My Harry Potter Experience

I remember when I first got the Harry Potter books, it was a completely accidental thing. One of my nana’s neighbours bought me the fourth one for Christmas (don’t know why, she’d never bought me anything before) so, because I didn’t have the first three, my mam and nana bought me the first three in a little box set thing. So I had the first four books, and no real intention of reading them. At this point, I wasn’t the huge reader that I am now.

But we were going on a holiday, and I thought I’d take a book to read when I was going to bed on those days. We were in Butlins, and I remember having taken the first book, I read the first chapter, and I hated it. I found it boring. To be fair, I was probably too young at this point to read, as I did start enjoying books at a late age.

It wasn’t until the first film came out that I even gave the books another glance, so this was at least two or three years later (though probably four or five). The film wasn’t out yet, but I saw the trailer and I thought that the film looked really good and interesting, I mean, at this point I was eleven and had a much better attention span, and I was beginning to enjoy books a lot more. So I saw the trailer, and decided, I wanted to read the first book before the film came out. I ended up reading all four before the film came out.

And that’s when I began to realise how great and fantastic the worlds were. Before all of this, I’d just thought it was a silly little story, something that people had over thought. When I read it, I was hooked.

I remember it was the first series that I wanted more than the first book for. I’d read more than one book before, but this one was the first series that I wanted the next one before it was out. I remember it was the only book I ever demanded I got on the release date, and each time I picked up the next book, I read it quickly.

Coming to the end of it, when the last book was out I stopped caring as much. It took me a lot longer to read the book than it had for the others, I don’t know why. I don’t think I wanted it to end, so I didn’t want it. It wasn’t until last year when I found AVPM that I fell back in love with the series and now I’m a bigger fan than ever before.

The final film and the closing of this amazing series that had brought together so much, and I feel sad. And it makes me realise that no one will ever feel the way we’ve felt. No one will know how it is to get the books and feel the pure joy and excitement to find out what happened. They will read it, but so many people already know what’s happened with them all, so how is that the same? There will never be an experience quite like it, and to be honest, that terrifies me.

I know that when the last film comes out, I will cry, and it won’t be at the deaths I know are coming, or the music, or the beauty of the ending or the writing. I will cry, because this whole experience will have ended. Even if there are more things to come like Pottermore (which I’m extremely excited for), there will be something that will be strange and crazy that something we’ve grown up with, that has been such a huge part of our lives, that’s brought people together, and it’s ending.

For the last film, I plan to read every book again starting on the 1^st July all the way up to the film (which we are seeing on the day it comes out) just so that I can remember everything that happened.

So, I would like to raise an imaginary goblet, tip my hat (if it wasn’t afraid to tip a lot of spiders onto you), cry for my quidditch team, and nox my wand, because this experience has been amazing and wonderful, and it’s something that has probably influenced every single person’s life in some shape way or form. Thank you to J.K. Rowling for making this experience so brilliant and crazy, and thank you for giving us something that we will all treasure in our memories forever. I feel lucky to have grown up with Harry Potter the way I have.