FAREWELL, HARRY




courtesy of: artorg.info

 

I first met Harry Potter in 2000 at the National Bookstore in SM Fairview. It was my first year of teaching and since I got my own money, I decided to have my own teeny-weeny library in my teeny-weeny room. Seeing the vibrant cover of the Sorcerer’s Stone – a boy in round glasses with a bolt in the forehead flying in a broom - I picked it up and checked the blurb (the ‘teaser’ or sort of synopsis at the back cover of a book), and decided that it was well worth my money to belong in my precious shelf. I have no idea that it was a New York Times Bestseller, or that it was being made into a film. I am not much into contemporary/modern literature back then for I was more engrossed in Shakepeare and Poe, and I didn’t even like books about witchcraft, thinking it was one, but I wagered in the end.

Picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has been my ticket to the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 ¾. Everything in it was riveting – the unusual arrival of Harry at the Durley’s doorstep, the vanishing glass at the reptile house, the arrival of the letters, the giant Hagrid, Diagon Alley, Gringotts, Hogwarts Express, the sorting, the sardonic Draco Malfoy, He-who-must-not-be-named, Quidditch, meeting Ron, rescuing Hermione from the troll, and much, much more. I remember reading the book in one night (which I’ve done in almost all of the books), oblivious that the sun had almost risen up when I finished. When Chamber of Secrets came out, I was drawn deeper into Harry’s world as I met Dobby, the mandrakes, Aragog and the basilisk. I even filed for a sick leave from work and pretended I had dysmenorrhea just to finish reading it. Finishing Books 3 to 5 had similar tales of filing for sick leaves and/or sleepless nights, transforming me into a bystander along the halls of Hogwarts.  Finishing the rest of the books (Books 6 and 7) had been easier yet woeful. Easier, since I was not a prisoner of the bundy clock anymore. I was able to reserve each book at National bookstore and became one of those who had finished it while drinking chocolate chip frappuccino at the nearest coffee shop. Woeful because of the sudden deaths of people I have learned to respect and cherish, and knowing that like death, the ending of Harry’s story is inevitable. Reading the epilogue of the last book felt like a lump in my throat had been removed, yet an empty hole in my chest formed. But I forced myself to smile, knowing that the movies are still coming. And now that they had, I still felt sad, but at least I have prepared myself for this. Yes, there was sadness, but its a sadness you feel when a loved one moves away, a feeling of knowing that once they left, you will never see them again, yet you know that they are just out there somewhere.

The HP series is indeed spellbinding. Personally, the series has unsealed a world where I want to purchase my own real estates, one at Privet Drive, one at Hogsmeade, another in Godric’s Hollow; a world I seemed to watch from the other side of the veil in the Department of Mysteries; a world where I rejoiced for all of Harry’s triumphs and where I lamented for all of his loss – from Sirius to Dumbledore to Dobby and to Lupin and Snape. (I cried whenever someone dies, not just because I adored these characters, but because I agonized with Harry.) Each time I enter Hogwarts, whether through the books or the movies, I am a child again - a Gryffindor like Harry, a Slytherin like Draco, a Hufflepuff like Cedric, a Ravenclaw like Luna.

JK Rowling is a genius that we, fans of Harry Potter, are indebted to. She had been the architect of this universe, not unlike a parallel reality where there are good – but not perfect – people like Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Hagrid and Snape; where there are not-so-good people like Voldemort, Lockhart, Umbridge (the character who annoyed me the most), Bellatrix, and Pettigrew; where there is hate, jealousy, treachery, bigotry along with love, friendship, devotion, loyalty and courage. And for that, I thank her.

And as for Harry, the boy who lived, “It has been an honor knowing you.”

(Eggheads, did you know that by the time Book 7 was released, everyone I bumped into along the mall’s corridors were clutching copies in their hands? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows holds the Guinness world record for fastest selling book of fiction in 24 hours in the US, and it was reported that sales reached a rate of 15 books sold per second.)