The end of the Era

“The stories we love best do live in us forever. So whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” - JK Rowling


I’m excited, devastated, happy, and nostalgic all at once. I’ve been trying and failing to think of some poignant or resonant way to sum up how I’m feeling right now. I know that by Thursday July 14 one of the most important parts of my life is ending, and I can’t help but feel like I’m saying goodbye to a close friend.

It seems a bit silly how much I’m allowing the end of a series of films to affect me, but it’s not just the end of the films that has me in this state. The Potter films are part of something bigger to me (and to a lot of other people) - the Harry Potter series has shaped me as a person.I still remember how I started the series. By 2000, the first movie just came out. My mom bought that VCD Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone.At first, I thought it will be just a boring movie and I didn't watch it. Eventually, I got so bored I picked up Sorcerer’s Stone. I haven’t looked back since.

It’s hard to explain just how much of an influence the Potter novels have had over me. My values stem from Potter - my belief that loyalty, bravery, and love are the most important things in this world. They made me fall in love with reading; made me want to be a writer. They gave me courage and reminded me to live.I think one of the main reasons why this is affecting me so much, and other people in my age-range, is that we grew up with Harry Potter: I have very few memories of my life before the series. And there’s the timing. The last book came out the summer before I graduated high school, and now the last movie is coming out the summer before I graduate from college. I feel like it’s marking the end of my childhood in a way that no birthday ever could.

Potter got us reading. We were a generation of kids who were supposed to be glued to video games and television shows. Instead, we were queuing at midnight for books. Millions of kids finding a love of reading all because this amazing woman wrote a story about a scrawny kid with weird glasses. And not just reading, Potter turned us into active readers. We read and reread, looked for metaphors and foreshadowing, created elaborate and intricate theories for what we thought was going to happen in the next books. That’s something professors can’t get a lot of college students to do, but Potter had us doing it for fun in middle school. The wait and anticipation between books were two of my favorite parts of growing up with Potter. I’m incredibly nostalgic for that time, and even more grateful that I got to experience it.