User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4145227-20110714020240

It all ends: tomorrow at a midnight knell. I’m so excited, so frantically hurtling towards the edge of my childhood and onto true adulthood. But these series is not something that I am leaving behind- I will bring it forth, in an incarnation that is neither book nor film.

When I was young, I did not have very many friends. I did have, however, an insatiable lust for books that the “Harry Potter” series was soon to both nourish and encourage. There hasn’t been a day after cracking open that first, beautiful, life-changing book that I have failed to see beauty. Those books taught me how to try. They have shaped my person more severely than any other literature that I read growing up- and I can’t be more happy for that fact.

Ron Weasley was poor, but good, and a steadfast, loyal, and honest friend. For most of my childhood my family was stretched so monetarily thin that I could not afford new books, let alone new clothes. But Ron had an endless love of family, and a supportive family and a pure network of very amazing friends. I cherished the love that I was given and gave out in return, and money never seemed to matter much in the wake of this.

Hermione Granger taught me not to be ashamed of being smart, quick, more clever than most of my peers. In a situation where I was constantly lambasted for my academic achievements I kept my chin up and stayed proud. Hermione had bushy brown hair like mine, nigh untamable, and it was through her that I let those awkward teenage years of ill appearance slide off of my back, to make way for the things that made me happy. I began to respect myself, through my love of books and the initial buddings of what became my life-sustaining creativity.

Harry Potter encapsulates all of the bravery, all of the good-hearted righteousness, that I have ever wanted to make my own. He rose above remarkable strife and fought against every odd and never lost himself to darkness. The evils that he had encountered only made him a better person. In the end, a protective spell marked his victory. If Ron taught me the importance of family and Hermione taught me how to respect myself for myself, then Harry taught me how a good person should really be- brave, conscientious, strong, and unwavering. He taught me how to use goodness to help others.

I could never get to the library and was made fun of mercilessly should I dare make use of the library in my school. I re-read the Harry Potter books over and over again, blindly falling into them every time as if it were my first time. A teacher that I had in elementary school encouraged me to write, because he always saw me reading. He then encouraged me to draw what I wrote and draw what I saw, and I began to take every inspirational thing into myself as sustenance. These books were the beginning of my artistic nourishment, the most integral and the pureest part of myself.

In a society and environment where I might have been bred to hate, Ronald Weasley taught me how to love, Hermione Granger gave me strength, and Harry Potter gave me courage. Albus Dumbledore taught me words of wisdom, Minerva McGonagall pressed me on the right path, and Remus Lupin taught me how to defend myself. I ate lunch with Luna Lovegood and, yes, I cried with Draco Malfoy. I have felt their struggles, reveled in their victories, and I have suffered with their loses. I grew up with these characters alongside me.

At the age of twenty, now, I look back on myself as a nine year old waiting patiently for her Hogwarts letter. I never got that letter. But what I learned, what I have experienced, and what I have become are things that I would not change for anything- not even a private school with wands and wizards. I have become strong. I am good. I owe so much to these books that taught me the life lessons I so needed to learn, the lessons that I have applied every day since. Even when the hour appears so dark, even when giving in seems so easy, I can persist.

And now the end is nigh, and what can I say? The books, gifts from my grandparents and my mother, meant so much more to a little, lonely girl than paper and binding. To me they paved the way to a new world, a world that I now inhabit with my heart and soul intact and my strength in spades. I could go on forever. But I will end this most gracious letter with a simple note:

Thank you, J.K. Rowling. Thank you, thank you. One thousand, one million times over, thank you. I will never stop believing in the lessons that your books have taught me. I am who I am in great part to the books that you have crafted, to the characters that you have so lovingly created from yourself and so selflessly given to us all. And everyday I can wake up strong, knowing that I am that person.

What will I say on Friday morning when I leave the theater? I don’t have a clue. But I’m sure that I will feel that all is well, that all was well, as I leave with loved ones at my side and the knowledge that I have a boundless realm of capabilities and creativity inside of me.