The End of a Very Special Chapter and the Beginning of a New Journey

    Harry Potter first came into my life when I was eleven.  My fellow classmate, Colleen, wasn’t shunned or teased to a merciless extent, but she was still more or less the class outcast and sought friendship from me.  One of the ways she did this was by recommending the Harry Potter series to me.  Being the smartest and also the quietest member of my class, I was close enough to outcast-hood myself and was at first wary of showing interest in anything Colleen also showed interest in, but, as an avid reader, I wasn’t one to pass up on exploring a book recommendation, even if it meant the possible sacrifice of what little popularity I had managed to acquire in fifth grade.  As soon as I could get my hands on a copy of the first book, I read the blurb on the back cover and didn’t even have to flip through the pages to know I was hooked.  I begged my grandparents to purchase it for me, and the book never left my side until I was finished with it.
    I fell in love with the characters.  Harry and the unexpected surmounting of his heartbreaking circumstances, Ron and his poor but remarkably loving family, and Hermione.  Hermione, the clever girl whose intelligence was at first the subject of ridicule from her peers before it soon became a commendable and lifesaving attribute, immediately found a special place in my heart.  I had to have more.
    With my own family tiptoeing the line between poverty and middle class, new books could rarely be afforded, but when I found out my cousin owned a copy of the fourth book I pounced on the chance to borrow it.  (To this day I still haven’t read the entire series in its proper order.)  The second my mom snagged at a thrift store, and when finances improved for my family the other books came tumbling into my hands.
    They fed my nerdy side by giving me more and more to read and by heightening my awareness of the real-life evil of censorship when news spread of the banning of the books in several schools.  Far from casting me in the position of social misfit, to my surprise, my love of the Harry Potter books gained me new friends by giving us a common interest about which to converse, and the release of the films strengthened the bond between my mother and brother, with whom I have precious little in common, and myself.  It wasn’t my brother or I who cried while watching the last film, though I came close when McGonagall Transfigured the statues at the beginning of the final battle, but my mother, who has never even read the books, because both of her children had grown up within the fandom, and the last film marked the end of a very special chapter for the three of us.
    Had it not been for Colleen, or the series itself, I would have missed out on many amazing moments and amazing people that have been (and still are) part of my life, and as I prepare to attend university on the other side of the country, Hermione especially bears an even stronger presence in my mind.  Her high expectations for herself are now my own, and I need the inspiration of her keen mind and astounding courage now more than ever, which leads me to believe that my favorite memory has yet to be made.  Before it’s over with, I may find that I need Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Luna, and the others as well.  Perhaps I always have and always will.

My trials, tribulations, and undying love for Harry Potter

Okay so I decided that I’d take a whack at writing this “testimonial”, if you will, to a series that I have been with and grew up with for basically all my life.

Alright let’s start at the beginning. I don’t know any of the dates so the times are sketchy but here is my account. 

For a long time I had heard about this series called Harry Potter, my parents had read it, we owned the books, and there were even two movies already released. For some reason, which I regret now, I never got into them. I mean I watched the first movie and thought it was okay but it never enticed me to read the series.

A couple of years later my family and I were staying in a cabin for march break and I turned on the television, only to find the end of the Chamber of Secrets (with Tom Riddle and the Basilisk) playing and I got interested again. I ended up re-watching the first and second films again, but I never read the books.

It was in grade 6 when I read the first three. My grandmother got cancer so we went to her house for a week (far away from my home) so I brought the first three books with me, and I read them in two straight days. Now don’t stop reading because you think that this will turn into a cheesy story where reading the books helped me or her heal because it didn’t.

Actually when I got home after a week my grandmother was still alive. So of course when I read the first three I wanted to continue with four. I tried, honestly I did but I just got a few pages in a slowed to a crawl and eventually gave up on it.

You may gasp that I abandoned the fandom so quickly but I honestly can’t be blamed because I simply lost interest in it, right?

I watched the world of Potter for a while after that. I watched them talk about the movies and the books with little interest because I gave up on it.

It was around the time of the Order of the Phoenix movie that I caved and tried to read them again. I swallowed my pride and read the book I deemed a killer of reading. I call myself ignorant now because if I had stayed and kept on reading I would have enjoyed myself with the series that was my favourite and found one of my favourite books later (OOTP).

I sped through 5 and 6 in the span of a few months. Harry Potter was there when I fought with my friends, there when I fought with my family, there when my grandmother eventually passed away. The books were there and I read them but they did not help me cope with the loss as what could have been predicted.

