Rebecca takes a trip down memory lane, courtesy of Harry Potter.
Over two years of waiting are about to be over. In a little more than twenty-four hours, I will have my very own copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in my hands. Well, it will not be entirely my very own, since Sara and I are sharing, but that certainly will not tarnish its appeal. I cannot help wondering: One month from now, when I have read and reread the book and I am stuck waiting for who knows how many months and years for the next one, will I find myself wishing to return to this moment, to the heady night before, when all the shocks and surprises are still waiting for me?
My anticipation for The Half-Blood Prince seems different from that I had just before The Order of the Phoenix was released. It's strange to think of how each book came out at such a different point in my life, as if they're punctuating my young adulthood. I began reading the series six years ago, during the summer between eighth grade and freshman year (1999), the summer that I had so many anxiety dreams about starting high school and couldn't imagine what it would be like, the summer that Sara moved away to the Louisiana School for the first time. The fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, was published in the summer between ninth and tenth grades (2000), and we happened to be on vacation in Virginia at the time. We arrived home very late at night, and I still remember how mad I was when Adam woke me up so early the next morning because we had to go buy it. Of course my anger had faded by the first page.
The fifth book, The Order of the Phoenix, was released -- after a tedious three-year wait, during which September 11 happened and JK Rowling married and had a baby -- the summer before my freshman year of college (2003). I attended the midnight party at the local bookstore with Adam. I read the first chapter of The Lovely Bones and drank an Italian cream soda while I stood in a several-hours-long line, only to hit the ceiling when the store ran out of copies just before I reached the front. (Adam was freaked out at the time, but he swears now that he found my rage humorous.) I swore not to go home without a copy, so I drove Adam and me down to the Wal-Mart. Surprise, surprise, we found a lovely pyramid display of the books, for a cheaper price, with no line! I read the first page aloud to Adam in the parking lot, standing next to my new truck, which I had gotten just a month before, when I graduated from high school. I still remember how heady and excited I felt, how fast my heart beat when I picked up the book in Wal-Mart -- and it wasn't just the book that was causing it. I was thrilled by the whole wonderful summer, by my recent graduation, by the knowledge that I would have my own apartment and start college in the fall.
It feels so much longer than two years ago. Looking back now, I seem to have known so little then. I had no clue. Perhaps that is one reason why I feel so close to this series: I really am growing up with Harry.
I wonder where the seventh book will find me when it is published. I wonder how Harry's life and mine will have changed in the meantime. I wonder what it will feel like when all the books have been published, and there will be no more new adventures with Harry to look forward to. After The Half-Blood Prince, there will be just one more book, and then I will have to say goodbye to Harry forever.