Midnight. (Contains Spoilers)

I sit at my desk writing this on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 at 2:04 PM.
I have Hedwig's theme playing in the background, and my copy Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone resting in my lap. My "Mischief Managed" mug sits on top of my CD of Tommy by The Who.
My sharpie Dark Mark has long since faded, and the lightning scar I had drawn on my forehead when I was six lives on in spirit. The "Sorting Hat" from Brigantine, NJ's Public Library sorted me into Ravenclaw, from which I have never left. The "wands" my brother Sean and I used to use have been blown away by Brigantine's sea breeze, lost...

...However, my imagination, magic, and love affair with reading is not.

I am ready to share my secrets of the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II with the public.
Twelve days ago today, I began readying myself to venture to Nieriel's house to begin our night of rambunctious wackiness in preparation to transform ourselves from the pacifistic Witches that we are into Two of Voldemort's Death Eaters: Nieriel as Bellatrix Lestrange and myself as Narcissa Malfoy.

Let me begin by giving a bit of comedic fodder by telling the tale of my brother dropping me off at Nieriel's house.
I had everything I needed with me for the premiere. Dress, makeup, sharpies for Dark Marks, a pair of killer heels, my homemade Slytherin choker, and my love of Harry Potter deep within my soul, ready to burst right out of my body.
My older brother, Sean, (who is twenty years old, mind you) had just gotten his driver's license, and was rearing and ready to drive somewhere...so why not give your hyperactive Potter-obsessed little sister a lift to her friend's house? Sound's legit...
Well, we didn't die on the way there, thankfully, but what I didn't know is that Nieriel wasn't home yet when I got there; She and her mother were picking up her brother from camp at the train station from the city.
After knocking on Nieriel's door for a good 30 seconds, I finally realized she wasn't home. I turned back to Sean's car and blatantly signaled that she wasn't home. I shrugged my shoulders and began to walk back to the car...
But my brother decided to speed off without me.
So, there I stood, on Nieriel's front porch, backpack slung over my shoulder, stilettos in hand, looking like a total dweeb.
Figuring that they'd be back eventually, I sat on the front step and waited, only to be stared at by a few of Nieriel's neighbors. I'm not exactly what one would call 'confident' when it comes to being by myself, so I felt incredibly uncomfortable sitting there with all my stuff, so I decided to walk around the block once or twice.
(I forgot to mention that I also don't carry a cell phone, so I couldn't call my brother to come back and wait with me or call Nieriel to tell her I was at her house.)
After rounding the block a few times, I turned the corner to go back to Nieriel's house and looked ahead, into the blazing glare of the afternoon sun, to see a figure sprinting towards me. I couldn't make out who it was at first, so immediately, I thought was that it was a rapist coming to kidnap me, or something.
As the figure grew closer, my heart beat faster with fear. Who in the right mind was running towards me at full speed?
And then it hit me.
Literally.
Nieriel barreled into me and wrapped me in a tight hug, crushing my lungs.
"I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY!! WE LEFT YOU HERE, I'M SO SORRY!!"
Initially stunned and relieved that nobody was going to murder me, I smiled and explained the situation to Nieriel as we walked back to her house. She laughed, and and  mentioned that when she called my mom to ask if she knew where I was, my mom laughed, apparently. I was confused, obviously, so I called my Mom to tell her to yell at her son for leaving me there, stranded. She obliged. (Thanks, Mom.)

An hour or so passed, and our friend Devin joined the pack, ready with as much makeup as I was to attack Nieriel with.
We passed the time to wait for our friend Kellyn by sipping "Butter Beer" (Root Beer with print-out labels)
watching A Very Potter Musical, and getting our make-up done. By the time Kellyn showed up, Nieriel's make-up was finished, as was mine and Devin's, so we had to attack Kellyn with eyeliner, shadow, blush, concealer, and lipgloss. It was only around 10:00 PM by the time we were ready for the Golden Snitch cake that Nieriel's mom had gotten for us, and this is what we looked like, pre-Potter.

(Kellyn's in the purple, Devin's wearing the tie, Nieriel's on the floor, And me, with my Rocky Horror Picture Show T-shirt...)
But, we still had to get our costumes on and get to the theatre. I'll skip about an hour of running around Nieriel's house finding wands for us to bring, and get right to the theatre.
TA-DA!!


