I'm Just Wild About Harry - Part Two

Where was Book Five?

I craved Book Five.  I plowed through the quartet again, and bought the DVD for Sorcerer's Stone in May 2002, then saw Chamber of Secrets in November.  Somewhere around that time, we learned the title of Book Five would be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with a release date of July 21, 2003.

I preordered my copy, this time at Barnes and Noble as I had moved away from my beloved Borders.

Anticipation reigned.  But MuggleNet and Leaky kept me sane and grounded ... and updated.  As the date approached I devoured the quartet a fourth time and made sure I had Saturday off so that I could pick up my copy and read.  I had no intention of going to the midnight release party.

Wasn't going to happen.

It would be too ... juvenile.

Funny that home after work, I had no desire for a glass of wine.  Rare is the time I'm not in the mood for wine.  I chalked it up to Order of the Phoenix jitters.

By ten o'clock the jitters became so intense I poured a glass of wine to calm down.

I didn't drink it.

Instead, I hopped in the car and drove to the Barnes and Noble.  Even at ten fifteen, a couple of hundred of people had lined up.  I parked and headed for the registration table where they confirmed my pre-order and handed me my number.  234. 

I'm smiling that I still remember that.

The folks in front of me were young.  So were those who fell in behind me.  None of us spoke to the other until about eleven o'clock when one of them asked me if I was picking up a copy for my child.

"No," I admitted.  "I'm picking it up for me."

"No shit!  You like Harry Potter?"

"I LOVE Harry Potter."

The conversation was on, and here I was relating to teenagers and here were teenagers relating to me.  It was Harry Potter all the time for the next hour, until B & N started letting people in twenty-five at time.  It took forty-five minutes for my group to get in.  I stood in line, bought my book and left.

By that time the line stretched around the strip mall.  I later learned that nearly a thousand people had bought their book at this one B & N that very evening.  Many dressed as characters. 

I liked that.

At home, I took the glass of wine I had poured earlier and sat in the same burnt orange recliner intending to relax enough to go to sleep, the book setting on the end table beside me.

My intent was to start reading the next morning, fresh and wide-awake.

But the magic called.  I decided to read the first chapter.  Only the first, then go to bed.  Nothing more.  It was well after one o'clock in the morning and pulling all-nighters was just so ... juvenile.

All right, two chapters.

Three.

Eight ... o'clock Saturday morning I set Order of the Phoenix down and slept for two hours, woke and started again.

About four-thirty that afternoon a friend called and invited me to a Texas Rangers baseball game that night.  I nearly declined, but thought a break was in order.  I'd get a good night's sleep and finish it over the next couple of days, as I had Monday off.

They took me out to the ballgame.  The Rangers lost.  They had me home by eleven-thirty.

One of my friends said, "I'll bet you start reading as soon as you get in."

"Not a chance," I replied.  "I've only had two hours sleep and I'm exhausted."

"Yeah, right."

My intention was to sleep.  Truly it was.  But Harry whispered my name, and I answered.

One chapter.  Two chapters.  Three chapters.  I finished it at ten o'clock the next morning, slept for two hours and started again at a more leisurely pace.

I inhaled it a second time and longed for Book Six, and the movie version of Prisoner of Azkaban.

Enter MuggleNet and Leaky stage left.

I looked in the mirror and laughed.  This forty-something aspiring novelist had become a child again.

Happily so.