Gryffindorky

It's okay, there will be no spoilers in this entry.

I thought about going up to the Harry Potter bash at the local indie bookstore, Santoro's, last night...but by 11:30 I was drowsing on the couch. Getting too old for this shit, apparently.

But I stopped in just a few minutes ago, to lug my own final J. K. Rowling doorstop home. There were still red and yellow helium balloons, bobbing aganst the ceiling; the door to "the loo" was plastered with crayon renderings of Harry and his pals. The staff looked groggy and blissful. "I'll remember this for the rest of my life," my cashier commented. I was one of four adults in the space of two minutes, queueing up to get the book; also present was a dad with two little kids, the elder of whom was begging for a second copy.

"Are you fighting over it?" I asked, laughing.

"No...they're just so...wonderful. We need them!" the boy said. The dad pulled out 60-some dollars for the boxed, color-illustrated deluxe addition; the little sister was dragging the store's slightly battered, almost life-size Harry cardboard cutout around the display tables like a dance partner. "Come on...let's put Harry back and go home," Dad said, fanning the kids out the door before him.

When I got on the bandwagon, along about the fourth book, I remember feeling like I wanted deliberately to read them under the covers with a flashlight on late summer nights...despite the fact that I was a grown woman in her 30s and could read them when and however I damn well pleased. I saw a couple of FedEx drivers on the news, describing the experience of delivering the latest Potter to household after household on the due date. "This has been the best day of my life," one said with wonder. "Every house I go to, little kids run out and HUG me!"

Home, where I cracked the behemoth open to its dedication:

The dedication of this book is split seven ways: to Neil, to Jessica, to David,
to Kenzie, to Di, to Anne, and to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the
very end.

So, yeah. Pretty much already crying, and renderered virtually twelve years old. Thanks for that, J. K.