I stole this idea from a friend who passed it along to me, but the joy of this story is that it's never too big for just one more fan.
I discovered Harry Potter when someone's daughter who worked with my mom said I had to read it. I was in eighth grade at the time, thirteen years old, and a pretty constant book nerd. My mom bought me a paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and I set about the process of reading it. I only made it a few pages into the first chapter before I got bored, set it down, and wrote it off as another book I'd never finish. My friend, Judith, found out I had started it and told me I just had to get through the first chapter and then it'd get good. I skipped "The Boy Who Lived" and settled into chapter two. Three days later, I came back to Judith and demanded her copy of the next one. She gladly handed it over, minus the book jacket (she's kinda famous for that "no book jacket" thing). Two days later, I came back and exchanged Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban. Needless to say, I was hooked.
I can't remember precisely what I loved about the story so much as I just loved the story. The joy of books has always been and will always be the ability to lose myself, to jump from whatever reality I live in to whatever reality I choose. At this time in my life, my father had just gotten a divorce and was dating someone new, my little brother had just been born to my mom and stepdad, I was living between two parents houses and never comfortable at either home, and I was on a mission to find new friends. Simply put, they made me happy.
When I returned the third book to Judith, I demanded the fourth. I was abashed when she told me it hadn't been released yet and wouldn't be for another several months. Begging my parents for money, I ordered the fourth book to come in with Judith's. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made it into my hands July 10, 2000, unfortunately around ten minutes before my high school freshman orientation started. I don't remember my high school freshman orientation, because by the end of it, I was on the fourth chapter. For the next three days, the only thing I did without reading was sleep, shower, and attend band camp. I blowdried my hair while sitting on the floor and my feet holding the book open. I ate while reading; there are still pizza stains somewhere around chapter 12. I read the book on the way to band camp, left it in the car, and picked it up and read on the way home. The last night, I stayed up until 1am to finish the book, unable to set it down after Harry entered the maze.
The next three books followed the same path. People would lose contact with me over the days after a book release. When necessary, I took days off work when a book was released. Three days before I turned 16, I started the fifth book at 7am in my car before doing charity yard work with my youth group. I read Sirius's death while sitting in my band director's living room at midnight while babysitting his two children. At age 19, I laid in my bed at my parents' house and sobbed when Dumbledore died. That same summer, I bonded with several girls from England who loved it all as much as we did. At 20, my coworker and I would talk for hours, making lists of the Horcruxes, debating why "love" was so important. At 21, I have pictures while standing in line at midnight for the seventh book, drinking coffee, enjoying my newly blue-dyed hair, wiggling with anticipation to receive the 7th book. I once told a boyfriend I'd rather he cheat on me than lose my first-edition, midnight release seventh book (and meant it). I screamed obscenities at the book and physically beat the page when Dobby died. I walked down 16th street in downtown Birmingham on my way to work while reading the last chapter of the last book, finishing it while sitting in the lifeguard office of the Campus Rec Center.
At 24 years old with my future husband, I stood at the entrance to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and cried. I have loved this story as if it were my love story and loved these people as friends. I cheered as the Weasley twins soared into the glorious night, I held my breath as Harry grasped the dusty globe. I read and re-read the long fall from the astronomy tower, sure that I had misread. I hated Cho, I pitied Neville in St. Mungo's. I suffered a broken heart as Sirius slipped through the veil. I sat up all night as Harry, Ron, and Hermoine wandered through the forest for 200 pages. I skipped forward to make sure Hermoine and Ron's names were at the end of every book and they were alive and well. I lamented how wrong we were about Snape, and I wished we had known. I cheered when McGonagall rose the suits of armor, I cried when Kreacher lead the charge with the locket bouncing on his chest, I pitied Neville no longer as he leaped across the lawn into glory, I screamed in delight when "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH" roared across the page. I lived every moment of the last battle, sure that I, too, had seen the boy that lived survive and save us all.
I can't explain why words on many, many, many pages made me feel as they did. Chalk it up to good writing skills. Or maybe it was because the first several books I read at the same age Harry was in them. Maybe it was because I always associated Harry Potter with my friends; after all, they were always there to talk and theorize, but more than that they were just there, just like those books were. And maybe, at the end of the day, I just love them. While sometimes I try to explain to people exactly why I love them the way I do, maybe I just... do. That's okay too. Because those who do too... know, too.
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