As the ominous Warner Brothers emblem bled into shot, the deafening silence alerted us of something amiss. The audience couldn’t hear those iconic chimes and we all knew why. This magical behemoth was concluding its ten year reign upon the hearts and minds of wannabe witches and wizards everywhere. This wasn’t going to be just another sequel. This was the finale. The ultimatum. The end.
I’ll be perfectly honest, I can’t give you a review. It would be clunky and biased and would possibly result in me throwing my laptop across the room in a fit of hysterical denial. Harry Potter has been instrumental in my life choices, and to critique its swansong seems altogether futile. It would be like analysing your first-born’s debut cello recital.
J.K. Rowling wrote a story about a little boy who, after years of abuse, finds out that he is a wizard. Not only this, but that he is one of the most famous wizards of them all. The story was popular and was granted a follow-up. Little did Rowling know that she had in fact created not only a brand new literary world to explore, but an empire in which millions of people would now live within.
I, like many others, went to see Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone at the cinema, with no knowledge of the book. Ten years later, and I can still remember the hype, the excitement, the tangible static in the air that often appears when something as epic as Harry Potter presents itself. However, I was just 9 year-old girl, watching some slightly older kids going to school on a train, by themselves. That alone blew my little mind. When we returned home, my mother bought me the four books that Rowling had written, unbeknownst to me, featuring more of these magical children. Another fan was added to the growing list.
During my teens, I stopped reading. Apart from the odd novel here and there, I just looked at Austen and Lawrence and Flaubert and all of the other smut that I should have been reading with apathy. I dipped in and out of the Potter films, just to check if they were still ticking along. Deep inside, I wanted them to be a success, which, of course, they were. It was just that reading about magic seemed very silly to my fourteen year-old self. I couldn’t imagine that Rowling had any spells to help me through my adolescence, and so they stayed on my bookshelf, bleaching in several summers’ rays.
After secondary school, I took an English Literature class at college because I decided that I wanted to be a screenwriter. When I went into that class, I realised something. The vast majority of that class liked Harry Potter. Harry Potter wasn’t an embarrassing secret, not to them. I gawped at my stupidity. Over the next year, I reread the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione and found new levels to these novels. These weren’t books about magic, these were novels that taught children about bravery and trust and love. Going into university to study English, I noticed the exact same thing. People who wanted to write, had read Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling not only introduced us to Hogwarts, but she spurred us on to read more books about more fascinating people. J.K Rowling gave us Harry and with him, gave us a love of literature that would span the rest of our lives.
As I stood in the queue last night, waiting to see those young adults fight for what they loved for the last time, I noticed that I was probably one of the youngest people in the line. Of course, there was the odd six year-old with their parents, but there was usually a twenty year-old brother wearing Spectraspecs next to them, looking both monumentally sad as well as deliriously excited.
I felt a sense of closure, going into the screening as the lights dimmed. Britain has gained a lot from this franchise, with box office grosses and merchandise sales keeping British cinema alive during its death throes. But, Harry Potter has been so much more than a series. Tattoos, vocational choices, marriage proposals, in-jokes, heroes: these are what Rowling inspired and created for us. She introduced us to a world in which we could be what we wanted to be, and for that we will be forever indebted.
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