Always

Today makes the one year anniversary of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two premier in the U.S.

I’ve said in passing on my blog that Harry Potter is a huge, huge part of my life, and always has been.  I’ve been listening and reading and watching the stories since I was about age three.

I’m fourteen.  I missed a lot of premiers, a lot of waiting, and plotting what could come next.  But for me, Harry Potter was my childhood.  I spent hours and hours and hours playing Harry Potter with my friends, creating stories around our favorite characters, running through the backyard in my homemade cloak, using pencils as wands.

One year ago last night, I was in line, anxiously waiting to enter into my favorite theater.  I was with friends, playing Harry Potter Uno, wearing the cloak my sister made for me when I was in third grade, made ready just before the release of the final book. 

Harry Potter means a lot to me.  It shaped my childhood, and who I became.  I grew up with the idea that love is the greatest power against evil nestled securely in my heart.  I grew up running through the halls of Hogwarts, creating my own special version in my head.  I grew up creating these stories about my favorite characters and telling them to myself.  Harry Potter shaped who I am now, as a person and a writer.

I have a small section of my bedroom wall that is dedicated to Harry Potter quotes.  These are quotes I do my best to follow and to live by, quotes that I have known for years and years, and that have helped shape me into the person I am now.  This particular quote by Sirius Black is one of my favorites:  “Besides, the world isn’t split into good people and death eaters.  We’ve all got both light and dark inside us.  What matters is the part we choose to act on.  That’s who we really are.”

I know I can be mean sometimes, or annoying, or a pain to be around.  I know that.  But I do my best, for the most part, to not.  I try my best to be a good person, who is kind.  I try and act on the light side of me.  It can be hard sometimes, and I know where there are days where that just doesn’t happen.  I’m acting on the dark side of me.  But then I do try and act on the light side.  I try.  Sure, it doesn’t always work, but I try.  I try and be the light side of me.

I’ve tried to write about Harry Potter, and what it means to me, before.  It generally doesn’t work.  But today, I am.  Today, the one year anniversary of the “end of an era”.  But the thing is, how is it the end of an era?  People are still discovering Harry Potter.  Children are still loving the stories, finding their own Hogwarts, just like I did. 

To me, this quote by Nathan Fillion, about the show Firefly, rings very true with the Harry Potter community.  "When Firefly died I thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen. What I realize now, ten years later, looking out onto this room, is that the worst thing that could have happened is if it’d stayed dead."  Replace Firefly with Harry Potter, and you’ve got the Harry Potter fandom.  Harry Potter may be officially finished.  But the fans are still creating stories, still creating fan art, still watching the movies and reading the books.  There are still people discovering Harry Potter.  So yes, technically Harry Potter is over, and I feel very blessed to have been able to be a part of the fandom as everything was still going, and new books and movies were coming out.  But Harry Potter has not died.  So yes.  Harry Potter is over officially.  But to the fans?  It’s never over.  It’s still there.  It’ll always be there.

{Via}

The Dandy Lioness