My great-aunt Althea introduced me to the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter in the spring of 2000. Not quite a year after graduating from the University of Minnesota Duluth, I packed up my belongings and moved in with Althea, who graciously opened her spare bedroom to me as I sought work and a place of my own in the Twin Cities metro area. I had been living at home after college, but soon realized rural Minnesota was not the place for a young twenty-something who recently came out to himself and his friends. I needed the support of a wider, gay-friendly community and wanted to establish a place for myself among my network of friends already living in and around Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Consider it my insurance plan so when the time came to come out to family I would have cast a fairly secure safety net. Turns out I didn't need to worry about my family rejecting me, but contingency plans are always important...just in case.
Not long after settling into Althea's apartment in Edina, she handed me a paperback copy of The Sorcerer's Stone and recommended I read it. She recently finished it for her book club and could not stop raving about it. As I tucked myself into bed that evening, I flipped to the first chapter. In a matter of minutes I was hooked, and I tore through Rowling's first Potter novel in a couple of hours. Never before had a book captivated my imagination to such a degree, though perhaps I should not have been surprised owing to my already-established general appreciation for the fantasy genre (see Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Legend of Zelda). Still Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone took things to a whole new level, and I ran to the bookstore the following day to purchase Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That night I sped through the second Potter book in a matter of hours. I simply couldn't get enough of Harry's adventures with his two closest friends, Ron and Hermione, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry. So, I went back to the bookstore the next day and grabbed book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The third in Rowling's series may have taken me two nights to finish, but I voraciously attacked it with the same fervor of the first two. If possible, Prisoner of Azkaban made me fall more in love with the Potter books. In many ways, the first two books follow similar conventions, which I appreciated but also questioned whether or not Rowling could sustain her planned seven-book series by repeating the same basic patterns. Azkaban introduced several new and important characters to the Potter universe and diverged paths from the one set forth in Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Harry was maturing and the stories along with him. It was a brilliant move on Rowling's part, one she kept up through the final book, Deathly Hallows. Unfortunately for me, when I got through Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling had not yet published book number four, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was therefore forced to wait for its arrival. Around the same time, Harry Potter emerged as a pop culture phenomenon. Everywhere you turned, people of all ages seemed enchanted by the Potter books. When Goblet of Fire finally arrived, I grabbed a copy and jumped right in. Because the books typically came out in June, I also started gifting them to my niece, Brittani, who also became a fan. (You should see the drawings she made of the main characters for me once upon a time.) Again, the book explored Harry's aging process by tackling the complicated and challenging obstacles confronted by teenagers as they learn how to navigate the tricky transition between adolescence and adulthood, complete with trials and tribulations often left for them by adults. This translated into a novel much thicker than its predecessors, and I therefore needed a few extra days to read Goblet of Fire. In less than a week, I plowed my way through and was summarily faced with having to wait an uncertain amount of time for book five's publication and release. (It was at this time I discovered Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga.) During the interim between Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, several of my close friends, Dianna, Kara, and Allison, and I bonded over the Potter books. We shared a mutual infatuation with Rowling's works and eagerly anticipated the release of the first Harry Potter movie in November of 2001, a much needed respite in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy. When The Sorcerer's Stone hit theaters, we braved the crowds and late hours to catch a midnight showing. For the most part, the cinematic interpretation of book one met our expectations and set in motion a tradition for us to see as many of the new films and purchase as many of the forthcoming books at midnight as possible. We even made our own t-shirts for the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, and I wore mine to most (if not all) subsequent midnight release events. The books posed an interesting conundrum for us as each new one arrived. The four of us, occasionally boosted in number by other Potter-head family and friends, excitedly attended book parties to ensure we'd have our pre-ordered copies in hand as soon as we possibly could. We'd all get home and start ripping through the new volume. Inevitably, one or more of us would spend the rest of the night and early morning hours rushing through the most recent publication to learn what happened next for Harry and his friends. The problem then became having to wait to discuss the book's events until everyone else finished, too. No spoiler alerts allowed! Text messages would zip back and forth. How far are you? Did you sleep? Did you eat? Are you done yet? Call me when you've finished chapter 18. Thus, we collectively motivated each other to coordinate our reading efforts, often putting us on the same page. Our midnight movie traditions continued even after publication of the final book as well, eventually adding more family, friends, and fiancés to the party: Kelly, Jason, Bailey, and Bryce. The Harry Potter series proved amazing in every way, shape, and form, packed with magic, adventure, and the always timely message conveying the importance of tolerance and love in the face of hate and prejudice. For my friends and me, Rowling's masterpieces and their cinematic counterparts became much more--they served as focal points around which we gathered and grew closer, thereby strengthening our friendships. On the eve of turning 40, I look back on all of our experiences with an overwhelming sense of joy and happiness. I even commemorated our shared Potter time and love of the series with a Deathly Hallows tattoo last fall. The experiences remain infinitely meaningful to me, and I cannot divorce my memories of the decade-long journey my friends and I took together from the Potter books and movies.
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I am a self-proclaimed pop culture geek and list enthusiast who is celebrating the big four-zero by counting down the most important, influential, and favorite music, movies, television shows, books, and video games of my life so far. Categories
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