There’s a large poster of Harry Potter opposite my bed. It’s the “Let the Magic Begin” poster from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry, in all his eleven-year-old intensity, stares me down.
Sometimes, I talk to him. Or give him quick finger guns of acknowledgment. Or look up from my book at him like “can you believe that, Harry?” He cannot. The beauty of my own brand of personification is that all my inanimate objects are on my side.
Earlier this year, I had a coworker and friend come into my office and ask me if I was done with Harry Potter since I was all about Marvel and Spider-Man now. This was such a confusing question to me. I do float from fandom to fandom, letting each ramp and wane in intensity as they like. I don’t always feel the need to talk about Harry Potter and read Harry Potter and generally come off like a jackass when I challenge people to Harry Potter trivia.
Harry, to me (and to many), is like bedrock. He is the foundation in which I built my love of reading, story, and magic. You could burn everything else I love away and there he would be, welcoming me back to Hogwarts.
If new fandoms are like new friends that become good friends that become best friends and fill my heart and my life with courage and connection, Harry Potter is like family. There from the beginning. There at the end. Incontrovertible.
I decided to do a reread this summer, although I always say I won’t. I think I’ve conditioned my brain to associate the season with reading Harry by the pool. I read the first few chapters last night, of the beautifully illustrated edition by Jim Kay, and it felt like it always does: like coming home.
We all deserve a story like that.
With Love,
Natalie