I'm Just Wild About Harry - Part One

I came late to the Harry Potter party.  Despite my friend's admonishments to hop on board the train bound for Hogwarts on platform 9 3/4, I stayed away.  Didn't want my ticket punched.  They would badger me, "Rock, you gotta read the Harry Potter books."  Then would ask, "Have you read the Harry Potter books?" and "When are you going to read the Harry Potter books?"

At the time I swore to them that I would give them a try, there were three: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Philosopher's Stone in the UK), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  But WTF did a forty-something aspiring novelist want with a series of adventures about a boy wizard?  I had tons of fictional friends.  Best friends, who had never let me down when I needed a story:  David Copperfield, Dracula, Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, The Thornbirds.  Why take on another?

Things change.

My mother died in 2000.  My brother and I stopped speaking as a result.  In 2001 after burying her and wrapping up as much of her affairs as I could, I started a new job, feeling more lonely and full of despair than I've ever felt before or since.

My real friends were amazing.  My fictional friends not so much.  They seemed a little out of step for my situation.  I would read a couple of chapters and toss them aside because, while they remained constant, I hadn't.  I had changed big time for all time.

My apartment complex sat across Lovers Lane in Dallas from a strip mall featuring a Borders bookstore (damn do I miss Borders).  One Saturday morning, I decided I needed a new story.  Don't know why, really.  The feeling just occurred.  So I traipsed across the street and ran across Harry, now featuring the hardbound edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which had been out nearly a year by this point.

I bought Book One - Sorcerer's Stone - took it home, settled into my burnt orange recliner and dove in.  Immediately her storytelling reminded me of Dickens.  I smiled and devoured.  Later that afternoon, I bought the other two in paperback - Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban.  By Sunday afternoon I'd finished the trio and bought Goblet of Fire in hardback.  I plowed through it over the next few evenings after work.

J. K. Rowling had me hook, line and sinker, on dry land.

Imagine my dismay when I found no release date for Year Five at Hogwarts.  Nothing.  Zippity do dah.

I read the quartet again.

Later that year I discovered a Harry Potter fan site called MuggleNet and spent quality discovering I wasn't alone in my dismay, nor in my fascination with all of these amazing characters.  I could now relate to Harry Potter fans on their level.

Not long after, I met a young lady at the Maui Writers Conference named Melissa Anelli.  We discussed Harry Potter, writing, Harry Potter, the conference and Harry Potter.  She gave me her card and introduced me to the other great Harry Potter fan site, The Leaky Cauldron and the term "Potterverse."

I've haunted those sites for years now.

Even though Book Five wasn't on the horizon, Movie One was.  And after work on November 16th 2001, I saw Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the movie and was transported by the magical world of Hogwarts and brilliant performances of Dan, Rupert, and Emma, Alan, Richard, and Maggie.

I woke up the next morning and realized that, for the first time in a long time, I loved life and everyone in it.

My family and friends had a lot to do with that. 

So did Harry Potter.

-To Be Continued -