Life After Potter

After an intense four days of reading I got to the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and I was filled with a lot of emotions. A part of me never wanted this whole thing to end because it's been a part of my life for nearly ten years (Merlin’s beard! Has it been ten years?) now. It was like saying goodbye to a best friend who you knew you'd never see again. I feel like there is a void in me now. A big gaping hole where Harry Potter should be; I suppose I will feel this way for a while.
I wrote that first paragraph nearly nine months ago, or at least according to the affable robots at Blogger.com. Just days prior to that I was running through every possible emotion that my mind can handle. There were so many things running through my head to the point where I was going batty. Wow, I wish I felt that way about everything (and I’m sure that my parents do too). That is just the thing that J.K. Rowling has done for millions of people across the globe. Some of us have started reading because of her, and now it’s all over. Life after Potter.
I, being so induced in the saga, had pre-ordered my copy months in advanced. And from that point on every day leading up to it was just as crazy as the last -- up until the last night where ten years of waiting had finally come to an end. There was a midnight jamboree at Chapters book store. The night when the adventure that propelled me into literature was the adventure that was about to end, and in a sense it was the end of an adventure for me as well.
The night air was cool. Temperatures had been in the mid thirties all summer and there was finally a lovely breeze in the air to relieve the citizens of Sudbury from their buzzing fans and energy wasting air-conditioning habits. It was crisp and pellucid. Refreshing. I was with one of my best friends, who often said “Oh my God, I can’t believe we are here! I am even more excited than I thought I would be!” This was quite antithetical to what my mum had said; “Oh my God, I can’t believe you are that obsessed over a book!” Indeed it is just a book, but maybe something more to me. Once inside I had noticed that children were running around left and right clutching wands and spell books in their arms. Some muttering incantations as they flailed around their arms in the hopes of a nonexistent wingardium leviosa spell to jump out from the tips of their plastic Wal-Mart brand wands. Everyone was dressed as their favorite character; everything from Merlin to Rita Skeeter -- and of course unless you read the books you wouldn’t have a clue what I am talking about. Even the adults took part in the costume soireé. One lady in particular looked as though she had just stepped out of chapter seven of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. She was dressed as the fat lady in the portrait. She even had a picture frame. Oh the sights, the sounds... the smells? The store smelled great, like really great. It smelled like books (and I love the smell of books), but I think my dear friend Ray Bradbury described it best when he said books “smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land”.
The glare from the lights were starting to affect me. I think my insides started to turn. Everything seemed echoed. My perception of reality became somewhat distorted. The air was getting thick; the carbon dioxide that everyone was exhaling was starting to sit at the bottom of my lungs. Before I knew what I was doing I was standing in line at Starbucks Coffee. Coffee makes everything better. Damn you clever marketers! It was a thirty minute wait. Just top notch!
The lineup began at 10 p.m.. Then more than ever before I felt the rush of excitement. It was almost overwhelming. Knowing that millions of people all across North America were doing the same thing at that exact time was mildly amazing. Two hours to go.
The mini Harrys, Rons and Hermiones were starting to get tired. But c’mon kids! They were minutes away from receiving their very own copy of the very best book ever. Suck it up kiddies. Naturally, I was tenth in line along with mi amigo. “That means we will be the 10th and 11th people in Sudbury to receive our copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!” After an hour of sitting in line I decided to grab a book that attracted me and started reading. The cover was red and then I had realized that those marketers had won another battle. Retrospectively, waiting in line for this event was half the fun. I can’t see it have been done any other way. That night will always stay a part of me. And then after alienating myself from mainstream media for the weeks following up to the event, out of the paranoid thought that the ending of the book may be revealed, it dawned on me that I was so close to finding it out for myself. The ending to an epic saga (17 years in the writing, I may add) that has changed my life.
Then it came. People were starting to count down the seconds. Tension was building up.
“Ten, nine, eight...”.
Like when you see the insincere smile of an aging Tim Horton’s employee, all my feelings gathered in a lump at the bottom of my stomach. I felt that I never wanted that one moment to ever come. But it came. Perhaps it was an irreparable blight feeling at that moment, but soon the excitement returned and the line started moving. Just like that ten years of waiting was annihilated by a few quick steps and then out the doors I went and I finally had that book in my hands, the one I had been waiting so long for. I was at the end of one chapter in my life, and I was about to turn the page and start a new one.
Within hours of the announcement of the release date for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it became a #1 bestseller on every bestseller list for the first time in literary history. It also became #1 on the New York Times top ten bestseller's list, selling more than all of the top ten combined. Amazon.com reported over two million pre-orders for the final installment of the series within the first month. Three-hundred and sixty-five million copies were sold in sixty-five different languages before the book was even released. In the first twenty-four hours it sold 2.65 million copies in the United Kingdom and 8.3 million copies in the United States. That’s over seven thousand copies a minute. It is now seen as one of the most influential book releases in history. It was kind of a big deal.
What readers find at the end of this tale is a story about the redemptive power of love. For ten years Joanne Kathleen Rowling has kept people’s attention, such as me, from all around the globe. I, like many readers, have clung on to the pages of a fable that has affected us deeper than words can describe. It’s the power of words that has captivates us. The power of words, isn’t that remarkable. Every few years something special happened; people turned off their televisions and computers to actually sat down and read. J.K. Rowling is the reason I started reading, the reason I love reading and the reason why I love to write. To create a universe where my imagination can take over and make some sense of my place in this world.