The final Harry Potter movie premiered at midnight today. I’ll admit that I haven’t followed the movies very closely - while they are well done, I’m very picky about my book to movie adaptations. I haven’t seen the first part of the seventh yet, so I imagine I’ll see both parts together with my sister when they come out on DVD.
This is significant to me because the first book came out in 1997 in the UK, 1998 in the US. I was about 9 or 10 when I started reading them. My grandfather got me a copy of Prisoner of Azkaban before it was released in the US. I hoped for a Hogwarts letter when I turned 11. From book one, I was an obvious Ravenclaw. I was the first person in my family to read each of the books. Now everybody in my family has read all seven books, down to my 11-year-old sister. My other sister attended the midnight premiere, much as I attended the midnight book release for Order of the Phoenix eight years ago.
The Harry Potter saga, in book and movie form, has spanned the latter two thirds of my life. It is one of the series that has shaped my own imagination and writing, along with The Lord of the Rings and Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I still wonder sometimes if Hogwarts (or its American equivalent) just somehow missed me.
Two months from today I turn 21, which is considered a passage into adulthood, despite the fact that I’ve been a legal adult for the past three years. I graduate from undergrad in May, going on to grad school or an actual job and who knows what else. In many ways, I was the ideal age for Harry Potter, because, especially in the latter books and earlier movies, he was my age. As I read each book, the characters were growing up with me, going through so many of the same situations, even if they have magic on top of all of it.
In particular, I’ve always identified with Hermione, and she was one of the first smart female leads I ever encountered, and I appreciate that her hair is as unruly as mine. (I jokingly cite Emma Watson’s hair after the first two movies as the reason that I don’t watch them.) She was such a pivotal character to the story and the right kind of role model for a geeky young girl with bushy hair of her own. Especially in fantasy, there are very few strong female characters. It's a model that we're breaking out of, it's just that "classics" are lagging behind the curve as women come into our own. (Watch Star Wars again sometime and realize that Leia would have made the better Jedi.)
References to Harry Potter pervade our culture now. Yesterday my boyfriend asked me “Do you solemnly swear you are up to no good?” The term “Muggles” is frequently used to describe people who are uninitiated. (On that note, we’ve decided I’m a geocaching Squib, since the rest of my family has gone and I haven’t.) Thanks to the books, fantastical creatures such as the basilisk have been brought back in to the modern awareness. My little sisters jumped from there into a study of mythology.
My mother showed me the ad that Alan Rickman took out to thank J.K. Rowling for the journey. She convinced him to take the role of Snape before he was given much character in the books. I think many fans of the series can agree with him about the need to be told stories. I cried at every death, held my breath at each battle. I read the extra books, kept up on the lore and the world.
Growing up is a strange thing. I think we worry about it a lot, but no matter how much we fret, it happens and can often surprise us. I’ve often thought that when I “become an adult” I have to get boring, but I’ve come to realize that adulthood is what you make it to be. And if I still want to keep the magic of Harry Potter alive in my life, I can. Harry’s journey didn’t end with the seventh book, not really, and neither does mine. Harry had the advantage of skipping straight to the epilogue. I get to live my life all the way there.
So congratulations to J.K. Rowling, for living every author’s dream. Thank you for the world I spent quite some time growing up in, thank you for the characters I could relate to as I grew with them, and thank you for proving that adults and children alike can still believe in magic.
Mischief managed. For now.
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