So it had been two years after the last book had came out when I finished Half Blood Prince. I got sad and nostalgic, so I decided to hold off on reading the last one because I never wanted it to end. Then I got my friend obsessed and she read all of the books in a month, included what I had called “The Dreaded Deathly Hallows”. She didn’t spoil the ending for me but seeing her love for it made me want to share the ending, but I couldn’t. I could not go back on my word, I have an unfortunately huge pride to deal with you see and sometimes it takes over.

Now when Half Blood Prince the movie came out my Potter obsession flared up once more as I became obsessed with seeing the movie, but still not the book.

It wasn’t until this year of 2011 did I pick up Deathly Hallows in honour of the release of the final film (part 1 that is). I was slowly reading it until I picked it as my Independent Study Unit in 9th grade English. When that happened I sped through it, and reread it several times. For the presentation I made an invisibility cloak, a resurrection stone, and my own wand. My presentation was long and squealing with many cries of love for my favourite characters. Then I fell in love and have kept that love ever since.

I hastily reread the whole series and fell in love with one Severus Snape. I had always thought he was cool ever since book 1 but then I was certain. I had been changed into a Snape FanGirl.

Now I discovered the fandom in a whole new way. Through FanFiction (oh the Severus ships and stories!), Wrock, FanFilms (thanks Scarhead, AVPM/AVPS!), and FanSites I saw how even though it was over we would live on. I am an avid reader and writer of FanFiction (though I have my morals), I listen to Wrock music constantly (Thanks Ministry of Magic for being the first!), and spend most of my time on my computer wither reading or on fansites (Thanks MuggleNet for being the first, then Leaky, then the HPA!) and wishing that I hadn’t been so stupid to miss out on all the other fan things that had came and went.

I guess being part of Portkey has brought me full circle and in the end helped me realise that we fans will never stop loving Harry Potter especially when you watch documentaries like We Are Wizards.

It has affected us in so many ways and it takes a great series to make a great fandom. So thanks for reading this, thanks for accepting me my friends in the fandom, and thanks J.K. Rowling <3

~Jasmine Ann Snape aka Jess

Not here since the beginning, But here until the very end

I am not the biggest Harry Potter fan. I have not been there since the beginning, have not ever even been to a midnight book release. The first and only midnight showing was this final one. And no, I have not suffered and made Harry be my mistake. I cannot remember reading the books for the first time, except for the Deathly Hallows.

But Harry Potter has changed my life. When I got into the internet world around 2008, somehow that love of Harry Potter turned into a lifestyle. I found the Harry Potter Fandom through the Harry Potter Alliance in January of 2010, and would later meet some of my best friends during HPAFTW. We now call ourselves the Marauders and these girls have fully pushed me into a fandom I should have been into a long time ago.

I may have only gotten into the Harry Potter fandom a year ago. I may have only just started really getting into wizard rock. I may have only just seen Goblet of Fire on the big screen a few weeks ago. I may not have cried at any of the books the first time round. But Harry Potter has done things to me that no other thing has done.

I love Harry Potter. It has been apart of my life without even realizing it. I remember in kindergarten being in my school gym for some Harry Potter Club and being sorted into I think Hufflepuff and sneaking off with my friends into Gryffindor. I remember my brother making sure he got his copy of Half Blood Prince before going on our trip to the Bahamas. And I remember sneaking away to my room to watch Goblet of Fire for the first time on our portable DVD player.

And now that I’ve been apart of the fandom, I’ve gotten to do amazing things. I went to the Exhibition opening weekend in Toronto and got my time turner and Hermione wand. I have numerous Gryffindor and Harry Potter shirts and wear them proud at my school. I even remember wearing my Half Blood Prince shirt on the first day of second semester in Grade 9. I am going to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter during my Florida trip in just a few days and am so freaking excited. And although I have not been able to go to Leakycon 2011 with loads of my amazing Marauder friends, I still got to see the amazing last movie with two of my friends at midnight showing at my local theatre. And these past few days, I’ve been reminded again why the Harry Potter fandom is amazing because of Portkey. (#teambecca xD)

So thank you J.K. Rowling. You may have not changed my life as you have changed others, but you have changed mine. And thank you, yes you reading this. Because I know that you somehow, somewhere, have changed my life for being apart of this magical fandom. This may be the end of an era, but it is a start of another.

~Allie (aka Ron)

My Childhood.

I remember when I was six, I would lie awake in bed every night so that I could listen to Mum reading Harry Potter to my brother in the next room. I soon started reading them for myself, and I remember fighting with my brother because we both wanted to read Prisoner of Azkaban at the same time.

I remember waiting in line, outside in the freezing cold, middle of winter to see the movies. I remember how at the end, everyone in the cinema would always clap, not the usual custom, and I understood how much respect there was for the series.

I remember in the months leading up to the release of the Deathly Hallows, my friends and I spent hours speculating how the books would end. We come up with the most rediculous theories, we had notebooks full of them.

