User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-64.126.93.233-20110719163733

Growing up, I wasn't exactly like Harry. My parents weren't killed by a Dark Lord, I wasn't sent to a school for wizards, and I certainly didn't have a lightning bolt-shaped scar on my forehead! But still, we are so awfully similar that I look to the books for guidance in my life. Harry has taught me how to overcome adversity and find a place where I belong.

My parents were certainly nicer to me than Vernon and Petunia were to Harry, but Harry and I both had something much worse...a Dudley. My older brother Andrew tortured me when we were kids. He teased me, beat me up, and pretty much ruined my childhood. Before I started grade school, Andrew had somehow gotten everyone to hate me, so right from the beginning of 1st Grade, I had no friends. Great. Almost everyone bullied me. If someone didn't bully me, then they just ignored me. Teachers tried to stop the bullies at first, but eventually they just gave up. I woke up to get bullied by my brother, went to school for 7 hours to get bullied by practically the whole school, and then went home to get bullied again by my brother. And after all that, I had to repeat it the next day. There was never a night I didn't cry myself to sleep. So yeah, the beginning of my life was horrible...but, this was before I read a Potter book.

Towards the end of 3rd grade, I read Sorcerer's Stone because I had to read something for a book report. It fascinated me. It was about boy like me, who was out-of-place and neglected, that ends up being a celebrity in a secret magical world! I was still 10 when I read it, so I prayed every day that on my 11th birthday, I would also get my Hogwarts acceptance letter and would get to leave the bullies and go make friends...of course, that didn't happen, and I was crushed. Still, I read the books and watched the movies, because by then I was hooked to a story that I was so able to relate to. Harry came from nothing, and after being given an opportunity via owl, and made friends and accomplished things that people can only dream of. Harry made me strive for a chance to prove myself to everybody, and when I started 7th grade, the owl found it's way to me and gave me that shot.

When I started 7th grade, I leaped for a chance to make friends. This was middle school! Sure, the people from my elementary school would be there, but there were new people from different schools that I had never met. I finally had a clean slate. It took me a while, but I finally was let into a group of friends. My first friends. Still, I felt like I didn't belong. They were all into anime, which was fine, but I never really got hooked to it, so I didn't talk to them when they discussed it. One day, an announcement is made over the intercom about auditions for the school musical that year, Guys and Dolls. I wanted to be an actor when I was growing up, because when I was little, I watched a lot of movies and always wanted to be in them. Also, in 5th grade, my choir teacher pulled me aside on day and told me to stick with singing, I was good. So when I heard about the auditions, I was excited. Even though the group of friends I had weren't into theatre, they still supported me when I told them I was auditioning. The day of auditions came, and when I walked into the room they were being held in, I saw several people from my grade school there. A couple of them walked up to me and said I should leave because I had no chance. I was actually about to, until I remembered that I had friends now that encouraged me to be stronger. So I stayed for the audition...and was cast as Nicely-Nicely Johnson!!! (He is one of the best parts of the show! He's in almost every scene and song, and at the end of Act 2, gets to sing the show's biggest showstopper, Sit Down You're Rockin The Boat! Each night after the number, I got a standing ovation) And finally...after be 4 years late, my letter to acceptance had arrived.

I was in the middle school's musical the next year, did a musical at a community theater over the summer, and in my freshman year of high school I took Drama and was in the school musical as well. I joined our school's Rep Theatre and A Capella Choir my sophomore year, and stayed with the two my junior year. Coming up is my senior year, where I will be a member of the school's elite chamber choir, Heritage Singers, and the Props Crew Head for the entire Rep Theatre season as well. The kids from grade school leave me alone now, because I have friends who are more incredible than anyone you'll ever meet. These friends are the other people in Rep Theatre with me. Together, we are a production company that completely constructs every aspect of our school's plays and musicals. Set, Costumes, Props, Lighting Design, Publicity, etc. I'm finally a part of something, and none of this could have happened without Harry Potter. Harry taught me how to stand up for myself, how to take control of my life, and how to succeed. Without Harry Potter, I would be most likely be in a deep state of depression. I was at the bottom of society when I started out, and without Harry to pull me up, I would still be at the bottom.

So what does Harry Potter mean to me? No matter how bad things may seem, you can always find a way to make things better, you just have to take that leap of faith. Thank you for reading. :-)