User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4141274-20110713003807

I first heard about Harry Potter while living with my father and his new wife when I was ten years old. I had always been into the idea of magic and I had been hoping for years that maybe I had magic inside of me somewhere to escape from my situation.

My step-mother was abusive to myself and two of my brothers. On one occasion, after cleaning horse hooves (and NOT washing her hands) she force fed me peas by hand, making sure I got a lot of what those horses stepped in. On another, she put nails and staples into a board bigger than me and made me pull them in 90 to 100 degree weather without any water or breaks because I didn't start chores as soon as I got home from school.

When I borrowed Sorcerer's Stone from a friend at school, I got grounded for weeks. She told me it was the Devil's work and she wouldn't let me pollute her house with it. I ended up being punished pretty severely during my grounding. She wanted to make sure I had no thoughts about bringing that book home with me.

And I didn't. I took the book back to school with me and I read it there. I found ways to sneak it home with me and I read when I was supposed to be sleeping. I did everything I could to get my hands on the next book, then the next.

Harry Potter became more than a book series to me, it became my magic. When I read those books, my step-mother faded away to the background and I was transported to a place where I could do as I wanted and have a normal life.

When she yelled at me, I would imagine making her eat slugs. It would take all I had to not laugh. Things got easier.

I was kicked out of the house when she decided she'd have enough of me and I got to live with my grandmother. She was actually interested in Harry Potter but had never read the books, and we enjoyed talking about Harry Potter.

These books are my own personal magic, my own escape. The movies made it better. The idea of being able to have a psuedo Hogwarts experience would mean everything to me and so much more.

Even if I don't win this contest, I still know I defeated my own personal Voldemort and nothing can change that.