It was a warm summer night in July when I attended my first midnight release party at the University Bookstore.
The untouched pages of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” were about to meet the hands of a mob of anxiously waiting supporters.
The interior of the bookstore was so crowded that a horde of people spilled out into the front lawn. The University Bookstore’s workers had dressed up as characters from the book. Their version of Moaning Myrtle wailed as she directed and coordinated the line with a woman wearing a fake hooked nose dressed up as Severus Snape.
To entertain the line of more than 100 people, there was a costume contest, free food and drink and plenty of enthusiasm. People ran across the lawn, waving branches torn off tree limbs, shouting spells and curses created by the imagination author J.K. Rowling.
When midnight finally struck and the crisp pages fell into my hands, the story continued. As a seven-year-old who had just graduated from first grade, I surprised my own mother and myself as no grogginess could faze my excitement.
Eleven years later on a similar July night, I attended the final Harry Potter movie midnight release. In a crowded lawn outside of Forum 8, I watched as our generation said goodbye to arguably one of the best storybook characters of all time.
Since the release of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in 1998, readers who have grown up with the series have matured just as Harry has. We’ve been right there with him, every step of the way. Even though we might not battle the darkest of villains, many of the everyday challenges and experiences Harry and Co. have are linked to our lives.
I can’t imagine what it would be like if I didn’t live during this time. I can’t believe I was there to be involved in it, and that I will be one of the few to experience it.
The Harry Potter generation saw creative license, and even though the books and stories will surely last and eventually become what some may consider a classic, the story was new to us. We bought the tickets and turned the pages before anybody else.
In 15 years, when the Harry Potter generation is past 30, they will be able to tell their children that they were there when Harry rode his broomstick for the first time.
They were there when he watched his godfather pass through the arch. They were there when it began, and they were there when it ended. They lined up in front of Forum 8 on July 15, 2011, and closed the book on a story this generation will never forget.
And when they left the theaters and bookstores, they went away with a story about problems and day-to-day activities that everyone could relate to, making the Muggle world a little bit less mundane, one spell at a time.
By Shannon Freese