Hi. My name is Emily and I am an addict. The following will be the first step in my attempt to temporarily recover from my addiction to all non-JKR fiction and non-fiction writings concerning the marvelous Harry Potter series.

First, I must say, you all have been my comfort and my joy since the release of OotP. How else would I have filled the HP void? I've played the wizard challenge at Scholastic.com endlessly. I've had all-night debates with my college roommate, but still it wasn’t enough.

A few months before the OotP release, I had discovered MuggleNet, and it became a daily hit for me, foraging for any news (and, yes, gossip) I could get. I was ready to elect Emerson president as soon as possible. I couldn’t get enough of the globally generated content and the sometimes sweet, sometimes snarky comments. But, I should have taken my OotP spoiler tragedy as a warning of things to come.

Astonishingly, it wasn’t until December of last year that I discovered the editorials. I was immediately impressed by Maline’s brilliance and insight. I loved yelling at Brandon Ford through my laptop for his bizarre opinions and complete lack of fact checking (no offense, there are a lot of facts). Theories abounded and I couldn’t help but be drawn into pondering the plausibility of each and every one. I anxiously awaited every editorial update. But one day there weren’t any. What was I to do?

I surfed the home page for a while and finally, skeptically, clicked that tiny link way down on the left side of my screen and, like Alice down the rabbit hole, entered the world of fanfiction. I was astounded. I still remember my first fic: "The Truth Uncovered" by psychofreak. It was then a swift descent into obsession.

I began with a general preference for those fics originating in the Romance genre, but soon came to appreciate all the angst, humor and adventure that the limitless permutations of personality and plot could offer. I waited with baited breath for updates to thisbe gwydion’s "Harry Potter and the Secret Apartment" and dragonlanceman’s "Harry Potter and the Year of Discovery" (tragically left uncompleted!). I then branched out to harrypotterfanfiction dot com. I was bowled over by LogicalRaven’s brilliantly detailed alternate universe. I was fascinated by tomfeltonsgurl’s "Time Will Tell" and even cassie921belle’s "Adara Means Virgin."

Then I read Maline’s articles on fanfiction. I was intensely gratified for the validation offered by someone whose opinions I respected so highly. It was she, however, that led me to Ashwinder, which only proved to intensify my addiction.

I spent days lost in the web of the highest form of flattery JKR could ever hope to garner. I hardly registered the hours ticking by as I jumped from one author’s favorite stories to another. It wasn’t until I began my traditional re-read of all previous books, leading up to the new release, that I realized I had a problem. I was so caught up in the infinitesimal possibilities of fanon that I had completely lost touch with Potterverse reality. Like Dumbledore, I had grown to care about all these stories so much that I had lost sight of what was really important.

I got as far as GoF before I understood why the characters I had grown to love so much on paper suddenly seemed so unfamiliar. They were staring up at me from their black and white pages and all that I could see were the vast variations that had been glowing out at me from my shiny 15’ screen.

I was caught between two worlds and, if I was going to truly enjoy HBP, it was time for a “reality” check. If anyone else finds my plight familiar, here are some things we must remember:

Harry is not a ninja.

Ron is not a Death Eater.

There is no such thing as DarkHermione the uber-skank.

We have no idea what Snape has really been up to all these years.

Fred and George, though excellent comic relief, have left school and should not be turning up in the common room.

Ginny will probably not be disappearing mid-term to have Harry’s baby.

Draco is not secretly in love with Hermione/Ginny/Harry/the Giant Squid.

There are not legions of vampires out to make Cho Chang their priestess.

There is no traditional Gryffindor game of drunken truth-or-dare.

And sadly, James, Lily, and Sirius are all dead and will not be joining us in corporeal form again.

I solemnly swear that as of June 16th I will be going cold-turkey off of any and all fanon and editorial writings.

6/13/05

Posted by: Sara

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