Goodbye, Harry Potter

FINALLY.

7 books.

8 movies.

14 years.

I've changed a lot since I first met Harry Potter when I was 11 years old, at Primary School.

I've finished primary school, moved cities 4 times, including a stint in San Francisco, finished high school, finished Uni, travelled Europe, got my first real job, my first promotion, first pay rise, second promotion, second pay rise, fallen in love, fallen out of love, moved out of home, got my learner license, my driver's license, my drinking license...! One thing that hasn't changed is my love for the Harry Potter series.

It's been an adventure. It's been an escape. It's terrified, it's entertained, it's comforted. I have so many great memories thanks to the Harry Potter books: lining up outside book shops in the freezing cold, waiting for the latest embargo to lift; seeing the story brought to life in film for the first time when the Philosopher's Stone was released; playing Harry Potter board games with my sister and our friends; making mum stop the car in the middle of nowhere in rural Australia to locate the only bookstore within 100km in order to buy my sister and I a copy of Order of the Phoenix on release day; sitting on a park bench in a tiny country town reading the book aloud, initially to my sister, then to half the town who gathered around to hear the story; reading for a whole day and a half non-stop, finally reaching the end of the Deathly Hallows, my sister and I both in tears - "but we still have the movies," we said. Today the last film comes out, and I can't help but feel like something amazing and irreplaceable is coming, finally, to its end. It feels like the end of (a somewhat prolonged!) childhood.

I'm of course going to the midnight session, and giving Harry a worthy send off with a Hogwarts-style banquet before the film. I'm going with my sister and my best friend: the two people who convinced me to start reading "those silly kids books" to start with. I can't wait to be surrounded by all the other previously-11-year olds, now adults, all in costume, indulging one last time in the joy and excitement of a Harry Potter event. Harry Potter will surely go down in history as one of the great literary achievements of all time; what other book do you seeing being read on the train by three different generations of people? I can't wait to re-read the story in the future, and to one day share it with my own children. And I'm forever grateful to have been a part of generation-Harry.

Mischief Managed. 

"A common muggle" thanks JK Rowling for Harry Potter on the wall of an Edinburgh bathroom at "The Elephant Room" where JK Rowling spent time writing Harry Potter.