Well, tonight it ends. We've known it was coming for years now, but that doesn't make the moment any less climactic. I've read the book a million times... so many times that I know I will not be suprised by any of the scenes in tonight's movie. There will probably be nothing that makes me oooh or ahhh... the images on the screen are simply the same as those that have been in my head for the past 4 years, finally brought to life in a way that others can enjoy them too.
If you're not a Harry Potter fan, this post will probably make you laugh. But if you are, then you not only understand where I'm coming from... but you are feeling the exact same things yourself.
Since reading the last page of the first book we have always had the anticipation of "what's next" -- a new book, a new movie, a new theme park -- but tonight when we walk out of that theater we will know that there is no "next". This is it. The Harry Potter story is over.
I wonder if J.K. Rowling realized how powerful the text she was writing would come to be? I'm sure she didn't... as I'm sure no one could have. After all, who could have predicted that 7 books written about an orphan-boy-grown-wizard would capture the world's attention in the way that it did?
Over the past 11 years I have read the Harry Potter books no less than 11 times -- re-reading them at least once a year, and sometimes twice. I put fake covers over the "evil" books in order to be able to take them to school, because the administration had banned them and dismissed them as wrong.
If only someone in the administration had read them. They would realize what amazing story it truly is... and how many lessons could have been learned from their pages.
To me, the story of Harry Potter is the ultimate story of Good v. Evil. Of Life v. Death. It's a love story.
The story of an orphan boy, saved from evil by nothing other than the self-sacrifice and love of his own mother... thrown into a world where he was never loved by anyone only to find, 11 years later that not only was he not weird, not an outcast, but someone special... someone looked up to and honored by his peers.
I'm sure everyone has felt like that at one time or another... that they didn't belong, that they just didn't fit into the world they lived in. And to imagine that something so magical could happen, that out of nowhere you could be swept off and placed into a world where everything just felt right... that is the story of Harry Potter.
It's a story of doing the right thing, no matter how hard it is. It's a story of standing up for what you believe to be true, even if an entire world is against you. It's a story of going for it... even when the odds seem stacked against you, and a story of unconditional love, of being willing to sacrifice a part of your own self to save those you care about.
The story itself is pure genius... to begin with a baby in a crib, who's life was saved by his mother giving up her own and to end... 17 years later... with that "baby" marching to what he believes to be his own death in order to save the lives of his friends.
The fact of whether Harry truly gives up his life or not is irrelevent... it's the fact that he was WILLING to, that is monumental.
Throughout Jr. High and High School Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Neville, Luna, Cho, Cedric, Fred, George and Ginny were some of my closest friends. Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were the school bullies, and Snape and Umbridge were those teachers you just couldn't stand.
For the past 13 years, Hogwarts has been real. So real that when I visted the train station in London I would not have been suprised to see oddly dressed children running in a dead sprint towards the column between platforms 9 & 10 in effort to make it onto Platform 9 3/4.
When I got my first house and discovered a family of owls living in the building behind it... I imagied them simply waiting for the call to deliver their next letter. I remember curling up in the chair on my back porch, reading the books while listening to the owls call to one another in the darkness -- it made everything seem even more real than it already was.
Over the past 13 years, the story of Harry Potter has been more real to me than many things.
I remember my disappointment with the first few HP films... I'm not sure if they've gotten better over the years or if my expectations have simply been adjusted and I've realized what they truly are meant to be. Either way, it is impossible to capture the magic that lies on the pages of those books, put them into a movie and expect the same type of impact -- it's just impossible.
So tonight, I am prepared to say goodbye to one of the best stories ever written. I am prepared to overlook the small details that don't line up with the book, and to fill in the gaps the film-makers miss.
I'm excited to see the reactions of those who don't know what's coming -- to watch some of the most "evil" characters become completely redeemed in the eyes of the viewers.
I am prepared to laugh, to cry, and to ultimatley walk out of that theater knowing that it's over.
Knowing that even if J.K.Rowling decides to ever write another Harry Potter book, it will be to keep the story alive for a second generation of readers, and not because there is more to be written.... because there isn't.
I'm grown up. It only makes sense that they should be grown up too.
Harry Potter's story, whether it is truly "over" or not, is complete -- when you turn to the last page of any true Harry Potter fan's copy of The Deathly Hallows I'm sure you will find tear stains on the pages... tear stains because it's over, because it could not have ended any better, but it's still over, just the same.
I expect the same reaction tonight when the credits roll and the lights come up -- there will be many tear stained faces, and a somber crowd will be exiting the theater, because they will all know, it truly is "The End".
