On growing up Potter

The first time I encountered the boy wizard, I was an awkward 10-year-old who grew up reading a mixture of Sweet Valley, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Judy Blume. The closest I got to any sort of “magical” fix was via Edith Hamilton’s book of Greek mythology. And yes, I realize now that calling Zeus “magical” was pretty much blasphemy on every front — but I digress. In any case, when my mom fetched me from school one day with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets peeking out of a National Bookstore bag, I just knew it was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.

It’s interesting how my initial experience with the series worked out. For one thing, as any fan would know, Chamber of Secrets is the second book; which makes my very first foray into the HP world right smack in the middle of the action. I had to go through the first few chapters with no idea who Voldemort was, what kind of creatures “Muggles” represented, how the Dursleys figured in all this, and what Harry’s scar meant, among others. But my 10-year-old self trudged along, and before I knew it, it was (relatively) late nights hiding in the girl’s bathroom, reading by weak fluorescent lighting and imagining Moaning Myrtle and the Basilisk taking refuge under my sink. I even started a diary in the hopes that I would “accidentally” stumble upon the spirit of Tom Riddle.

Good times.

It’s all right guys, we’re headed there with you. 

And when it ended, I found myself wanting more. I picked up the first book in earnest, and afterwards read the fourth then third book with just as much gusto. As you can see, ordered sequencing never mattered much to me at 10. But with J.K. Rowling’s effortless prose, who needed linearity anyway? Meanwhile, in between waiting (read: dying of anticipation) for Order of the Phoenix (which came out in 2003) and devouring the first two movies released in 2001 and 2002; I managed to build another life for myself around the Potterverse (a.k.a. Harry Potter universe).

It was nothing as drastic as spending galleons on Potter merchandise or going to school decked in robes — the other life I created worked solely on the ‘spiritual plane,” so to speak. Indeed, as a class president during my last two years in grade school, I strove to fulfill my duties to the tune of WWHD (What Would Harry Do?), which, later in high school, turned into a case of WWDD (What Would Dumbledore Do?). Just because his death in book six was one of the greatest upsets of my young teenage life. Really.

In 2007, my last year in high school, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows finally rolled around. And like many of my Potter-stricken friends, I harbored the belief that Rowling was going to bring Dumbledore back in all his bespectacled glory. So after reading halfway through the book to realize that the irrepressible Hogwarts’ headmaster would be gone forever, I felt — to paraphrase from NVM Gonzalez’s Bread of Salt — all ardor for the series gone from me entirely. Well, almost. It’s hard to maintain righteous indignation with so many other things going on in quick succession. Our three protagonists dropping out of school, George’s death, Dobby’s death, Hermoine’s torture by Bellatrix, Dumbledore’s past and the revelation of Snape’s true allegiances…

I finished Deathly Hallows to no great fanfare on my part. No weeklong vigils wearing HP pins and lamenting the end of a great series; no winding blog entries about how life would never be the same now that our favorite wizards had all grown up. It was bittersweet, sure, but somehow, it felt right.

But on the one hand, here’s the woman who started it all—J.K. Rowling.

You see, like many kids my age, I grew up with Harry Potter. While some books we read as children stay as books we read as children, that wasn’t the case with The Boy Who Lived. Each book in the series was as much a chronicle of Harry’s adventures as it was a reflection of my own experience of gradual maturity. Through his pre-pubescent misgivings and teenage angst; his trials of friendship and tough moral choices, I was with him all the way.

Ten years is a long time. Thus, on the fateful day the series ended, I felt no remorse. Everything had come full circle, and the end of my beloved childhood novels only marked the start of a new page in my life. I was graduating, I had the world at my fingertips… I was growing up.

* * *

I do re-read my HP books every once in a while, and it’s pleased me immensely to note that I’ve yet to tire of it. Though there are times the snobbish literature student in me wants to consign the series to the realm of campy, popular lit (just because most everyone adores Harry Potter), I just can’t. Whatever anyone says, the books really are well-written.

Call it too Anglo-Saxon, call it racist or stereotypical — you can’t deny Rowling’s flair for storytelling which turns most other authors into boring old prudes. And while some of Rowling’s most beloved characters are admittedly textbook formulaic — the courageous yet conflicted hero; the bumbling, charming sidekick; the brilliant yet ostracized Muggle-born witch — the solid dimensions to these characters work, precisely because children relate best to simple consistency in their heroes. And the Potterverse is a veritable goldmine of these excellently rendered characters. 

Incidentally, the fact that my younger cousins (who are a decade apart from me, by the way) have come to adore the HP series all on their own is proof enough for me of the timelessness of Rowling’s creation. I may eventually forgo re-reading the books every year, but don’t think I’ll ever forget the wisdom, companionship, and lessons I’ve taken away from them. And if cultural artifacts help to define a generation, then I can think of no bigger generational-marker for this era than the indefatigable Harry Potter.

Let the hysteria begin!