HP 7.2

 It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.  

~J.K. Rowling,  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000

*sigh* It's over...

Freshman year of college: done. Summertime comes. What am I doing? Oh, not much. Just chillin' in the happenin' land of Rexburg, Idaho. I remember coming home from work one day to find my roommate buried in a book. She didn't respond when I said hello. Odd. I put my stuff in my room, and came back out to the living room where...roommate is still lost in book land. It's summertime! C'mon! I tried convincing her to come outside with me and we'd go find some boys and have fun in the sun. Nope. She wanted to stay and read. WHAT IS THIS BOOK? So I check the cover.

Something about wizards.

Whaaaaa???

REALLY?

I started to poke fun. I did. I'd seen my younger siblings hooked to these books like they were an IV to life, but I just brushed it off because, well,

A) my family reads like books are going to become extinct soon, and 

B) I'd mostly seen my little brothers reading them. 

I was a fully mature college freshman-soon-to-be-sophomore, for crying out loud! I didn't have time to read silly wizard books. (Fear not. I have since recounted all efforts to rush this growing up thing. Albeit a little late in the game, but that's not the point.) But I had a cunning roommate. She took it like a champ and finally told me I had to read the first book and then if I still didn't like it, she'd concede. (HA! She never would have. She just knew I'd get hooked.) 

Well, I'd like to thank you, Portia Koenig Walker, for changing the past 10 years of my life and helping me appreciate all things muggle and wizard in all those walks down Diagon Alley.

Books are going to be in heaven, I'm pretty sure. As I sat eating my icy Butterbeer snowcone in the heat of the afternoon, reflecting on the upcoming midnight showing with growing anticipation and a twinge of melancholy...I couldn't help but smile. :) I mean...look at that little face!

He's so grown up now. *sniff* Also, in celebration of the day, even the college campus which provides my daily bread found time to appreciate the imagination of one J.K. Rowling:

It just makes me happy. :)

I never go to these movies anticipating them to be anything like my experience with the books. I think you're a fool if you do. But honestly...for the last movie...I thought they did wonderfully. I laughed, I cried, I cheered, I shuddered...I felt fear and triumph.

...Minerva McGonagall is my new favorite: "I've always wanted to use that spell..." AH. Good does triumph. :) When Slytherin house is sent to the dungeon. :) heeeee...a little karma never hurt anybody, right? :) I felt strangely relieved when the dastardly Malfoy family, so shattered by their entanglement with Voldemort, is finally seen leaving together: safely. Relief and a surge of sympathy. You know it's good when you even feel for the not-so-good-guys. We're all human after all...(err...except if you're a wizard...because, well, I mean, you are, but should we change that to muggle? nope. I digress.) When Bellatrix Lestrange is FINALLY defeated!!! Though, we must admit she did a fabulous job with her character. And by none other than Molly Weasley?! AW, YEAH! I admit without reservation to cheering out loud, clapping, and a few fist pumps in the air for that one. When Severus Snape's true character and intentions are finally revealed - I guarantee you I was not the only one with tears streaming down my face. I heard much sniffling around me, so I felt a little less ashamed. :) Rowlings was brilliant with the creation of such a thing as the Pensieve. One would certainly come in handy in this muggle world, I think.

"One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure."
--Albus Dumbledore

 
All that is only scratching the surface. Clearly. 

Thank you, Harry. 
And Hermione. And Ron. And Doby. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Dumbledore. Snape. Hagrid. Hogwarts. *sigh* I'm going to start crying all over again.

To stave off the mourning I will surely encounter in the next couple weeks, I'm thinking HP parties with things like this. And reading them all again, start to finish. And more Butterbeer snowcones. (Which come with a surprise at the bottom, fyi. It's a gummy bear, but I was still pleasantly surprised. :) Apparently I excel at all things mature.) 

 

And speaking of mature, I found this the other day...hahha...

I find that ultimately hilarious. 

 

Welp. I have now sufficiently ruined the somber, sentimental HP mood, I'll leave you with that for just one more day. There were pictures from this night, but I accidentally let my friend Lindsey take all the pics with her camera, so...those will come later, probably. :) I decided this was an event worthy of a midnight showing, yet again. But try telling me that now when I'm paying the piper hardcore. :)

Dawn seemed to follow midnight with indecent haste.  

~J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007

 

truth.

So let's just see what they do with Hunger Games. :) Maybe that'll help.

No, I probably just need to go the Harry Potter World.

yep. that's it. :)