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“Welcome to Chicago. The local time is currently 8:55am,” is what I heard at the beginning of what was soon to become the greatest, and one of the most important and rewarding events in my life to date.

My mom and I left the plane and navigated our way through Chicago Midway Airport to the car rentals. After a bit of a fiasco there, we rented a car and were on I-55, making our way to the Randhurst Mall, Mount Prospect, IL for Spellbound! 2005. (Yes, I came straight from the airport…). We made it there without much trouble (surprisingly). I checked in at Spellbound Central and was told I’d be working off-site at Land Based Quidditch, which was a ten to twenty minute drive to the Hilton Northbrook. Well, Randhurst Customer Service gave us the wrong directions and we ended up traveling for a half hour in the opposite direction, so we turned around and finally found it (amid victory dancing performed by my mother and myself!) and followed the signs for Quidditch. Mom reserved a room there and I put on the staff shirt given to me at Central and went out to ref Quidditch! I walked up to find the three hoops set up on each end and a team on the pitch. I read over the necessary rules and was ready to go.

A few games in, a woman in a red staff t-shirt like my own with a camera in her hands emerged from the door to the pitch. She took a few pictures and asked me a few questions. Finally, I introduced myself to her as “Brendan Kenney from Marauders’ Map.org” and was pleasantly surprised to find out she had heard of me. When I asked her name and what site she was working with she answered, “Catherine, from MuggleNet.” … … ……. ……… I barely found words. Surely, Catherine from MuggleNet hadn’t heard of me before. But she insisted she had and we began talking about MuggleNet and their staff and the subject of Emerson came up. After commiserating about how jealous we were of him, I told her how floored I would be to meet any of them and thought that would be the end of the conversation and she’d be off.

Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was even more surprised and pleased when she told me that Damon from MuggleNet and Zach from the Harry Potter Fan Zone were there and that she’d be happy to introduce me….

At this point, I was afraid my not being able to speak coherently or breathe for the third time that day was a sign of brain damage. She took down my name, email, and URL, as well as cell phone number and gave me the same, telling me to call her when Quidditch closed so she could introduce me. I had a MuggleNet staffer’s email. *Cue: Death* We parted ways for the time and she went back to the mall (but not before noting that I was taking pictures as well) and I went back to reffing, considerably more enthusiastic about it all of a sudden.

Quidditch ended (after a great day of awesome games – which included my “flying” a little four year old that I was afraid would be trampled by the older kids) and I went back to the mall and found Catherine in Central. She saw me and pulled two guys, also in red staff shirts over to her and introduced me to Zach and Damon as “This is the guy from Marauders’ Map.org I was telling you about.” She had told them? They know the site? For the fourth time that day, all vital bodily functions came to an abrupt halt and I was about ready for a catscan. I then left to take some pictures and let her finish taking hers. So after an act ended, I stepped up on stage to grab some pictures of the audience. So I step up on stage and from behind me I hear “And we even have the same ideas; I love it!” and I turn around to see Catherine behind me with her camera in hand, pointing at the exact spot that I was photographing seconds earlier. No as I hadn’t yet gotten over the fact that I was now on a friendly first-name basis with a MuggleNet staff member, I was nearly on emotional overload to think we actually had similar ideas and she recognized it. I just smiled and hastily took the photos I needed and got off the stage to allow the next act to begin.

As Quidditch had ended I had nothing but interviews to complete in between media events. I decided to go see if anyone needed help in any other areas of the party, so I went to Central and asked a spirited woman if they needed help anywhere and she immediately lit up and gave me a few choices. I had had no idea at that time that she was Galadriel Waters, editor of The Plot Thickens and author of The Unofficial Guide[s] to Harry Potter. This escaped me despite the fact she was sitting there signing books…. Must’ve been that brain damage. But anyway, it was probably better that I hadn’t recognized Galadriel for who she was because I had been meeting more well-known people and people who knew even more well-known people that I had at one time before. It really was quite overwhelming. So I walked away from Central on my way to help out with Bludging Practice. I stayed there, handing out score cards for a few hours and then made my way back down to the Spellbound stage to cover the costume contest. There was a live act going on so I decided to hang out in Central until it was over. After it was done with, Catherine found me walking down there and asked me if I would like to donate some of my photos to the official Spellbound site and MuggleNet (as well as Harry Potter Fan Zone as it turned out.). I died once more, and jumped at the chance for some of MY work to appear on the biggest Harry Potter websites.

During the contest, Catherine and I bumped into each other again and reconfirmed our sharing a brain. She called me over to where she was with Damon and told me Damon agreed to putting my name as a visual photographer on the site and according to her “No one messes with Damon!” so it was set!

After the contest when everyone had stormed to Borders to get their book, Catherine told me she had to cover the reading parties in the hotel. I asked if she needed help, and she asked me where I was staying and when I answered the Hilton, she smiled and said that’s where she, Damon, and Zach (and later, K’lyssa) were as well, so we exchanged room numbers. Catherine sent me down to the administration offices with Zach so he could unload my memory cards and Catherine and I vowed to meet up in the hotel after Zach had my photos and I had my book. So after becoming on speaking terms with another staff member how site I visited, admired, and was affiliated with, I surprisingly kept my cool and went back upstairs expecting to go out the doors and across the street to Boarders to wait in line for my book.

I was wrong – again, however, as Galadriel gave me a tight one-armed hug (though I still didn’t know who she was), explaining to me that they were short help to break down so, not able to refuse someone as nice as Galadriel was to me, nor really wanting to, I offered to help and she definitely made it worth my while, sending me on my way with quite a few souvenirs, not the least of which was an unsigned copy of The Plot Thickens after she learned I didn’t have it. I had by that time realized who she was, and introduced myself at that point. She smiled and shook my hand and gave me her number so as to be able to call and help out with breakdown the day after.

