Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways
I stayed up until 3:00 this morning reading Harry Potter fic. It's like I've traveled back to 2006. And now I'm feeling all nostalgic, for the characters I used to love, the communities I used to be a part of, the feeling of being so entirely enchanted with a fandom. It wasn't the books for me so much, or at least, it wasn't the books alone. I loved the stories themselves, but by the time I started reading Harry Potter, I had fallen in love with so many fantasy worlds that that feeling wasn't new. But Harry Potter was my introduction to fandom, the first time I was ever surrounded with people just as passionate about it as I was, the first time it ever occurred to me that I could write down the stories I was always telling myself about these characters, and share them, and read other people's.
It's so surprisingly easy, to slip back into my old loves and hates, to remember how upset I was when Sirus died (I was reading hidden in my mother's closet, on account of it really being my little sister's turn to read our one copy of the book, and I cried for about an hour and when I finally emerged my family all thought something horrible had happened), how worried I was over the various romantic pairings, how attached I was to various and sundry minor characters that were only ever fleshed out by fic (Charlie Weasley, anyone?), how desperately I went into all of the later books begging, please just don't kill any Weasleys (they are, once and forever, my One True Family, and I want to read all the fic about them ever). There are whole worlds in my head from fic alone; sometimes I can't remember what is canon and what is fic, which is maybe my favorite part about the whole experience, how much this world has grown. I can close my eyes and picture the Marauder era just as well as any of Harry's years at Hogwarts, or the adult side of the war. Not to mention the Auror Training/Dragon Taming/Cursebreaking stories that I know have to exist somewhere.
In my personal version of events, Fred is happily devising new and inventive ways of driving everyone crazy, Tonks gets together with one of the older Weasley boys, and Remus and Sirius are bickering contentedly in a bookshop that they own together. Now I want to go back and read all the adventure fic in the world written before (or in ignorance of) the last book, that makes this true. Maybe it's because I've been without a fandom for about a year, now, but I sort of want to dive back into this one with all the enthusiasm and ardor of when I discovered it at the age of 17.
Come tell me about your favorite part of Harry Potter fandom! And if you want to rec me your favorite fic while you're at it, that would be good too!
It's so surprisingly easy, to slip back into my old loves and hates, to remember how upset I was when Sirus died (I was reading hidden in my mother's closet, on account of it really being my little sister's turn to read our one copy of the book, and I cried for about an hour and when I finally emerged my family all thought something horrible had happened), how worried I was over the various romantic pairings, how attached I was to various and sundry minor characters that were only ever fleshed out by fic (Charlie Weasley, anyone?), how desperately I went into all of the later books begging, please just don't kill any Weasleys (they are, once and forever, my One True Family, and I want to read all the fic about them ever). There are whole worlds in my head from fic alone; sometimes I can't remember what is canon and what is fic, which is maybe my favorite part about the whole experience, how much this world has grown. I can close my eyes and picture the Marauder era just as well as any of Harry's years at Hogwarts, or the adult side of the war. Not to mention the Auror Training/Dragon Taming/Cursebreaking stories that I know have to exist somewhere.
In my personal version of events, Fred is happily devising new and inventive ways of driving everyone crazy, Tonks gets together with one of the older Weasley boys, and Remus and Sirius are bickering contentedly in a bookshop that they own together. Now I want to go back and read all the adventure fic in the world written before (or in ignorance of) the last book, that makes this true. Maybe it's because I've been without a fandom for about a year, now, but I sort of want to dive back into this one with all the enthusiasm and ardor of when I discovered it at the age of 17.
Come tell me about your favorite part of Harry Potter fandom! And if you want to rec me your favorite fic while you're at it, that would be good too!