Harry Potter.

I’m sitting here at my desk at work…and the seventh Harry Potter book is laying inches away from my left pinky.

There are two chapters and the epilogue left.

But I know exactly how it all ends. And I know that when I finish, I’ll cry.

 Which is why I wore no makeup to work today.

I love Harry. It is an obsession in the truest sense of the word. I remember being huddled in my bed, the night after my seventh birthday when I had received Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from my friend, Eddie. I had just finished the book and I audibly sighed as I shut the book, setting it gingerly next to me. His mother had written a friendly message in the front cover, “We hope that you find yourself blessed with as many adventures as Harry Potter! Happy Birthday! Love, The Barajas family”. How could they have possibly known what they had just given me? 

I remember staring at the window from my top bunk and wishing an owl would bring me a letter from Hogwarts. I read the book again the next week, and again a month after that. I don’t know when or how I got the second and third books, but I did. And I drank those too. 

I saw the first movie with my sister Rebecca, and I fell even more in love, if that’s possible. I tore a cane off of a Grape vine from my backyard and painstakingly whittled the ends to look like a wand. When school started, I had A Harry Potter backpack, filled with a little purple tin lunch box, my Harry Potter trading cards and game mat, and my own rubber version of Nicholas Flamel’s Stone.  I Got a Nimbus Two thousand for my next birthday. I rode that thing all around the house and the yard for hours and hours. Casting spells with my grape vine wand using my complete set of Harry Potter action figures to reenact my favorite scenes from the movie. I insisted on carrying my “Galleons” (Quarters with yellow paper glued to the faces) everywhere I went, just in case I had to make a trip to Diagon alley on a second’s notice. I made Jenae play Harry Potter with me all stinking day long. And I always made her be Draco because she was blonde, and I made her “duel” with me and I had a used the only white stuffed animal I had (a little bear previously called sarah) as Hedwig.

  I remember being furious that on an outing with friends, we were given the choice of seeing Monster’s INC or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and all the other kids picked Monster’s INC. And you know? To this day, I can hardly watch that whole stupid movie all the way through. I was furious. Anyway, you get the point. My heart was set on being a witch. The end.

And then one day at school a popular girl who always declared my purple corduroy jeans as a “fashion emergency” (I thought they were flipping cool. And I’d still wear them now, if they were my size, thank you very much) told me I was weird for having a Harry Potter well, everything. But that day she specifically targeted my backpack. She was only jealous because earlier that school year, I had taken AR tests fro reading the first four Harry Potter books and of course, passed with flying colors. So got over 300 points (for Gryffindor, duh.) on the AR system. And my teacher had promised us at the beginning of the year that for every five AR (accelerated Reader. It was a program in California for awhile…anyway…) we received; she would buy us a big candy bar of our choice. She naturally, didn’t expect any of us to get over like fifteen points in the whole school year, seeing as second graders don’t usually read anything more complex than Clifford the Big Red Dog. But I read the first four Harry Potter novels and I got every question right on the stupid tests so I got 300 points, so I got 60 candy bars. In a giant paper grocery store bag. Set right on my desk with a note that said, “don’t eat them all at once.” Bless your sweet heart Mrs. Lazar. That probably cost her like thirty dollars of her own money.

Anyway.

That stupid girl was just jealous of my candy and my brains and my invisibility cloak. 

But, nonetheless, I was humiliated when she called me out in front of the whole class at recess, saying that only boys liked Harry Potter. ‘Was I a boy?’ ‘Did I think Harry Potter made me cool?’ ‘Magic was creepy.’ ‘Magic was stupid.’ ‘That was for boys.’ All the taunts didn’t really bug me, what bothered me most was when Brandon and Stephen stick up for me, “well she’s like a boy, so who cares?” they pulled me out to the kickball field and I played along like nothing was wrong. But that day I put it all away. My nimbus, my wands and galleons and action figures. My card games and dice and lunchbox were all tucked away in my closet.

I still loved it. I still clung to the books like a lifeboat. When the fifth book came out, I still crept into Derek’s room at three in the morning to get it so I could read while he was sleeping. (we only had one copy and we had worked out a system where we would read a chapter, and then pass it off to each other, but I didn’t like that. Because Derek was always a chapter ahead of me. And I had to wait for like an hour in between every chapter. The suspense was killing me. And I was sure Derek was cheating and reading two chapters at a time. So I snuck and took the book and read really far ahead of him in the night, I couldn’t bare the thought of waiting until the morning.)

 Over the years, I still obsessed every bit as much as I had before, just without the accessories. Stupidly, stupidly, STUPIDLY, I gave them away. Not all at once, but slowly I parted with my toys and figures and finally, my beloved broomstick. As much as I loved Harry Potter, I was convinced that my obsession only made me weirder. And so I hid it from my school friends. But i feasted on the books, readig the whole series over again every time a new book or movie came out. UGH i flipping love the books so much, it's ridiculous.

“their daring, nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart…” I did not act like a true Gyffindor should have. I was ashamed. That’s probably why the sorting hat on Pottermore.com sorted me into Hufflepuff. Dang it.

Once High school started, I figured it was okay to love it openly again, because by now, everyone had jumped on the bandwagon and was claiming themselves to be supporters. Bleh. Imposters! I grew up with Harry. Since that night in my bed, when I first imagined Harry under the stairs on Privet drive, until now at my desk while I’m dreading going with him into the Forbidden Forest again when i finish typing this, because I know that it means soon it will be over again. 

But it will never be over.

Not for me.

It is so real to me!

I love Harry Potter. Too much to describe.

Always.

THE BOY WHO LIVED!

oh yeah and also? if you would like to get me any of these things that these word links direct you to, or any other potter related material that is cool, feel free. I would love you forever. the older, the better. and i prefer the illustrated, cartoon harry to daniel Radcliffe...just in case you have to decide between the two. oh yeah and my favorite characters are ron, neville, luna and Lupin. just so you know. actually, scratch that. i just love them all. especially Hermione. but i Hate dolores Umbridge, obviously.
I'm partial to lunchboxes and tree ornaments, by the way.
I love you.