The End of Harry Potter

I was a few weeks from turning 10 when the first Harry Potter book was released. No one is quite sure why these books became the the particular phenomena that dominated midnight releases at bookstores and spawned such wonderous works as the Potter Puppet Pals, but I think it had something to do with a proper plan and series worked out before the author wrote book #1 - a lucky strike of lighting that was then followed with excellent followups that, with a bit of lax editing in books 4 and 5, combined drama with humor to create a very accessible world of practical magic that ignored just enough reality.


Combined with a pre-technology nostagia (Harry Potter was free of computers and cell phones), the books went on a selling rampage, teaching children that do-gooders didn't always do good - Harry is an immensely frustrating hero when he ignores the sage advice of his friends, and I think reviews were spot on in saying that Harry, alone, never really "grew" in the series, maintaining the course that would lead him to Dumbledore's defeat.

Thus the star players, the original trio, were long-characterized by their static-ism, which held until Ron's abrupt departure in book 7, and the growth had to be observed in the other trio - the group of Ginny, Neville, and Luna which also journeyed into the Ministry of Magic and carried on the vital resistance work at Hogwarts as the first trio bumbled in their Horcrux searches. Harry only destroyed one horcrux, after all: the diary in book 2, and Dumbledore only one as well, with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Voldemort, and oddly, Crabbe, rounding out the group.

I remember the day that I realized I was the equivalent of Harry's age at the end of the seventh book (this was well before its release), and I wondered how capable I would be of taking on such evil, such power. I'm much more of an operative than hero, the fellow who would have fooled Umbridge and gotten into her confidences as a spy, instead of openly defying her.

So all this is rambly and strange, but I mostly want to say: wow. Amazing things can happen on train rides.