Harry Potter

After ten long years of waiting, we have it. The end. The final battle. The end of an era that has shaped so many people's lives.

I can't tell you how the Harry Potter series has shaped my life. It's turned me into a complete geek, that's for sure. I have read the books dozens of times, literally, I celebrate Harry's birthday at the end of July, and the Lord cannot count how many times I have dressed up as one of the characters.

While I already loved to read when I first started the series, I learned that books can truly take you to different worlds. I can't tell you how many times I've cried while reading these books, no matter where I am (When I'm not supposed to be reading in Science class, during a family road trip...), or have started laughing hysterically (Silent libraries are not the best place for that). I had my first book crush (Why did you have to die Sirius, WHY?), and these were the very first book I read twice.

Millions of people have read this series or watched the movies and felt the same way I am now. Millions of people have cried because 14 long years we've been under the spell of dreaming of a giant castle somewhere in the UK where teenagers learn magic and mischief alike. I hope we will be under this spell for generations to come, that our children will wait by the mailbox before their 11th birthday for a certain letter to come. I hope that we will shelve 7 books along with Austen and Dickens, Wilde and Bronte.

I want to watch Harry go out with a bang, line up with dozens of people close to midnight, dressed up to see my childhood friends for one last adventure. There will be no more midnight book parties for Harry, no more premieres to stand at holding signs and screaming at Dan that we love him. The Boy Who Lived has not died, no, but can't I help but feel so? I don't think I'll ever get past this era, find some new thing that will steal my heart. I feel like all the people who wrote on the sign in front of his parents' house in Godric's Hollow;

Long Live Harry Potter.

"Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home," -JK Rowling