It's laughable that I ever believed that I would be immune to this epidemic. I didn't think that this dark feeling would affect me because for me the series ended four years ago. The Harry Potter movies had just been a way to kill two and a half hours while I waited for the next book to come out (when between books, Potter fans really do plan out each hour). I've only seen the past three films out of habit and, well, to see my girl crush Emma Watson evolve into a bona fide bombshell. Sure, I enjoy seeing the centerpiece of my childhood reenacted on the silver screen, but I'm not keen on becoming one of those the-books-are-better bitches, so I've always been careful to detach myself from the film franchise. I believe you are familiar with the jerks I'm referring to, you probably even know a few personally. I'm talking about the special kind of asshole who can't appreciate a fucking movie that is based on a book because they're constantly complaining about every single minor detail the filmmakers failed to include. And they make everyone around them very aware of these often times frivolous offenses committed, consequently making everyone around them miserable. These particular dickwads make me want to impale myself on a rusty butter knife. Unfortunately for me, I was stuck with one of those charming fuckers for several painful minutes after I saw part 2 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last thursday night. She was expressing her immense concern over the way Alan Rickman said one of his lines.
"It's just not the way I heard it when I read it, you know?" she whined to me. "In my head it was slower, and said more deliberately." I'd like to deliberately shove David Yates' balls down her throat.
After the movie, I retreated into my room, where I've been holed up for the past three (Four? Five?) days. As I write this, I'm surrounded by a sprawling landscape of Potter paraphernalia. Prisoner of Azkaban is under my pillow, Half-Blood Prince and Goblet of Fire are at my feet, and Philosopher's Stone is open in my lap. On my television, an extremely scratched DVD of Order of Phoenix plays when it wants to. I'm wearing my Warner Brother sanctioned wizarding robes while eating some of a chocolate bar that I found in my sock drawer and pretending that the glass bottle of coke I'm drinking is a butterbeer. It's not a pretty sight, not at all. I accidentally looked in the mirror the last time I went to the bathroom- where's my invisibility cloak when I need it?
I suppose it's not really the series dying that's turned me into a bigger mess than that week in the sixth grade when I had gotten really into Nirvana and someone told me Kurt Cobain was dead (this was 2006). Like I said, that ended years ago. It's the end of the craziness. This was my generation's obsession. This was our reason to camp out in front of a theater, to go bat-shit crazy, to live in our parents' homes for much longer than normal. There's a very good chance that this is the last cultlike fandom of my youth. And that's worth crying over. Settle in for the long haul, Potterheads, this really is the end- at least until the prequels.
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