I judge books by their covers. Or, at least, at first. The more colorful and unique a book cover looks, the more likely I am to pick it out of the bookshelf. I read the teaser at the back and then decide whether I would pour hours of my life into immersing myself in the worlds within the pages.
When I was in third grade, I was looking through the stack of new books my parents had just bought when I saw a book with an illustration of a geeky-looking boy riding a broomstick. Interesting, I thought, so I perused the teaser and reviews on the back cover. I vaguely remember reading the words “dark” and “evil” (or something to that effect) and, scaredy-cat that I am, was immediately turned off.
My parents, however, had other plans. They prodded me into reading the first few chapters. If I didn’t like it, I could stop reading. Little did they know that in making me read that book, they created a monster. To date, I have read that novel 13 times. The sequel, I read 11 times, and the third installment, which, incidentally, is my favorite, I have read 18 and 1/2 times (half because I haven’t finished my 19th reading…yet).
For people who have been living on a distant mountain in Nepal for the past 10 years, the book with the geeky boy gracing its cover is none other than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
From page one, I was drawn into the story. I could imagine myself living in a cupboard under the stairs, peering into the shops in Diagon Alley, and celebrating when the Sorting Hat screamed Gryffindor (of course!) when it was placed on my head.
When the second and third books came out, I demanded that I be the first in my family to read them. Before Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was due to be released, I begged my dad to reserve a copy, just in case they would be sold out by the time I got to the bookstore on the day they were to come out.
I remember reading the fifth novel and seeing the similarities between Dolores Umbridge and my sixth grade music teacher (she fit the physical description and could be nasty!)
When the movies were shown, my family would always go to the cinema during the opening weekend, no matter how long the queue to the theater was or how busy I was with schoolwork.
And then, a year or two into high school, I started visiting Harry’s world less and less. Book six and film five came out. I read and watched. I enjoyed. And then I went back to chatting with my friends on Yahoo! Messenger and learning about chromosomes and mathematical functions.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published during my last year of high school. I remember it was the last week of July, almost exactly two years ago. The first copy of the book I saw was the UK version being sold at the Airport in Frankfurt. For the first time, I wasn’t at home, at the head of the line to read about The Boy Who Lived. My father e-mailed me an advanced copy, which turned out to be a fake. It didn’t matter; I didn’t read it anyway.
Two weeks later, I came home from Germany. I had planned to read Harry, but the UPCAT got in the way. And then, I had quarterly exams to worry about, followed by the school intramurals. Fast-forward to May 2008. I graduated, and still not read a single word of the seventh book.
Summer went by and college life started. I still hadn’t read it. Now, the sixth movie is already showing. I didn’t get to see it on opening weekend — because I didn’t want to. But now I have.
I actually enjoyed the film, bad reviews or not. I liked it partly because I felt like I was watching the story unfold for the first time. (Spoiler alert: for those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie, skip this paragraph). Staring at the screen, I couldn’t remember anything from the book, except Dumbledore’s death. I had the same satisfaction from watching The Da Vinci Code, which many people didn’t like much because it was too faithful to the book. I loved it because I didn’t finish Dan Brown’s novel. In the same way, I loved Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because I was watching it with fresh eyes.
Almost 10 years after discovering Harry, Hermione, and Ron — characters whom I have come to know and love like real friends — I felt that I didn’t know them anymore. Seeing them come to life onscreen was an experience that I can compare only to seeing my grade school classmates after more than five years of not meeting each other.
There was apprehension, of course, that they wouldn’t be the same people I once knew. Then, there was the feeling of superiority; I had new, better friends now, I didn’t need to speak to people I used to play Chinese garter and hopscotch with. There was also hurt in the realization that they had changed. Finally, there would be joy in discovering that though they’ve changed, they were still the same kids deep down inside and that some of the changes were actually for the better. Future meetings would then be planned.
I was scared that I didn’t know Harry anymore, scared that I had forgotten him and didn’t even realize it until he was in front of me again. I didn’t want to watch because I wanted to outgrow him, to be an adult, believing that outgrowing him would be better than forgetting him — that I had consciously stopped returning to Hogwarts, rather than simply forgetting where it was.
I didn’t want to see Hermione and Ron together. I didn’t want to see Harry checking out some girl at a diner. They were the kids who played Quidditch and bickered childishly about house elves and cats, not adults who had relationships and snogged each other.
But, in seeing how they’ve changed, I still saw how they remained the same. They still broke the rules, hated Potions class, and well, played Quidditch. Even better was the fact that they had grown into more powerful and more defined characters, characters who, like me, have started growing up.
I’ve missed Harry Potter. It took a mini freakout over a movie to make me realize that.
It has been a great reunion with an old friend. I know that Harry Potter and I will meet again (hopefully before the seventh movie comes out!).