And now...for the movie itself.
Words simply cannot describe it.
The entire time, I sat glued to my seat, holding my wand in my hands so tightly I thought it might snap. I had chills crawling up my body every second; I just wanted to scream.
And scream I did.
From the very start of the film, people were cheering. From the siege at Gringotts, to the search for the Horcruxes at Hogwarts, to Neville's bravery to Voldemort's demise. And of course, Molly Weasley's famous line of "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" to Bellatrix Lestrange, which recieved the most applause I've ever heard in my life.
And I cried more than I laughed. Some tears of sorrow, others of happiness.
From Snape's death to Fred Weasley's, to Remus and Tonks, lying dead, hands still clasped within each other's.
But the greatest part was that in the theatre, you could hear a pin drop, it was so quiet. There weren't chatty teen sluts laughing it up about us crying, people weren't getting up every minute for a smoke, people weren't asking what was going on...nothing.
And that was the beauty of it.
I was in a room surrounded by people who loved Harry as much as I did.
I wasn't being ridiculed for something I loved, for once in my life. And that was good.
I cried until my eyeliner was rushing down my cheeks, and even more so afterwards.

"Albus Severus...You were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

With a final cry of "Mischief Managed!" Myself, Nieriel, Devin and Kellyn said our goodbyes to the Wizarding World, and crossed our Dark Marks for one last time.


Thank you, J.K. Rowling.

Thank you.

Transvestites, Star Wars, and Bastille Day.

I never thought I would cross the threshold into Death Row. It was atrociously hot, like any other day in July. My heart raced. I feared it might skip a beat.

Stepping through the mouldy, decrepit archway into the fenced-in cell block, one can easily imagine the countless inmates who had walked through the very same archway to await their death.

Murderers.

Rapists.

Theives.

Con-artists.

And me, a sixteen year-old hippy-at-heart, linked arm-in-arm with a friend whose Napoleon Bonaparte finger puppet was her only protection against the spirits and specters that haunt Eastern State Penitentiary's dilapidated halls.

Nieriel and I decided to venture back into Philadelphia last Saturday to witness a re-enactment of the storming of the Bastille at Eastern State Penitentiary. I had never been inside the decrepit, some would say haunted, prison before, so Nieriel's mother decided to let us take the audio tour. Being a resident of the 'burbs of the City of Brotherly Love, I felt like a total toolbag walking around with the stupid radio and headphones, but Steve Buscemi was the narrator, so that made the toolbag-ness deflate to zero. 

Nieriel and I went on our own separate way, and her mother and younger brother went the other way.

Starting outside the prison, in front of working guillotine, no less, we began our adventure.

(I'm the ginger. Nieriel's the brunette. Her brother is the abnormally tall one.)

When one first sets foot inside of the first maximum security prison in the States, you immediately get slapped in the face with a sense of uneasiness. Not only because of the thought of how many people once walked through these halls, but of the fact that the cells are just as they were so very long ago: Cold, dark, damp, and very, very scary.


This picture proves how powerful the flash from a camera is; This cell had no skylight and/or any source of light at all.
Unlike the cell above, most of the cells inside Eastern State have a total of 5 things:
Cot
Toilet
Skylight
Bible (Or other book for entertainment, depending on the prisoner)
Cell door

If I had a choice of being decapitated with a guillotine, being eaten by the Shelob, and being stuck in that cell, I'd choose the guillotine. (Which you can see in the background of the first picture.) :D

While we barreled down the many different cell blocks of the prison, Nieriel and I had our fill of creepiness after a few hours of listening to Steve Buscemi drone on and on about Al Capone and other notable inmates. While that was interesting and all, we didn't come to learn about the prison.
We came to storm, bitches.



Eastern State Penitentiary was modeled after the French Bastille, so, logically, the entire populace of the Museum District of Philadelphia acts out the Storming of the Bastille from the French Revolution every summer, complete with Imperial Storm Troopers, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and a Transvestite.
Yes.
You read that correctly.

After our tour, Nieriel's mom got us some pizza, and we fueled ourselves for an evening of yelling at Marie Antoinette, .
(And Lil' Napoleon was with us, too.)

Aren't we just ADORABLE?! *violent twitch*

After about an hour or so of prancing around the vendor tents, petting the occasional friendly dog, yelling random spew in what little French Nieriel and I know, playing my ocarina, and taking a gratuitous amount of pictures, the Storming began.
Now, for those of you brilliant, BRILLIANT snowflakes who have no idea who/what Marie Antoinette/The French Revolution is, here's a brief synopsis:
Marie Antoinette was fourteen when she took place on the throne in Versailles in 1774, declaring herself queen when her husband, the chubby and quite stupid Louis XVI took place as King. The people of France were initially charmed by her beauty and wild personality when she first took to the throne. But as time progressed, and so did the brutal winters, the peasants of France began to accuse the promiscuous Queen, or 'The Austrian', as they called her, of 'fornicating with the enemy' so to speak, as she harboured sympathies for her native country of Austria, whom France did not dwell with positively.
The Bastille, which was the symbol of Noble and Royal Hierarchy in France, harboured only seven inmates when the storming took place on the morning of July 11th, 1789, but the sheer impact of the destruction of the prison symbolizes the beginning of the Revolution. (Hence the name, 'Bastille Day').

