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| On top, the VHS I got when I was 9. All the way to the right, the Sorcerer's Stone book that I destroyed in my love. |
The sight of the move trailer on the television sparked my
interest. Wide-eyed, I told my mom later that movie, and, of course, she repeated
her mantra: “You have to read the book, first.” It was okay, though, because
she had a copy of it in the classroom she worked in at the local school.
that I wanted to see
She handed me the copy, and I ran my fingers over the
strange, golden letters of the title. I looked at the cover that showed a boy
flying: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s
Stone. I was eight years old, and by the time I was done reading it, the
book cover was so destroyed with the pleasure of reading that my mom told me I
could keep it and she’d buy another one for the classroom.
There are many stories in my life connected with the Harry Potter series. At my ninth
birthday party, for example, as I blew out the candles I wished for the Sorcerer’s Stone VHS. Guess what was in
the first present I opened from my grandparents? When I was ten, I received a
magazine with the new film’s details on the inside spread. Those pages were so
destroyed that I ended up tearing them from the magazine, and I still have them
in a binder. I remember waiting in line for Prisoner
of Azkaban that stretched across the parking lot, and some man stepped out
of line at the front and shouted, “DUDE HARRY POTTER IS SOLD OUT!” Or receiving
my copy of Half Blood Prince at a
midnight party after taking an eerie, nighttime walk, and on the way home I
took my book light out to read in the car. (“Don’t stay up all night reading!”
Mom told me.)
I am so grateful for this series, and I wouldn’t know where
I would be without it. It might not have begun my journey into reading and
writing, but it definitely enhanced it. Not only that, but it also enhanced my
life. I read the first book when I was eight years old and saw the final movie
at age eighteen. Ten Years.
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| Pretty much. |
In high school, that’s what drew us together. I met a friend
in gym class over the love of Harry
Potter, one girl I befriended in Spanish class over our love of writing and
the series, another I met freshmen year in science—I am still friends with them
today. We talked about the upcoming films, planned our Deathly Hallows Part 2 midnight showing, laughed about the Starkid
musicals…
I suppose I came here to say that when I started reading
that first Harry Potter book in 2001,
I didn’t expect to fall in love. And I wouldn’t have dreamed that fourteen
years later, I would still be just as obsessed and in love (probably a teensy
bit more obsessed).
I JUST LOVE HARRY POTTER OKAY. *cuddles with books and films
and tshirts and posters and ties and wands and magazine articles and…*
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