I remember when Deathly Hallows was released, finally. I had a Japanese exchange student over, and I almost completely ignored her so I could read. I remember when I got to the part when Harry dies, and I stopped. I didn’t want to read what happened next, because Harry couldn’t be dead. I also didn’t want it to end, no matter how it did.

It has now been ten years since I first read Harry Potter. I still read the entire series a couple of times a year, without fail. There are no words that can sum up what Harry Potter truly means to me.

When I was 6 years old, the first movie came out, and I was enthralled with the series. I made my mom buy every book and every piece of memorabilia we could get our hands on. For my 6th birthday, I got a Nimbus 2000 toy and pretended I was on the Quidditch team. It was great fun. I still have it in my room <3

Jasmine C

I had been introduced to Harry Potter earlier in my life, but my life was transformed when I was nine years old. I could barely read and was struggling in school. I had numerous tutours, hooked on phonix, extra help, the works but nothing helped. Then my mom had bought a book on tape for Socerers Stone. What I heard changed my life. Where I usually sleep in the car during long car rides, I was wide awake transfixed. We got home before the book was over, so I stuck a copy of my brother’s and forced myself to read it. I sounded out each word, it took my days. So thank you Jo Rowling for getting me interested in reading. I am now going to college to study environmental science so I can too be like Harry and make a difference for others.

Thank you for a decade of memories.

Well, officially it’s more than a decade of memories. The most striking one for me is having to wait about a month/two months to read Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately for me, my dad told me not to buy it. He and my step mother bought it for my birthday and I had a late August birthday. I made sure no one told me what happened, who died for all that time and it was worth the wait. Luckily for me, I ended up buying Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows myself so I didn’t have to wait a month again. But I was so happy that for my thirteenth birthday, my dad actually got me something I really wanted as opposed to something boring like clothes.

Beginning Near the End

Until a little while ago, I didn’t really care for Harry Potter. Then one day I walked into my school library looking for a book, saw the HP series and asked myself “Why Not?”. After that, I couldn’t put the books down; I was constantly reading them whenever I had a chance, which was not smart of me since it was the week before and of finals that I started reading them. After that, I started watching the movies and I was blown away. Harry potter was not just some scary horror series about dark magic and whatnot, it was a story about love, strength and overcoming obstacles. I was amazed and HP has definitely changed my life , I can’t go around the house without mumbling spells or telling my family “you’re a wizard Harry”. Now I love Harry Potter and I am DEFINITELY a devoted  Potterhead!

My Best Mistake

I actually started reading the second book without meaning to, and I felt so lost!  I had a friend named Ron at the time, except he had black hair, so I couldn’t imagine a Ron with red-hair.  However, I was really interested (I’m assuming) because I went to read the first book, and then after that, I was hooked (I even got to imagine a red-hair Ron after that too).

And now, I’ve read all of the books, seen all of the movies, seen the musicals (and sing the musicals), and other HP items.  I’m glad that I made that long ago mistake, because Harry Potter has certainly changed my life, and I love it.  What’s like without Harry Potter?  I can’t imagine it.  But I’m glad Harry Potter is here in my—our—life/lives.

A World Worth Reliving

When I was four, my mom found out about a book starring a boy named “Harry Potter” and his adventures in a wizarding world. I wasn’t old enough to read or even understand the books, but we read them together, and she helped me enjoy every minute of Hogwarts and the students inside. I loved the books, and would ask her to read at least 20 pages every night of my kindergarten life.

About a year later, I was hooked. I was still reading the books with my mom, mostly because the world of Harry Potter was a lot to take for a five year old. In September of that year (1999), I went with my cousin to the library for a sort of Harry Potter convention. The third book had just come out, but my mom and I were just finishing the second book. Everyone at the library was older than me… but I didn’t feel out of place. I loved hearing the older kids answer quiz questions about the book, making my wand, and pretending, just for a couple hours, that I was a wizard.

In 2001, the first movie came out. I was pretty excited to see it, so my mom and I went on opening day. The thing we were most anxious to find out was how exactly to say the name “Hermione.” We thought it was “Her-mee-oin,” another friend said it was “Her-mee-o-nee.” So it’s only natural that my favorite scene of the movie will always be when Hermione meets Harry and Ron on their way to their first year at Hogwarts.

Thank you JK Rowling, Daniel Radcliffe, and the entirety of people that brought me a place where I could retreat to when regular life was too much or too little. Thank you to my mom, for introducing it to me and traveling through the first couple of stories with me. And thank you to Harry Potter… 14 years of my life have been filled with you stories, and I emerge from those stories with nothing but a sense of gratitude.

“Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” - JK Rowling