I never read the Harry Potter books growing up. I flat out refused, adamantly opposed to spending years of my young life dedicated to one single story. My sister read all seven books in only a couple of months. I admired her, like little sisters do, as she timed it perfectly to start the series a few weeks before the last one came out. But my admiration soon gave way to envy as I watched her finish the seventh book. It wasn’t the ease with which she devoured the series that I was jealous of, but the sheer comradery she was able to share with what felt like the rest of the world in 2007.
I watched all of the movies, of course, just like every other kid growing up in the mid 2000s, but I was no fanatic. I mean, I loved them, I truly did. If I were to compare my affection of these films against myself, it would prove vast and expansive, a love rich with devotion to the trials and tribulations of the three best friends I’d never meet. But in a world in which accepts the existence of Harry Potter like it accepts that the earth is round, my affection wilted compared to those of any other kid who claimed to be a Potter fan.
In my early years of high school, I’d trot along with my new friends to the library at lunchtime and watch as other kids would compete in Harry Potter trivia competitions. (Because that’s the world we live in, right? Harry Potter trivia competitions are a totally normalised high school experience.) Having watched the films enough times to distinguish one elf from the next, I thought that maybe I’d be one of those quiet trivia champions, knowing the answers to rare questions of the Potter-verse that these book nerds had no idea of.
I got quite the shock in finding out that no, it was indeed I who had no idea. I can name the four houses, easily, and the three Deathly Hallows, that’s for sure, but what was all this nonsense of a poltergeist? And whatever was a SPEW? I had no idea, and I frankly didn’t care. After this, I came to terms pretty easily with the fact that many of the intricacies of the wizarding world would remain mysterious to me for the rest of my non Potter-reading life.
Nevertheless, a considerable proportion of my adolescence still managed to revolve through the rotating doors of Potter-related experiences, including an unfathomable amount of Potter movie-marathon sleepovers. My friends and I would bravely attempt to stay awake an entire night and watch all, seven – no, Olivia, there’s eight! remember! – eight movies, promising each other – seriously, Bella, you have to promise this time! – to not fall asleep. We’d be fuelled by sugar and excitement and the kind of energy that comes from weekend friendships in high school. That is to say, the sheer novelty of staying up all night more often than not proved a little more the point than actually paying attention to the chronicles of the boy with the scar.
Recently, I’ve been missing that sugar and excitement and sheer naivety of teenager-hood more than ever. I’ve found myself reaching for the bubble-gum pop albums that sound-tracked my early years of high school, and I’ve been re-discovering a lot of the YA books that used to accompany me on tram rides to school. But I’ve found little in the way of filmic entertainment that’s done it for me. My brain’s a little too fuzzy to concentrate on something new, my emotion’s a little too fried to care for something old. Film has always played a massive role in my life, a way for me to have a sneaky-peaky into the outside world while I stay firmly tucked in bed. For once though, I don’t really want to know about the world outside right now. I don’t want to have a peak into what’s going on. It’s all a bit scary and confusing and kind of exhausting.
So I don’t know what has prompted me to scour the internet tonight, after I’ve already turned out the lights and shut my bedroom door. I had the full intention of sleeping, my mouse systemically closing every Facebook, email and university lecture tab, watching the little windows shut up shop for the night, closing the blinds to the world outside. But I’ve found myself pulling a pair of those blinds back open, this time looking into a different world.
I haven’t watched all eight Harry Potter films chronologically since those sleepovers in high school. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve even seen a single one of the films since those weekends of new friendship and sugar-fuelled all-nighters. But tonight, I’ve found myself reaching for a world of fantasy that feels a little more like home than the reality we’re existing in right now does.
I don’t know why I’ve reached out and reeled back into the Potter films. Maybe it’s the part of me that misses my friends and the tight squeezes on greetings, the kisses on both cheeks and I-missed-yous, even if it had only been a couple of days. Or maybe it’s a part of me that reaches for my own sort of Potter comradery that evolved in those sleepovers, the endless battles against sleep that four thirteen-year-old girls could never win, yet they would forever go down trying. Or maybe it’s just the familiarity of the story itself, the knowing of how things will end, knowing that no matter how many times it surprises me and has me rooting for Hermione, the story never changes.
So tonight, I’ve crawled a little deeper under the doona, tucked the edges a little tighter. I’ve cast my eyes to my laptop nestling on my bed, and I welcome each note of that bell-piano warmly. I welcome the sound of coming home. This comfort I’ve found in stealing myself away to a familiar world of war and corruption, of villains and heroes, of good and evil, of utter and pure magic, is one I never would have imagined three teenage wizards to afford adult-me.
Finding hope in a world that is imaginary feels silly when I put it into words. The story of Harry, his lightning-bolt scar and his two misfit friends exists only as a coincidence of words that his author happened to place together. His whole actuality is merely letters on a page, cast from thin air. So maybe it is silly to garner hope for this tragic world I live in from a fictional fantasy story for kids.
But watching these films again, I am reminded not that I must conjure hope; not that I must, like Harry with his wand, craft something out of thin air. But I am reminded that hope is in fact always there. I just need to look.
Re-watching these films now brings new meaning to the stories that echo my youth. This tale of growing up and staying hopeful, of losing and grieving, but of always, always loving throughout, ricochets the type of hope I needed when I was young, when everyday spent as a teenager felt like the end of the world. And now that hope continues to echo into my adulthood, into a world that maybe actually is ending.
There’s this one line in the third Harry Potter film that seems to hold continuous rent in the back of my mind, a little nook in my head that I crawl into when the world outside gets too dark. I feel like I’ve carried it with me forever, replaying it a little louder when the light outside becomes a little dimmer.
At the beginning of Harry’s third year at Hogwarts, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore addresses the student body of young witches and wizards. Whilst dishing out some ol’ magic wisdom for the troubling times that he can sense coming ahead, Dumbledore firmly assures his students, myself included, with exactly what we need to hear:
Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
This singular moment has stayed with me forever. It has stayed with me through the sleepovers and through the growing up and through the disasters of the world outside today. Dumbledore speaks these words at the beginning of the third film, but their meaning is constant throughout all eight.
I’ve never read the Harry Potter books, not a single one, but I’ve seen all eight, yes eight, of the films. The devoted Potter fans with their theories and their trivia will keep their heads in their books, but I think I’ll choose to cast my eyes toward Professor Dumbledore as he speaks to the young witches and wizards of Hogwarts. With the flick of a wrist, I escape through my computer into Harry’s world for comfort. With the flick of his words, Dumbledore reminds me that maybe there is comfort to be found in my own world. I just need to find it.
Comments