Natives of Philadelphia, however, decided that this was the perfect reason to fuse comedy with history and give you this:

Marie Antoinette, standing atop Eastern State Penitentiary, with Imperial Storm Troopers, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader.

(Did I mention she rained Tastykakes down from the sky while screaming "LET THEM EAT CAKE!"?
Nieriel cringed as this happened, and no sooner had I mocked her for doing so that a Butterscotch Krimpet smacked me right between the eyes, accompanied by a shout of "GAH, MOTHER F**KER!!" by me. I received applause.)

A Transvestite narrated Marie's kidnapping from the prison, (I'm not kidding) and led her to the dreaded guillotine. Tastykakes littered the streets, and a young child decided to lob one at the Tranny. He stopped in mid-sentence and called out, "YOU'RE NEXT!". (Might I add that this man pulled off a skimpy black dress and stiletto heels quite well.)
Tranny man led Marie to the guillotine and read the Queen what could happen to her head, if the crowd so desired her fate. We so decided.
A watermelon was chopped in half to test, and Marie's fate was imminent...
Except we couldn't really chop off her head.
The Tranny sentenced her to be Arnold Schwarzenegger's House Maid, instead. (Not much better than getting decapitated, if you ask me.)
 

After the performance, Nieriel and I decided to snap some photos of Marie's posse.
(Again, Nieriel's on the left, I'm on the right. My hair is particularly red in this one...)

One with a Stormtrooper....


And one with Darth himself. Notice our happiness.

And with these snapshots, I leave you for now, my lovelies.

As always...and with just enough wit, I remain
                                                                              --Lónannûniel
         

Twenty Four Hours Until it will Begin...

In twenty-four hours, I will be applying my more-than usual gothic make-up to my face and also Nieriel's, sprucing up my Sharpie Dark Mark, chomping on RedVines, singing "Get Back to Hogwarts" and "Voldemort is Going Down", attempting to make butterbeer, elbowing little kids in the face to get to my seat, screaming unforgivable curses at Muggles, inhaling buttery popcorn, gripping the sticky movie theatre seat thrillingly, and wiping away my tears as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II comes to a close.
Although the thought of the series ending makes me misty-eyed, the sheer impact of it all didn't quite hit me until just now. I've spent such a long time with Harry that it's almost as if I'm losing a family member.
However, now is not the time for such sad things.
Tomorrow will be a day of epic proportions and preparations.
Nieriel, myself, our friends Valpantiel and Devin, and Nieriel's mother and younger brother have had this day planned for months. Hell, we've had it planned for years. 

The midnight release.

Standing outside the AMC Theatre my older brother manages, waiting in anxiousness, terror, and enough excitement to piss ourselves, we will show our love for Potter.
Costumes!
Make-up!
Cheesy fake accents!
SONGS FROM AVPM/AVPS!
Everything a die-hard fan (or any fan) could want.
We will make it so.

Sadly, I will leave you here for tonight, my dear readers. I will return in the next few days with pictures, videos, and other random spew.

*hat tip*

Toodle pip, my loves.

A Childhood of Potter, a Childhood of Magic.

"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat. No doubt they thought it would amuse you." -Albus Dumbledore


"Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure." -Luna Lovegood


"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." -Sirius Black


"When a wizard goes over to the dark side there's nothin', and no one matters to 'em anymore." -Rubeus Hagrid


"The thing about growing up with Fred and George," said Ginny thoughtfully, "is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." -Ginny Weasley


"Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit." -Remus Lupin

     These quotes are just a select few of many which spawned my love for Harry Potter. When I was five years old, my mother decided to read me the first chapter of Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone one night before bed. I distinctly remember listening intently to J.K. Rowling's first description of Albus Dumbledore... 


"Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore." (Rowling, Philosopher's Stone, 8) 

     That passage has been super-glued within my psyche since I first heard it 11 years ago in my bedroom.
 But why, indeed, is Harry Potter so important to me? Why has it formed a place in my heart that nothing else could ever compete with?
Magic.
Joanne Rowling opened up a world of magnificence and adventure beyond my wildest dreams within the first few pages of her debut novel. Even at only five years old, I wanted to know more about this strange, bearded old man who called himself Dumbledore. I wanted to know how a simple Tabby cat could transform herself into a strict and powerful witch with a soft side. Who was this lightning-bolt-scarred 11 year-old named Harry James Potter? Why was he so famous? 
When would I get my Hogwarts letter?
Which house would I be sorted into?
Would I be in Slytherin?
Or Gryffindor? 
Or maybe Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff? 


     As I sit here writing, wiping away my tears, I look down into my lap and see my tattered copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The dust jacket is torn at the top, removing completely the previously gold lettering of Harry's name, the cover itself is stained with small blotches of tea. The pages have begun to slowly yellow. A few small teeth marks from where my dog had gotten a hold of it rest on the edges of a few pages. And, honestly... I don't think there is a book in my personal collection that has ever been loved so dearly. As bunged up as my book may be, it has been through almost 13 years of chaos. 
     Being carried around school first by my older brother, and then by myself as I grew older, surviving a move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, just barely making it through an encounter with a steaming mug of tea... the lot of which, simply shows how much this book has been loved. 

     I sat for ages beside my bedroom window when I was little, wishing my hardest that an owl would swoop onto my windowsill with a letter from Hogwarts clutched in it's talons. 

     (I know now that my owl has simply lost their way, and my letter will arrive soon enough...)

     I don't think I can even remember a time in my life when there wasn't Harry Potter. Every year, from back as long as I can remember, there was always, without fail, something Potter-related being released, whether it be a book, film, videogame... something. 

Every new school year meant more Potter. I would wait anxiously for the next movie or book to be released, always hoping to see The Weasley Twins doing something greater and more ridiculous than ever, or listen to Remus Lupin and Sirius Black exchange stories with Harry about their days at Hogwarts. 


     That is why the simple thought of the series ending makes me teary-eyed. Having grown up with so much magic and wonder in my life, having it all end while the fandom is at its peak makes me incredibly sad. (If you read my last post, my friend Nieriel and I discussed this in detail). We cannot and will not let the populace forget about Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, or Hermione Granger. The world will not forget Hogwarts. The world will not forget Dumbledore. We will never forget the wizards that sacrificed their lives in the Battle of Hogwarts. We will never forget the infamous Malfoy sneer, nor Neville Longbottom's courage and bravery.

     To every single person who has stuck with Harry until the very end, raise your wands and rejoice. Never let the magic leave you. Ever.     


To Harry James Potter, Ronald Bilius Weasley, and Hermione Jean Granger.
We will never let you go.

"Keep calm and hold hands. The magic will never end."

Letters Between Two Potter Fans

As many of you are aware, the final part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is to be released in ten days.
My good friend Nieriel and I grew up with Harry Potter, and are not at all ready to have it end. These e-mails are our discussions on the topic.

Me: I... I just can't completely grasp that it's actually over. I can't imagine a life without Harry Potter. Just looking back and remembering everything about our childhood... it all wouldn't have been so great without Potter. Every new school year, there was something new: A movie, book release...something. Everyone made friends because of a mutual love of the series. Nobody hid their love for it. Ever. 
I can just remember reading the first book every night before bedtime, going to the first movie with Sean and my Dad, and we were the only ones in the theatre... Hiding from Voldemort at night, staring out my window for ages hoping to see an owl instead of the occasional seagull. If someone you knew hadn't read or seen any Potter, you lent them the book and waited for their obsession to start. 

    We are the leaders of the Harry Potter generation, Nieriel! Think about it: We grew up and matured as Harry grew up and matured. We learned as Harry did. We loved, lost, and gained many a friend and loved one just like Harry. What would our lives be like had it not been for Harry? Had it not been for Hermione? Or Ron? Or The Weasley Family? Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Mad-Eye, Snape, Hagrid? WithoutDumbledore? Would we still be reading what we are, writing what we are today without the Potter series? 

    It's a world-wide phenomena that we made famous, Nieriel. Us, the young readers, the bookworms, the buyers of useless merchandise, the people with posters, the children who wished they had glasses just so we could be like Harry, the children who ran around speaking in a fake British accent just so we could be like our favourite characters. We, the Fans of Harry Potter. 

I just don't want it to be over. Ever.

Nieriel: I don't think I can remember a time in my life without Harry Potter. As a child, my mom would read it to my brother and I every night, and she fell in love with it so much that she would keep reading to herself and got farther than Ryan and I, and she would keep hinting to us that awesome things happen in the other books, or reading really funny scenes to me from the other books, and we'd laugh imagining it. I saw almost all the movies in theatres, saw all the midnight releases from the fifth one up, play pretend with the Harry Potter characters when I was in second grade......

