Growing Up with Harry Potter

Finally, this is the weekend where a very good thing has to come to an end. For millions of Harry Potter fans, it's a bittersweet goodbye as they watch their favorite underdog hero defeats You-Know-Who. But at the same time, it's a victory that indicates an ending to 14 years long of book and movie releases of the Potter world.

It was 1997 when the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, was released. He was 11 years old back then when he found out that he was a special boy who suddenly realized that magic was real and he had to go to a school called Hogwarts. I was 11 years old and was as spellbound as he was when I discovered the world of books, J.K. Rowling's, particularly, and the magic they could bring into my life. Many of the kids my age that time did not know what "sorcerer" mean, nor did we know the other hundreds unfamiliar words inside the book. But, that certainly did not hinder us to get the idea of the story and imagine the rest of the details ourselves. In a way, the Harry Potter series has revived the passion that kids in my generation should have for stories, reading, and imagination.

Somewhere in the third and fourth book the story plots started to really darken. There was a point where I felt that the series had lost its charm for children and was meant to serve an older audience. I thought it should still portray the more magical side of the school instead of dealing with fights and deaths. But, as I look back, I realize that it had to go somewhere darker and more complicated. The readers who fell in love with the first book had entered an adolescent stage where fear, strength, acceptance, rage, pressure, friendship, love, and hormone imbalance became a daily battle, just like what Harry was like in the books. Then from then on, the other books got even more sophisticated as Rowling kept true to deliver to her loyal readers who became older with time. We were no longer easily stupefied by simple magic. We wanted enemies, betrayal, trickery, scattered clues that only come together close to the very end.

I grow alongside with Harry and the gang. I have matured as they have. In the first movie, Daniel Radcliff came as this cheeky clean-faced boy and now in the last he comes in as a clean-shaved young man. He has currently moved on to doing broadway shows. Emma Watson embodies Hermione's love for learning as she moves on to pursue a degree at Brown University, while Rupert Grint has pursued acting in other movies. They are all moving along. And so should we.

When giving her speech before the very first screening of the last movie, JK Rowling, with watery eyes and shaky voice expressed her gratitude for her fans, "No story lives unless someone wants to listen." Then to the fact that this is all ending, she said, "The stories we loved best do live in our hearts." As a fan, to her, I would say thank you for allowing us to listen to that crazy twisted thoughts of hers. And to the fact that this is all ending, I'd like to say that not only Harry Potter lives in our hearts, he lives in our thoughts and the values we hold, as she has taken part to shape our generation who in the very first time would run frantically towards the dictionary sized books without any coercing at all. And more than that, these stories will also live in those of our children as we would certainly share to them what we have hold dear growing up.

Butterbeer cheers to a bittersweet ending!