Harry Potter Madness

As most of you know, I am completely obsessed with Harry Potter. This is my blog, so I'm going to be arrogant. Usually I try to be respectful of each individual's relationship with Harry Potter, but not today.

I think I first read Harry Potter in 4th or 5th grade... I just remember that by then there were a couple of books out and that your status in my elementary school was determined by how many times you had read them. One of my favorite things about the books is that they were supposed to be my exact same age. If I were a wizard, I would be going to school with these characters! [Note: I have recently found out that everyone thinks that they are the same age as the HP family. This is false. My point is proven by looking at the cast of the Harry Potter movies. Daniel Radcliffe? Born 1989. Rupert Grint? Born 1988--okay so maybe he was held back... Emma Watson? 1990. Matt Lewis? 1989. And I was born in 1990. So we are ALL the SAME AGE. This only applies to you if you were born in 1989 or 1990, or graduated high school in 2008.]  My two best friends at the time, Katie Hathaway and Stacey Hansen, were just as in love with these books as I was. We decided that for Halloween in 5th grade, we'd dress up as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Naturally, I was Hermione. Stacey was Harry, and Katie of course was Ron (red hair was a very large factor here). My mom was super great and made me the best costume EVER, complete with the caps they described the students as wearing in the book. I even had an invisibility cloak! It looked exactly how I had pictured it as I'd read the books. P.S. I believe this was before the first movie was released, so all we had to go off was the book. I think we did a dang good job.

Stacey/Harry, Katie/Ron, me/Hermione with our awesome teacher, Mrs. Wood

Anyway, as I was growing up, there was always another book or movie to look forward to. The final book was released the summer before my senior year in high school. Even in college, I believe I still made it to all the midnight premieres for the new movies. I LOVE midnight premieres because everyone is automatically best friends. You all know you automatically have something in common. You laugh together, you cry together... it's a lovely bonding experience.

As I'm sure you all know, the final installment of the films was released July 15, 2011. I decided that this event needed to be made epic. Although all my prepubescent friends adored the series, I didn't feel like Harry Potter carried the same appeal it had ten years before. So I decided to throw one of my infamous movie marathons the week the movie came out. I decided to throw the party the 12th and 13th. We'd watch 4 movies the first day and 3 the second. Naturally we had to have treats inspired by the series, so I proceeded to bake oodles of tasty things, even coming up with my own Butterbeer concoction! (All the recipes I found for Butterbeer online either had alcohol in them or tasted icky.) Here are the treats I made:

I love the little tuft of cotton candy to look like a potion is brewing!

Solid chocolate... Mmm

Isn't he cute?!

Licorice dipped in white chocolate

Tootsie pops dipped in Pop Rocks

Chocolate-covered chow mein noodles

My special blend of cream soda with butterscotch flavoring

The whole spread :)

I'd say the Harry Potter Marathon was my best yet. Everyone loved the food. And yes, I made it all myself. Re-watching all the movies was pretty fun. I can't remember the last time I sat down and watched movies 1-4. Since they've been around the longest, I've seen them the most. So I tend to just tune them out if they're on tv or something. But it was nice to watch the entire series from beginning to end.


The day after all the festivities ended, I got to see the final movie! It wasn't officially released until midnight Thursday night, but I had a couple of awesome connections and I was able to see it in the middle of the afternoon the day before! It was incredible. I invited my friend Michael to come with me and we had a blast. I bawled for the majority of the movie... I mean, I cried when I read the book (I always knew there was more to Snape!) but seeing it all happen in sort-of-real life was heart-rending. I won't go into detail if for some reason there's a human on this Earth who hasn't seen HP7.2... Contact me personally if you'd like to discuss the movie further.

Me and Michael!

 Although my get-up for the midnight premiere has often consisted of a super awesome Hermione costume, I decided to dress up as Lavender Brown this time. For those of you who may not know, Lavender is Ron's girlfriend in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I think my costume rocked.

Won-Won!

After bawling my eyes out at the afternoon show, I got ready for the midnight premiere with a bigger group of friends. A bunch of people dressed up so it was super fun! And yes, yes I did see the movie twice within about an 8 hour time period.

Lundy (foreign exchange student), Dan (Sorting Hat), Brooke (a wizard), Cheri (Prof. Trelawney), Leland (Draco), Jon and Richard (Fred and George), Ryan (Harry), me (Lavender), Taylor and Allie, DeeDee (Ginny), Lindsay (Tonks), and Katie (Death Eater).

The midnight show rocked. I cried a whole bunch (again) and it was awesome. Katie is probably going to kill me for saying this, but one of the most satisfying moments during the movie was when I heard her sniffling off to my left. Katie doesn't cry. Ever. I think I've seen her cry about twice in the 15ish years I've known her. I told her beforehand that she would cry. A lot. She didn't believe me. I hate to say "I told you so"...

The whole experience was rather bittersweet. We really went out with a bang, but I'm a little sad it's over. Now I just have to track down Matt Lewis somewhere in Leeds and convince him to fall in love with me. Then we'll get married and live in England and I'll be BFFs with the whole HP cast. Well, in real life, not just in my head.