It’s Never Too Late to Discover Magic
Recently, my boyfriend finished reading the first Harry Potter book and upon finishing it immediately requested we watch the first movie. He has never read the books or seen the movies until now, but being able to experience them all over again from his fresh eyes was great and interesting.
As he had been reading the first book, he would text me quotes he particularly liked, such as “There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them” (179) and “After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure” (297). He would also send me any little notes of mine he had found in the book, as he was using my very first copy of Sorcerer’s Stone. Not only was it intriguing, but it was also touching to see him journey along, to make comments about Harry’s talent for flying, his suspicion of Snape (and surprise of Quirrell), and also his disappointment in the Pure-bloods of the wizarding world for prejudging the Weasleys as “blood traitors” and Hagrid as a “monster.” My boyfriend, who is college-age and had never interacted with the world of Harry Potter in his life, met me a year ago and just recently decided to read it to understand what I was blabbering about a good portion of the time.
When we watched the first movie, he was enthralled. He didn’t tear his eyes away for a second, making comments like, “That’s not how it happened in the book!” and “Of all people to help Gryffindor win the House Cup, it was Neville, and I love how that happened [in both the book and movie].” Even though the graphics weren’t up to par with what the movie industry can create today, he had entered a different world—of the Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, Gringotts, Hogwarts, Quidditch, and the obstacles to the Stone—and experienced what I had first felt at age eight when I picked up the first book and never put it down. To this day, I will cry reading the books or watching the movies, and he was there to understand what I was feeling, how deeply Harry Potter as a whole is rooted in my psychology.
He plans to read the rest of the series and subsequently watch the movies. What has touched me the most, what has been the most altering to me, is the fact that instead of just reading it to understand what I was talking about, now he fell a little in love (or at least deep like) with the series, with Harry and Ron and Hermione, with their adventures. And as the books get more and more complex, as the writing gets better and better, as the movies create more and more intensity, I can’t wait to experience them all over again as he reads and sees them for the first time. It is honestly never too late to start reading Harry Potter or seeing the movie adaptations. There is a magic there that cannot die, that does not fizzle out now that Harry’s story has wrapped up. And there is magic in sharing Harry’s world, that’s for certain.
