Letter to Harry

Dear Harry,

In 1998, I was in preschool and every night my mother would read to me from the Sorcerer's Stone.  I didn't learn how to read until first grade, and by then the first two movies had come out.  When I finally got to second grade I tried to pick up the books right from the beginning, but I disappointed myself because someone who only reads Magic Tree House books doesn't exactly understand three quarters of the vocabulary on the first page.  So I waited.  I waited until the next summer and I read all of the Harry Potter books more than I drank water.  All five of them.  I remember I was sick for two days and while the rest of my family went out to camp or to run errands, I sat and read Goblet of Fire.  In two days.  When I got to the end of Order of the Phoenix, I cried and yelled at the book, cursing Bellatrix Lestrange for taking away some of the only family you had left.  As time passed, and I waited in anticipation for the next book, I reread the entire series.  And when Half Blood Prince came out, my mom had to buy two copies of the same book because I refused to wait two weeks for my brother to read it first.  I didn't just cry when I got to the end of that one; I sobbed.  I didn't leave my room for two hours and didn't want to talk to anyone for the next few days.  I hated Snape like everyone else.  Hated him with a burning passion that I just couldn't shake.  I reread the books again.  And again.  And I reread the books seven different times by the time July 17, 2007 came around.  That day I held the book in my hands, I ran up to my room and just looked at it.  I took it all in before I even cracked it.  The cover art, the weight, the way I felt about not knowing the end of the Harry Potter series for the last time in my life.  I opened it to the dedication page and a tingle tear leaked out of my eye, and I began the last installment in the epic tale of Harry Potter.  And I didn't eat until I finished the next day.  My parents yelled at me at two in the morning when I was reading and not asleep. The minute I tuned the last page and saw the inside back cover, I sat there and cried silently.  Because you're not just a fictional character, Harry, you're real.  You're real in the pictures from 2000, when I'm wearing my Hogwarts shirt.  You're real in the corner of my room that is a bookcase completely covered in Harry Potter memorabilia.  You're real in my memories, and speech, and interest in types of books.  Real in my teenage years when I went back to  read the books just to see how another teenage went through their life.  So real in the way that when I had no friends, I had you.  Real in the way that as a definition, you are my childhood.  And most importantly, you're absolutely and most definitely real in my heart.  Thank you Harry Potter, for letting me feel loved by paper, being my best friend, and allowing me a place that made me realize that I'm a part of something simply bigger than just a series.  I'm part of a family, and we are all still waiting for our Hogwarts letters in the mail.

Love always,
Sophie