On July 21, 2007, every light occupying a house where the words "magic", "spell" and "Avada Kedavra" had even briefly been mentioned, was burning into the wee hours of the morning, as well as the afternoon following as fans and casual readers from America to Japan lay sprawled across their beds devouring every syllable of the final installment in J.K Rowling's seven part series chronicling the adventures of a young wizard- but more importantly, a young man as he struggled with the forces of love and evil in the world around him. But, do I really need to even tell you that? The Harry Potter series has become part of the world cultural lexicon. In my own classrooms at school, discussions on Camus or ethics frequently carry analogies and references to events Harry Potter. The films draw record audiences to their own midnight releases, and millions of young kids who would otherwise never pick up a book go through the 700-page Potter novels in record time.
I always felt that I was born in a special year; 1990 was not only the final year of the Cold War time period, but also the ideal time to be born to fully take advantage of the Harry Potter series. I was just seven years old when "Sorcerer's Stone" was released, eight when "Chamber of Secrets" arrived on shelves, and nine when "Prisoner of Azkaban" came out. While I was still younger than the Harry of the novels during that period, by the time the fourth and fifth books came out, I was slowly gaining on the Potter gang in my own years, and by number seven, experienced my own 17th birthday just days before I read about Harry's own. Selfishly, my friends and I always have thought that the Harry Potter trilogy was "our generation's" treasure, and that those more than a year removed from us in age were either too old or too young to fully appreciate the magic. However, when I went to Barnes and Noble at 12:01 am to pick up my copy of "Deathly Hallows", that opinion changed completely. Going off to college the next year, I was suddenly feeling... old. Responsibility was weighing down upon me, and in my secret heart of hearts, I was wishing that Peter Pan would somehow show up on my windowsill and whisk me away to Neverland. Even though I couldn't yet legally buy an alcoholic beverage, I was already wondering about how my generation and I would be remembered. As I looked around the bookstore, I got my answer. Everywhere there were children, their parents and even the occasional grandparent dressed in black Hogwarts gowns or the striped scarves of their favorite houses. Lightening bolt scars were applied to faces, and wands both plastic and wood were waved about, not without the faintest hope that maybe sparks might this time fly from its tip. Though of course the books themselves were entirely J.K Rowling's own wonder and creation, I couldn't help but feel some strange sense of pride that the gift of my generation was magic. While we can't lift feathers with a flick of our wrists, the fantasy novels, films and even fan fiction that have come out over the past decade are enough to make even the staunchest realist believe in prophecies, phoenixes, one rings and dragons. From some primal desire to depart from the chaos and depression in our own lives, we joined together and created new ones together. To see young children and ones still young at heart brought literal tears to my eyes at how powerful these universes could become. The evening of the book's release, a show I had been working as a dramaturg in opened, and our stage manager had to quite literally pry the copies from the hands of each actor in the company as they squeezed in a few more pages before they went onstage. When I finally arrived back home, I finished the last chapters in the comfort of my own bed, and as I read those final words; "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well," I once again broke into uncontrollable sobs. To close the cover of this book meant closing the object which had defined my childhood and adolescent years- becoming an adult and facing the end. As I cuddled my teddy bear and cried hot tears into its fur, I slowly removed the wizard's hat I had been wearing both then, and the midnight before, and remembered the kids at Barnes and Noble who had found Harry on their own and been touched by his magic years after I had found it myself, and then of the children who in the many years to come would also come to be touched by that light. This wasn't an end. This literature was something eternal- a story- one which could be passed down for generations which have yet to be born. And as I sit white haired in my floating rocking chair sixty years from now, something in my heart tells me that I will still be able to brag that I was there that midnight- that midnight when Harry's last tale was born, and have others around me who also came to know of Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore stare wide eyed, gaping that the magic they still experience has lasted just this long. That's what midnighting is all about. The bragging rights. And the magic that will never die.
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