User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4153151-20110723194511

There is no easy way to describe what Harry Potter means to me. When I was younger, before I read the books, I didn't have a best friend. I didn't know what friendship really was, and I didn't know how to be a good friend. My parents were divorced and worked a lot, and I am an only child. Until I got involved with Harry Potter, my stuffed animals kept me company the majority of my childhood. When I was taken to see the first movie, I had no idea what I was attending. I didn't know what the movie was about, that it was based on a book, that I'd fall in love with it, or that it would soon be the beginning of a completely different world in my life. After seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I integrated myself into the wizarding world slowly but with much enthusiasm. Making my own spell books and casting spells took up the hours of my once lonely childhood days. As time went on and more movies came out, I realized how thought out everything was and that I could not go on any longer without reading the books and understanding the true Harry Potter story. I began reading and swept through the books faster than the Golden Snitch flies. I fell more and more in love with every word, every plot line, every Hogwarts classroom, every triumph, every loss, and most importantly, every character. From Harry, Ron, and Hermione to Tonks and Lupin to James and Lily to Snape and Dumbledore to every single Weasley, every character was real to me. Every character had some place in my heart. Each time I met a new friend of Harry's, I was meeting a new friend of mine. These books taught me what friendship was. They gave me friends at a time when I had few true friends. When I would find myself lonely, I would sit down with Harry and his world and allow myself to leave my own life and enter a new one that I truly loved. J. K. Rowling not only taught me what true courage and bravery is, but she taught me what it meant to truly love someone, to be the very best friend, to love your life and never live with regrets, to live through the pain and always continue hoping for a better tomorrow because one day it will be around the corner, to take chances and embrace new experiences because following the giant, hairy man after 11 years under the stairs may lead you to meet the darkest enemy you never knew you had, but it may also lead you into a place where you finally feel at home, friends you will die for who will prove they would die for you, the closest thing to parents you'll ever have, and most importantly, the lesson to only "pity the living, and above all those who live without love." Last night, I, now 17 years old, saw the last movie of Harry Potter and allowed tears to roll down my cheeks as the Hogwarts Express rolled out of Kings Cross one last time because it felt like a best friend of mine was leaving. However, when it comes to something like Harry Potter, we are taught from within the magical world that "the ones we love never really leave us" and we can always find them in our hearts. Even with friends you've never met, this holds true, and it is the reason for the smile on my face as I walked out of the theater last night, for I know that Harry and his world will stay alive for centuries to come.