And to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end

In anticipation of the final Harry Potter movie, I started rereading all 7 Harry Potter novels some time last month. Unfortunately, I overestimated my reading speed and didn’t get to Book 7 until after the movie. As I turned the final page (or, rather, clicked the Next button on my Kindle one last time), I lay on my bed feeling rather empty, tempted to go back to page one and start this journey all over again.

It’s hard to say goodbye to Harry Potter and his friends, after ten long and amazing years.

There’s a great little conversation between Harry and Dumbledore in Book 7 that goes something like this:
“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

I read this essay by Lev Grossman this morning on the shuttle ride (since I had not decided on the next book to read yet) about fantasy novels. This particular sentence appealed to me most: ” it’s realist literature that pretends to be real. Fantasy doesn’t pretend.” It is amazing what men can do with words, creating a world completely separate from our own, and characters so close to us that they are sorely missed when we reach the end of the story. Sometimes we identify with them, other times we want to be like them. There are those we loathe with a hatred that we didn’t know we had, and those that inspire us with great qualities we’ve long forgotten. We may not remember every twist and turn of the plot, but it’s hard to forget the characters, who are as real as we want them to be.

We will never have adventures like Harry’s, but we all have our journeys and quests. Mundane as our lives are, we make choices everyday, looking for a purpose and a goal in life. The consequences of our bad decisions are as frightening to us as fire breathing dragons or unforgivable spells, and the elation from reaching our goal as satisfying as a Quidditch victory over Slytherin. So live your life as an adventure, and make it as exciting as a year at Hogwarts.