the summer i spent with harry potter

summer is a time for reading. i mean, as a literature major, every season is a time for reading. but during the fall, winter, and spring, i am consumed with assigned readings. i don't get to choose the books that i read, rather they are decided for me, marked out on a syllabus with the pages i am meant to read by the dates i am meant to read them by. but then june rolls around, marking the beginning of a very special time of year in which i have the privilege to read for fun. for three glorious months i am able to read what i want to read at the pace i want to read it and i enjoy every moment of it. so as school was coming to a close i made a list: love in the time of cholera, pride and prejudice, and the road made an appearance among other novels that i wanted to read. there was one series of books, though, that i placed at the bottom of the list. they were sort of a second thought, pushed aside in place of other novels. putting them on my reading list in the first place was half-heartedly done. see, i never actually had any real desire to read the harry potter books.

over the years people have planted the seeds, telling me to read them, insisting that i'll love them, etcetera. none of these seeds actually took root, though. not until i went to england. spending a month with a group of fellow literature students in the country that the novels are set led to constant banter about harry this and hogwarts that and all these comments were being made that i couldn't even try to understand because i had not read about any of it. everywhere we turned it seemed someone made a remark along the lines of, "oh! it's like in harry potter!" it quickly became quite obvious that i was missing out on something big. i mean, i always knew that i had been on the outside of the circle, but i never really cared. being in england, though...well, it made me care. and what better place to start my delve into the world of witchcraft and wizardry than the place where it all started. see, i made the deciscion to start reading them while in edinburgh, where jk rowling wrote on that napkin that would evolve into a seven book series. and i got my hands on a copy of the philosopher's stone (yep, the british version), finally opening it up under the oak trees in hyde park.
so it started in london two months ago, and now 4,100 pages later it has come to a close. how fitting that in the final hour of harry potter's own birthday i would finish the last page of the last book.
and so, somehow, all those novels that had pushed harry potter to the bottom have now been thwarted themselves by the seven book series. and while there are still a few more weeks of summer, my time of reading-for-fun is nearly done. am i glad that i spent my summer with harry and dumbledore and all the rest of them? yes, i suppose so. all in all, though, i hated the fifth book and thought that ron and hermione's kiss deserved much more than what jk rowling gave it. i am proud to say that i believed in snape and his goodliness all along, just knowing that his vindication would come and so glad when it finally did. i shed a tear or two when dumbledore died (even though i knew it was coming. what can i say? i've come adore that old man). the prisoner of azkaban, the half-blood prince, and the deathly hallows were my faves. and while i will say that i liked the series, i don't know if i loved it. what i do love, though, is that i am finally in on the inside jokes and able to contribute to the harry potter banter.
so thanks for the good times, harry. england, thanks for giving me the push that i needed. and thank you, summer, for giving me the time read.

...i miss hogwarts already.