potter. It wasn't really a "thing" yet. I was in second grade and I was reading an article in one of those flimsy little monthly magazines that everyone used to get. I was reading an interview with Jake Lloyd, the kid who played young Anakin in the Phantom Menace? Yeah, anyway. He said his favourite book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'd never heard of it and I didn't go rushing out to buy it.

The next year, when I was 9 and in 3rd grade, my mum worked at the school book fair. Which, being the little book worm I always have been, was one of my favourite events of the year. Anyway, I think I was either "helping" or just being super nosey. I remember Harry Potter being sold out. I thought it was lame because everyone seemed to like it, so I refused to read it. How very rebellious of me. Anyway, I remember coming home one day to it sitting on the kitchen table for me. I probably rolled my eyes, but it was a book and I couldn't resist. I recall being immediately entranced by it.

I definitely had a crush on Severus Snape, just throwing that out there. And I've been obsessed with Lucius Malfoy since the second movie came out when I was 12. We have a deep love that you just wouldn't understand. I named our Thanksgiving turkey after him that year and I made everyone address it as such. "This is Lucius. You'll be eating him tonight. Say hello." Super fucked. Oh well. I'm lucky my parents indulged me.

I've been to all of the midnight premiers. Both movies and book releases. I've never dressed up per-say... but I dont usually wear entirely normal clothes, either. In line for the 4th book, I bought a stuffed moose. I named him Melville. I don't know where he went, which is sad because he was lovely.

I was 13 and on an aeroplane to Florida for my birthday when I read the bit in the 5th book where Sirius died. The summer I was 15, I was at theatre day-camp when the 6th book came out. It was 2 weeks long and the book came out on the weekend in between. On friday, I discovered I had been cast as the lead in the final play and that I was expected to memorise all of my lines by Monday. With Harry Potter coming out in between the two! So I read it in less than a day, then memorised my lines with the rest of the weekend.

When the seventh book came out, I spent a day and a half on the loveseat in the livingroom. I think it was one of the few times my mother just let me sleep in the livingroom. She always hated when I did that, but it was Harry Potter! The last one! So she let me. Thanks for that, since I know you read this. I think I read until just after Hedwig and Moody died and then I passed out. But I definitely cried when they died.

I've been to Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. I've been on a train across that bridge the Ford Anglia flies over in the 2nd movie. Chocolate Frogs are one of my favourite types of candy, but I have a special place in my stomach for Ice Mice. I have 2 of the unforgivables tattooed on my wrists. My friend said I'd regret them. I told her she didn't understand.

I was, and remain, disgustingly good at Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup for GameCube. Unless it's on the easy setting. Because then I suck since it's easy. That's always the worst. I put it on that for when I play people and they always beat me super easy. But then I put it on hard without telling them what I did so all of a sudden I'm sitting on them and smooshing their face into the mud of the Australia National Quidditch Stadium and they're wondering what the fuck happened because they had just beaten me. It's because playing on hard actually takes skills. I once played so much that my thumbs hurt for a week. I promise I'm sort of cool and social....

Anyway. I'm saying all of this because on Friday, the final movie comes out. Which is... y'know. Really sad. Since going to Harry Potter midnight premiers has been something I've loved doing forever. And this is the last one. :/