We finished cleaning up and I went over to Borders to get my book. I walked right in as all that time I had been cleaning, they let groups 1-4 into the store, and I was group 4. I walked along the tracks taped on the ground and, after 45 minutes, I had my book in my hands at 1:12am. I walked out of there, and after allowing a few waiting people a peek, got in the car to head back to the Hilton.

I carefully tucked my book away and immediately sought to complete my promise to Catherine and made my way to the lobby where I was pleased to find her standing with two other Spellbound staff members. She asked me to take a picture of the three of them (using her camera! I used a MuggleNet staffer’s CAMERA! It was absolutely beautiful… *sigh*) and then, after introducing me to Emerson’s brother, Dylan *cue: Death* , she and I agreed to not take as many pictures as we would’ve wanted of the late-night discussion groups (as we hadn’t read any of the book and didn’t want to hear it) and headed to a little common room area, plopped ourselves down on the couches there, curled up, and had a two hour conversation about anything from Emerson (I was very eager to hear more about him, as she knows and loves him) to our childhood and current lives. Zach popped down for a while but promptly, bleary eyed and yawning made his way up to this room and crashed. Catherine and I continued in deep conversation and then (after my thoroughly understanding the importance of Catherine obtaining her late-night Pepsi J) we, too, decided to head in for the night.

After a 3:30 return to bed, I woke up at around 11:30, showered, dressed, and got downstairs within 15 minutes expecting to meet Catherine to make a plan for the day, and was pleased to find her walking my way when I got out of the elevator. She jumped on me and gave me a huge hug, asking what my plans were for the day. I told her I was open to help out whenever. She explained that she was going out with Galadriel and the other MuggleNet staff and would call when she got back. This left my day completely open to read!

I took some more pictures for fun around the hotel and made the few necessary phone calls home (or in one person’s lucky case – Oxford! [from where she brought my home my copy of the UK version of HBP! Much love to Tori!!]) and settled down to read. At around seven o’clock, I got a call from Catherine saying that they were planning to head out to dinner and “cruise downtown Chicago” at around 7:30. So I meandered down to the lobby and at 7:25ish and waited, met Zach, and we were on our way. None of us knew where we were going, but some of th people we went with were Catherine, Zach, Damon, K’lyssa (to whom Catherine introduced me earlier that day, and now we’re really awesome friends!!! <3 K’lyssa!), and Elf with her two kids.

We pulled into a restaurant called “Ed Debevic’s” where the waitresses were supposed to be rude (which Zach hadn’t figured out when he nearly smacked one who tried to take his phone while he was on a conference call with Galadriel and Jenna!). Well, we all got our first taste of that when the hostess found us seats and one of the people we went out with started calling Catherine (with whom I was involved in conversation) to follow. She didn’t hear and so the hostess screamed at the top of her lungs “CATHERINE!!!!!!!”. Needless to say, our conversation came to a premature halt at that point.

We sat down and ordered. Our waitress came out and gave us a bit of a hard time. At one point, she had taken our orders and left the room and Zach suggested, “Someone trip her next time!” quite loudly across the room. Poor Catherine was so scared of her that I was surprised that Catherine’s order even came out of her mouth! I was tempted to put a spin on Zach’s suggestion and put my foot in front of one of the legs of the chair she was sliding around the room in, but never got the chance to, sadly. Damon’s opinions of her was much more colorful! ;-)

Dinner came out and we got back to the hotel around 10:30 after driving around for a while and we stood in the parking lot for a half hour talking. K’lyssa and I just secluded ourselves and chatted the whole time. Then I went off to my hotel room to drop off my book (I had been reading during the car rides) and rand back down to Zach and Damon’s room to work on getting the photos from Spellbound up onlind and sorted. We worked for five hours (11pm-4am), which contained a whole lot more fun than working on photos, including unleashing the “online” Damon (who is very different than Damon in person), Zach realizing Emerson is his brother, and possibly who his father is. (NO scandal… Just Catherine’s mock family.) Tom came over and stayed while we worked.

Anyway, considering I was supposed to leave the hotel at 5am, Catherine and I decided it was time to go back to our rooms. I walked with Catherine to her room after saying good-bye to Damon and Zach, and said good-bye to her. I’m still sad about that….

Mom and I decided to take a later flight, which let me sleep for a couple hours, anyway. But we still were too early to see Catherine off, sadly. It was very hard to say good-bye to some of the most fun I’ve had, and the move fun people I’ve met in a long time, but I missed home slightly, and managed to do so without too many tears. But I really do miss everyone – Catherine, K’lyssa, and Zach in particular. L

Mom and I arrived a Chicago Midway Airport once again at 8 am on Sunday and found the airport absolutely packed wall to wall with people. It took us twenty minutes to travel 100 feet. There were flights missing twenty people at a time because people couldn’t get through the airport to get to their gate. Our flight was delayed to allow people more time to get to the gate.

We got on our flight and arrived home at around 3. I unfortunately had to work at 5 so I couldn’t read much. But I got home and got the site running and called Catherine.

To my surprise, she was still in Chicago! Zach and Damon got out all right with 10 and 12 o’clock flights from O’hare. But Catherine’s 2 o’clock flight was cancelled after sitting on the runway for 3 hours. But, I was pleased to hear she was fine with it and looked on it as a time to get some reading done.

So, now I’m back from Spellbound with some gifts for my firneds, a Dumbledore Piggy Bank, some 2-way radios, a copy of The Plot Thickens, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, along with a whole lot of great, new acquaintances, partners, and friends!

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