Why I re-read Harry Potter (again)

I remember being curled on the couch when I was 16 with the third Harry Potter book (my favorite until the seventh book came out, usurping it’s position.) I was laughing about something. My dad, sitting in the living room with me, said “you’ve read that book a million times, and it still makes you giggle.”

I don’t think I actually read them a million times, although I lost count. By the end of my high school career, it was a lot of times. I know I had read the first one at least ten times, and the rest a few times less.

After the seventh book came out, I tried to re-read it, but found that it was an enormous struggle. I love that book, but the emotional roller-coaster ride is enough to leave one dizzy. I would read bits and pieces after it came out, but I never faced the whole thing again.

As my college years went on, I left my Harry Potter books pristine and untouched in the box they came in.As an English major, there were a lot of other readings that came first. Ocassionally, before a movie release, I would revisit points of the books. And I have a talent for being able to quote obscure bits of Potter knowledge and find the exact chapter and page referencing said knowledge in under two minutes (yes, I have actually asked people to time me).

 

But it has been nine years, almost an entire decade, since I read the entire series.

If you’re like me, you know that nine years is too long of a time to wait to re-visit your favorite fictional place. At the beginning of April, as I approached the birthday that marks a quarter of a century, I found that I was yearning to start from the beginning and tear my way through them, the way I used to nine years ago.

It was as a fufilling experience as it ever was. Sure enough, I laughed out loud, I cried real tears, and several times I spoke out loud to the characters on the page (I am a very interactive reader.)

Now, I’m at a strange time in my life. When you start reaching adult ages, you have to start doing more and more adult things. I’m starting to re-evaluate my life, trying to think of ways I might better myself, forming vague plans for my future, working. And in my adult years, I needed to go somewhere that consistently makes me happy. A place where the characters are like friends.

When I was in London, my friend and I went to see the Harry Potter set, and it was an incredible experience. If you haven’t been there, spoilers ahead. The last room holds the scale model that was used to film Hogwarts. It’s huge and beautiful and a truly magical experience which I highly recommend. As we circled it, I remember tearing up. There was one word that kept coming to mind.

Just as Harry would say, Hogwarts is home. And sometimes we all just need to go home.

A special Thank You

I want to take some time today to talk about a very special person in my life who has influenced me in so many ways.

I am so lucky to have gotten the Mom that I did. My nature loving, flower-child mother raised me to be the person I am today.

One thing that I am particularly grateful to her for is my love of the written word.

My mother would read to my sister and I every night, from the time we were in our cribs, until I was well into my pre-teen years. She would bring us to the book fairs and let us take home a new book we would read together. It was my grandmother who first put a Harry Potter book in my hands, but it is my mother’s voice that brought so many of my favorite characters to life. She was the one who discovered A Series of Unfortunate Events. She opened up the Wardrobe door to Narnia for us, and flew us across the universe with A Wrinkle in Time.

It wasn’t just my passion for reading that she helped me cultivate. When I wrote my first poem in the third grade, I was so excited. It was such a rush. People read it and said that it was good and I should keep working on it. My mom brought me to the store and bought me half a dozen tiny notebooks that I could keep with me and jot poems in.

I’ve long since given up poetry, but as I grew older, the notebooks grew larger, and I was constantly writing stories; I would play with my sister and imagine new lives for us, then write our imaginary adventures later. I filled blank notebooks with childhood stories, and all the while, my Mother supported me. From the time I was eleven, she has been saying the I should write a book. It is because of her support that I write.

I can never give her enough thanks for the support and influence she’s given me, making me the person I am today. Every day I see more of her in myself, and I am so grateful for that. Because if I grow up to be like my Mom, then I’ve grown up to be a really amazing person.

Happy Mother’s day to all those mothers reading this, and a special Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom. I love you, you are amazing.