Sophia Stewart
The Signal
July 15, 2011, my best friend will suddenly pass on; just like the turn of the last page in a book, it will be quick, expected, but unwanted.
My best friend’s name is Harry Potter.
As with the conception of most of my friendships, I was intimidated by Harry Potter at first and ignored him to avoid the awkward vulnerability of meeting someone for the first time.
Only when faced with extreme boredom during the hot summer months did I first open a Harry Potter book and fall unconditionally in love.
I was 15 years old.
With Harry Potter, I could escape the teenage pressures of my life and explore the magical world of Hogwarts with my new friend; for the first time, I yearned to read.
As Harry grew throughout the series, I grew older and emotionally stronger with him. We entered into similar challenges and experienced joys together that no words can explain. Only within my mind could our story be heard.
I remember the moment when the seventh and final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” first touched my nervous hands. Years of anticipation and dread entered my hands at the same time.
Despite squeezing my fingers around it, I knew, just as the sound of sirens plague a hopeful spirit, that the end was near, and my wish for more books would go ignored.
Throughout author J.K. Rowling’s book series, protagonist Harry Potter’s seven milestones of conquering evil have taught lessons of strength, honesty and the magical powers of love.
Harry’s themes and symbols announced truths that perplexed and angered our world, warranting research from scholars to answer their significance and revolts from religions with book burnings.
Scholars have found the magic in Harry Potter to be instrumental, like technology, and not at all mystical. Frostburg State University offers a class where they use the basic principles of physics to explain the magic events in the Harry Potter books.
Harry’s magic has contradicted some religious stances, most commonly on the grounds that it is used at all, yet it has also been used by others to exemplify the sacrificial love that parallels biblical heroes in the Bible.
Through every angle perceived within our “muggle” world, within every religious argument praising or loathing, and past all the scholarly analysis, there lays a vastly important character that has proven to give purpose to its readers lives. Regardless of your stance, the undeniable truth is that Harry Potter is important.
I am grateful to my parents for not ignorantly protesting my reading of the Harry Potter books. The lessons I have learned from Harry Potter are presents, and no one but Harry could have pointed out for me to learn. Lessons on unfailing trust, sacrificial love and the importance of fighting to do what is good.
One story that resonated with me was in the last book. Harry learns that in order to save the world, he must sacrifice himself. As he bravely walks toward what he thinks will be his final destiny, stands at the edge of his peril, the memories of his parents and friends that died appear around him in a surge of love which gives him the strength needed to take that last step over the edge to face his death.
The power of love is the true magic in Harry Potter, and I did not realize that phenomenon until then.
“Will you stay with me,” Harry asked his father.
“Until the very end,” Harry’s father replied.
Support.
That is the present Harry gave me, and in the same moment that I perceived that, I realized that I, too, was Harry’s support. I stayed with Harry until the very end.
This July 15, an era will appear to end with the second and final installment of Harry Potter, in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two.”
There will be no more anticipated books or movie releases, no more hasty strikes upon the calendar, and no more midnight lines.
Though the last movie brings this fictional series to an end, our nonfictional inheritance from young Harry will not die, but will live on for future generations. Like the scar upon a forehead, Harry Potter will never truly vanish.
