User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4162307-20110718023913

I hated the movies. I hadn't even seen them, and I had hated them. As a six-year-old girl, the idea of action could not and did not tickle my fancy. But I loved reading. Sorcerer's Stone was great. Chamber of Secrets? My favorite. Prisoner of Azkaban, excellent. Goblet of Fire was long, and Order of the Phoenix bored me to tears. I re-read the first two constantly, popped in the movies, and couldn't get enough trivia. Then it stopped. I could not begin to wrap my head around Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows. Finally, something kicked me in the shin and I could not be slowed as the love and affection grew and grew as I read and read and watched and watched. It became my only outlet and a passion that a few, within reason, did not quite understand. I became annoyed at other "fans": how on Earth could they possibly have as big a connection to this series as I? Young and naïve, I soon realized that we were and are all linked by a single scar, a pair of glasses, and the copious intricate and enticing details of this boy's whirlwind experience of a life. We all wanted to get our respective Hogwarts letters and be sorted into our favorite houses. Dig in to the delectable desserts at each feast and learn to brew potions and transfigure animals into water goblets. Be elected prefects, later Head Girls and Boys. Visit Hogsmeade, stress over O.W.L.'s, watch the Quidditch final. To nearly all of us, Harry Potter is an embodiment of childhood, as these desires to live the life of a witch or wizard have lived within us at one point or another. Imagination is what began this saga and it, in turn, was installed into all of us. Not only that, but we learned of the imperative qualities of love, friendship, loyalty, courage, ambition, nerve, choice, passion, and the fact that it's okay to ask for help. The Harry Potter characters were not, are not, and never will be just personalities within a book series and collection of movies; they will forever be teachers, friends, foes, family, and acquaintances. To me, Harry Potter means connection.