User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4149913-20110715083241

Even just looking at these posts, anyone can see that Harry Potter means a lot to many different people from all over the world. Harry Potter united people from all over the world, believers and non believers of magic and miracles, readers and non readers, artists and non artists,old and young, Americans, British, Canadian, Korean, Chinese, Finnish, muggles, half-bloods, pure-bloods, and all. There isn't any fair competition, but nevertheless here are my two sickles on being a part of the Potter generation.

For me, Harry Potter was my Hogwarts. Rowling masterfully created a life for a boy mirroring my lost standstill in life. Although my situation wasn't nearly as bad as Harry's, I didn't know what I was missing in life. I was 11 years old when I started reading Harry Potter, and Rowling was my Hagrid, breaking every norm I had known and bringing me my ticket to an expanse and magical freedom. I befriended and joined Harry, Hermione, and Ron through every journey and task and hardship. I loved and trusted Dumbledore, Sirius, and everyone, all the while struggling with Snape and fearing He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's every move. Harry Potter is my lightning bolt scar. With Harry, I have felt every searing pain, each excruciating vision clawing itself deep into my brain. At this point of my life, today actually, the Potter era has officially ended. But yet it exists all around me because Harry Potter was not about Hogwarts or Voldemort or wands and witchcraft; it was about youth and love and imagination, the magic, the fight for what's right and for equal happiness. Just as the series ends with Harry touching his scar, I look back on my childhood and in my heart, knowing it could not have been any more perfect.

Harry Potter didn't rekindle my passion and imagination. Rather, he had ignited a passion, a hunger for the art of words and imagination left insatiated by the end of each Hogwarts school year; he was the predecessor to all that is. I am forever indebted to Harry Potter. And indeed, it all ends with simply: "all was well."