I used to be 11 years outdated once I fell in love with Harry Potter for the primary time. It was the summer season between fifth and sixth grade and I managed to keep away from camp for one more yr. By August I had already completed my total required studying record and was itching to search out one thing new to get me by means of the previous few weeks. I keep in mind selecting up a duplicate after scouring the library: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I began studying it proper then and there, settling into a comfortable spot between two stacks. One, perhaps two, hours handed earlier than my mother tore me away from the story to move residence. I used to be hooked.
It’s superb how visceral and actual that reminiscence nonetheless feels. I can nonetheless see it. The hippogriff on the duvet, the stained library carpet, the outdated damaged espresso pot on the librarian’s desk. I knew proper there that I used to be holding on to one thing particular. Harry Potter remained a relentless in my life from that very second.
I used to be 28 once I fell in love with somebody for the primary time. My opening line was one thing about us each loving Seamless and Harry Potter, have to be destiny proper?
Our first date was in a cocktail bar in New York Metropolis. We spent hours flirting over drinks, discussing what home we’d be sorted into—I used to be a Ravenclaw who was determined to faucet into her Gryffindor aspect. I don’t keep in mind what he stated, however I do keep in mind the rightness, the enjoyment, that I felt. Right here was somebody who liked the sequence as a lot as I did. Who, I imagined, had consumed the books with the identical childlike marvel, flashlight clutched tightly beneath the covers, turning web page after web page determined to know if Harry and associates would make it by means of the newest catastrophe.
Our love of Harry Potter was simply the spark that lit a match, from there we shortly fell in love. July 31st was our anniversary, Harry Potter’s birthday, a truth we each giggled over. To have fun after a yr collectively, we made the trek to The Wizarding World. I flirted with Stanley Shunpike, discovered my wand at Olivanders (dragon core) and drank one too many butterbeers. It felt just like the climax of my story, one thing that had been build up from that very first second within the library once I was 11 years outdated. It had all led as much as this second on this magical place with this lovely man, I used to be swept away.
Cue the ominous music.
Do you keep in mind in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the place Harry finds the Mirror of Erised? The mirror that exhibits you what you need most? I feel each fan wonders what they might see. The outdated me would have stated one thing about strolling down the aisle to a Kishi Bashi tune, the person I liked ready on the opposite finish (in a wise swimsuit and a brand new haircut). Three years and a damaged engagement later—my reply has modified. I gained’t go into the explanations we aren’t collectively anymore; that may take an excessive amount of time. What I can say is that I’ve misplaced a accomplice, a greatest good friend, and a future—on prime of that, I’ve misplaced the power to search out consolation on this story that introduced me a lot pleasure.
I packed my books away in a chest beneath my mattress as a result of even taking a look at them are a reminder of what I’ve misplaced.
It’s been practically six months and I want I might say that it’s grow to be simpler, that I picked up a duplicate of Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban once more and it was all OK, that I used to be in a position to get by means of the primary chapter with out shaking. However that may be a lie. I’m not there but. Possibly in a couple of months, I’ll learn a couple of extra phrases, and some extra within the months after. Possibly I’ll watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on a wet weekend. Or perhaps not. I merely don’t know. The one factor I can say with any certainty is that I can’t permit this to be one other factor that will get taken away from me as a result of earlier than it was ours, it was mine.
This sequence and the whole lot that it has meant to me over the previous 20 years of my life isn’t one thing I’m prepared to surrender and not using a combat.