 

My mom and I always love this, but think about it: there were NO midnight releases for books before Harry Potter. It all started with that. I remember going to the midnight release of the Order of the Phoenix dressed as Hedwig (my mom made the costume....in fact, I think I still have it in the attic), and the same for the Half-Blood Prince. The one I'll remember best, though, is definitely the Deathly Hallows release. That was when I had officially become a completely ballistic fan of the series and had read all the books, so I got all the costumes and jokes and everything. It was such a magical night (no pun intended), and in some ways I'm glad the night was so amazing for me, because it was the very last one, for the books at least, and the book releases had a special magic to them then the movie ones. I guess because half the people at the movie midnight premieres hadn't read the books, so half the crowd was just not into it. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish to be able to go to just one more book release for Harry Potter. If I could go back in time, I would go back to the midnight release of Deathly Hallows and drink it all in, just one more time.

 

GOD, I.......I don't want it to end, either. You're right. We are so lucky to have been a part of the Harry Potter generation.

This post from AverageWizard made me cry, but not as much as your email has:

To those who cried when they counted up the deaths. To those who waited in line for hours at midnight to get the first copies of the book. To those who watched every movie. To those who were very annoyed when some of the movies just didn't match up. To those who cried the second time they read the book, and Fred said, "When I get married." and they realized it wouldn't happen. To those whose books fell to pieces from being read to much. To the Harry Potter generation. To Dumbledore's Army. To the Muggle branch of Dumbledore's Army. To Dobby, Fred, Hedwig, Tonks, Lupin, and all of the nameless dead wizards. To The Greatest Series Of All Time. To Hogwarts, and To Dumbledore and Sirius. To everyone who will cry after the movie. To Us. The Harry Potter Generation. LONG LIVE HOGWARTS!!!

Me: Oh, Lord, that made me misty-eyed. :)

The wonder of it all is that it will never really be "over". Hogwarts will never die. Harry will never leave our hearts. 

(Back in Brigantine, my local library had a "Harry Potter Day" every year during the summer. We would go in, get sorted in our house, get our wands, schedules, and tour the library as if it was Hogwarts. I remember fondly making slime in "Potions" class... I was a Ravenclaw! :D)

But for people to say that it's just a book series honestly makes me ill; It's so much more than that! 

Yes, we make fun of Twilight endlessly (mostly because it's detestable) but their fanbase is nothing compared to the Harry Potter Generation! The people who make fun and scoff at Harry Potter are the ones who fawn over Edward and Jacob and write horrendous fan-fics about them.

It's different for the Potter fans. Yes, we are all guilty of writing HP fan-fiction, but the majority of them are remarkable! Stupendous, even! Without Harry Potter, I wouldn't be a writer. Without Harry, I wouldn't enjoy reading as much as I do. Without these books, I don't think I'd have ever become who am I today without the confidence that Jo Rowling gave me through her writing. 

To quote Andrew Futral: “Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is how important it is to have a boyfriend."

Nieriel: I swear, I am keeping every last ounce of HP memorabilia, and when I have kids I am going to read Harry Potter to them as early as possible, pass down my Harry Potter memorabilia to them when they're old enough, let them see it as soon as they grow old enough to be able to show some interest in it, and I WILL make sure that they have read all seven books and seen all eight movies by the time I die. I will quote Harry Potter to them, I will play the movie soundtracks to them while they're infants (and even in my womb), and I will put up the posters in their bedrooms. When they're teenagers, I will show them AVPM and AVPS (assuming Youtube is still around) and eagerly engage them in HP/AVPM/AVPS-related jokes and puns whenever possible. 

I will make sure they know, with pride, that their mother was a major member of the Harry Potter generation.  And who knows, maybe--JUST maybe--they'll start up a whole new generation of Potter fans.  

Me: Do it! So am I! 

And who knows? You or I, or any other Potter fan could be the next J.K. Rowling. 

It's just such a magnificent series! (Even the Doctor loves it! You saw that scene from Doctor Who when he quotes it, yeah?)

I don't think there will ever be a series as successful and as loved by so many as Harry Potter is, but mark my words, our writing will come VERY close! 

Nieriel: Yes, Harry Potter will forever go down in history as one of the greatest book series of all times.

Me: Indeed, my elven friend.

**EDIT**

No, my friend's name is not really Nieriel. For her sake, I use her name in Elvish when she is mentioned to make sure she is comfortable with what she is being mentioned in.