It was a nice evening on the Champs-Élysées (or Champs-Izzywizzy as some I know like to call it) in Paris on July 21, 2007. The streets were buzzing with chatter and people were eating ice cream left and right. Thinking back, it must have been a warm evening. The Champs-Élysées is home of the largest Louis Vuitton store in the world and you can find nearly anything you need on that overwhelming avenue. But the first place that my three friends and I visited once we got off our tour bus and took in the scene? A book store.
Yes, it was bothering us that everywhere else in the world, millions of fans were already pouring over their copies of the seventh and final installment of the Harry Potter series. But we, being out of the country, weren’t able to go to a midnight release party or, with touring and sightseeing, weren’t able to just stop at the first store we saw and pick it up–even though we were well aware that each of us had our own crisp, pre-ordered copy awaiting our arrival back the in States. We knew we would be in Paris on the release date (we had previously visited London, Dublin and Wales), and I had planned on a buying a copy as a souvenir. I didn’t care that it would be in French, I wanted to take part in the excitement and buy a fresh, first-day copy.
It started in fourth grade. I had been invited to take the fifth-grade reading class because English has always been my best subject. The first novel we read was called Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech–still one of my favorite children’s books to this day. The second one? It was a new book that I’d never heard of: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. And so it began.
For over half of my life, I’ve been a Potthead. An original Potthead. I fell in love with Harry’s world and wanted to be Hermione and wished so badly that when I turned 11, a letter would come for me, with my address in emerald green writing, bearing the Hogwarts seal . I’m still waiting for it.
For years, Harry Potter was a part of my life. After awhile, the craziness ebbed, but with the release of the final book, it started all over again. I re-read the entire series just a few weeks before embarking on my European adventure, in preparation for the Deathly Hallows.
So, we’re on the Champs-Élysées. We went into a book store and there were stacks and stacks of the coveted novel with the ugly European cover (sorry, but it’s true. Mary GrandPré is a genius!). They were all shrink-wrapped. I didn’t care–I hurried myself over the cash register, swiped my card and grabbed my bag. We weren’t even out of the store before the bag was ripped from my hands–by one of my friends–and the shrink wrap was torn from that glistening beacon of hope (too much? Oh, well. At the time that’s what it felt like.). It was actually in English! We wondered why, but didn’t question that miracle.
We read the synopsis, passed it around and turned it over in our hands. The final book. I tucked it gingerly back into the bag and held on for dear life until we got back to the hotel. Once we were all back in our room, it was insisted upon that we had story time. We took turns reading aloud the first chapter. Then I was ready for bed. True, I had been waiting years and years for this book, but I was tired. Seeing as though it was my book, everyone else had to give it up, too. (And for that, I apologize. Oh, how you must have hated me at that moment!)
It wasn’t until I got back home, finished the book and read an article that the finality finally sank in. I read this: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20048269,00.html. It’s a review of the book from the specical HP edition of Entertainment Weekly by a mother, Tina Jordan, who shared the series with her family. I read the last lines:
I told them how coming of age during the publication years — how the waiting and the uncertainty, hard as it was — only heightened the whole experience. Think about the kids who’ll come to Harry Potter already knowing the ending, I said. It won’t make the books any less great, but it will change the whole experience. You were the lucky ones.
Then I realized it. Never will I read about Harry Potter again, wondering about or agonizing over his fate. I’ll know the end. My (hypothetical) children will know the end. It’s like any great piece of literature. You might never have read or seen Hamlet, but you know everyone dies at the end. I was–am–blessed to have been a part of the Potter phenomenon. It makes me sad that the next generation won’t have the experience of waiting to find out if Harry lives or dies. They won’t have to wonder if Snape was a good guy or a bad guy. They won’t have to guess where the Horcruxes are. But Tina Jordan is right. We were the lucky ones.
…Oh, and I liked the Epilogue.
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