My journey with Harry Potter

There is a day and a half left before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released.  Greg and I have anxiously awaited this book for two years.  We have discussed the theories and plot points at length and we each have our own ideas of how it will end.

 

This series of books has been part of my life since I was 22 and a fourth year University student.  I was working at Chapters when the Harry Potter hype hit in the summer of 1999.  I was a late-comer to this series as the first three books were already out.  At this point there was this huge frenzy in the press about this kid’s book series about a boy wizard and his adventures.  At the time I thought it was all blown out of proportion so I asked my Mom to buy me the three book set for Christmas so I could see for myself if it was good.

 

In December, after Christmas, I started reading the books.  I was quickly hooked and couldn’t put them down. While I was doing my second-last student teaching placement in the spring of 2000 I was deep into Prisoner of Azkaban.  In between teaching I was hiding out in the staff room unable to put the book down.  My associate teacher at the time, whom was absolutely fabulous and inspiring, warned me that I ought not to be caught reading in the staff room.  She told me that the Principal of the school might see me and think that I was managing my free time poorly.  I begrudgingly put the book down and went back to lesson prep and marking.

 

When the release date for Goblet of Fire was announced in early 2000 I was one of the first people to put my name down on the pre-order list.  The Chapters store I worked in was only two years old at that time and had not seen such hype as Goblet of Fire brought.  Chapters the company didn’t even have the ability for you to pre-order your book online and have it delivered to the house yet.  

 

Even in those days the book was a closely guarded secret until the release day.  I remember the managers giving the staff the talk about the book before it arrived in store.  They informed all of us that the books would remain boxed until the morning of the release.  We were not allowed to touch the skid of boxes, never mind open them.  I remember going into the stock room sometime the week of the release and seeing the skid of boxes still wrapped in plastic with “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” written in big bold lettering on the sides of the boxes.

 

The morning of the release I was working and it was insane!  The excitement hung in the air and it was fantastic.  Goblet of Fire, at that time, was the longest book in the series.  I actually didn’t race through reading it.   I spent two weeks at the end of July that year at Craig’s camp on Lake Nippissing and I took the book with me.  I remember being curled up in the back seat of Craig’s 1960 Chevy Corvair surrounded by pillows and blankets slowly making my way through it. 

 

Goblet was never my favourite in the series I actually found it overlong and slow at the time. Before the movie version of the book was released I re-read the book.  Upon the second reading I found I liked it more and didn’t feel it was as drawn out as I had thought previously.

 

In 2003, when Order of the Phoenix finally made its much anticipated and long-awaited appearance, I had just returned to TB after living in Whitby for four months.  I no longer worked for Chapters so I pre-ordered my book online and waited for it to be delivered to my house the day of the release.  I was astounded when I woke up at 10am and found the book already between the back doors of the house.  I ripped the package open and sat myself down in one of Dad’s Adirondack chairs outside to read through this long-awaited next piece of the Harry Potter puzzle.  I believe I devoured that book in a few days and was already in need of another Harry Potter fix.

 

The next fix came two years later in the form of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. By this time I was once again in the big city and Greg and I anxiously awaited this book’s release together.  Our friend Shawn invited us over to his house to celebrate the book’s release together.  I remember laughing at the first chapter ‘The Other Minister’.  I also recall my excitement over ‘Spinner’s End’ which revealed Snape to be different than we had once thought him to be.  I can also still recall my shock at ‘The Lightening Struck Tower’.  I had just finished reading about Dumbledore’s untimely demise at the hand of Snape when my friends Joe and Lisa picked me up for one of our outings.  

 

It was really hard to leave the book behind at that moment. I wanted to keep reading because I wanted to be told that it wasn’t true.  I didn’t want to believe that Dumbledore was truly dead or that Snape had really done it.   Most of all I didn’t want his death to be pointless.  Two years later I’m still waiting for that vindication. 

 

So here I am one day from holding all the answers to these questions and mysteries in my hand and I’m not sure how I feel about it.  I both want to know and not want to know those answers.  Knowing the answers will mean this 10 year mystery will be at an end.  This 8 year chunk of my life will be over.  It’s strange that a book has had this much of an impact on me.

 

As I have gotten older I have found myself that much sadder when I finally finished reading a book that was so all-consuming of my imagination and heart.  I know that finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be that much harder than any other book. 

 

Even though I am an adult I have also grown up with Harry. My life from 1999 is a far cry different from the life I have now.  I am no where near the same person I was when I first picked up that copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.  I, like Harry, have been irrevocably changed by the events of the last 8 years of my life.   It’s hard to imagine I won’t have another book to look forward to after this one. It’s a bit of a growing up but as I well know that is part of life.  Time won’t stand still for me or Harry Potter.