Harry Potter, growing up

Don’t worry. This isn’t a post about how my generation is the Harry Potter generation, or how the actors are doing post-Potter (though, for the record, I loved Daniel Radcliffe on SNL), or how I’ve “outgrown” the books that I used to love. None of that.

For Christmas this year I got all the HP movies. I’d never seen the 5-7, mostly because Goblet of Fire skipped all my favorite parts of the book just to make a Hollywood-loved movie. This was before I took a class all about how different the art of storytelling is between narrative and film. I was still in my I-hate-the-Harry-Potter-mania phase. I was too cool to be that nerdy, to read the books more than once. Really, I was scared. I’d already decided to write books for teens, and I knew that there was no way I would write something that caught fire like these books have.

It’s now a goal for my summer to reread these books for the first time. I’m going to LeakyCon in August, and I think it’s probably past time to brush up on a set of books that changed publishing in my chosen genre (Young Adult) forever.

But again, this isn’t what I want this post to be about. See, when I read the books the first time, I had some unpopular opinions: that Harry and Hermione should be together, that Ron should take a nosedive off a cliff, that I still didn’t like Snape (even after he was proven a good guy), that Dumbledore lost some of his goodness when I discovered his past, that Deathly Hallows was written poorly. I read these books as I was growing up, and I was always the type to have a strong opinion and defend it until the end.

I shipped Harry and Hermione because I was so much like Hermione, and I wanted a Harry. Ron annoyed me Order of the Phoenix and onward because he whined so much and focused on himself. I hated the way that Snape treated Harry, how he talked about James Potter. I was so mad at Dumbledore, because I desperately wanted to believe that there were heroes in the world that were all good. I didn’t understand the kind of pressure J.K. Rowling was under to finish a book, the kind of fandom that made her life be under the microscope.

I watched the movies all the way through–all 8, from beginning to end. I loved the complexity that she put into her characters, the lessons that she was teaching. Dumbledore had flaws because all people have flaws, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t good, that he didn’t deserve Harry’s trust. Ron had to end up with Hermione because there was no way he was going to end up with Luna, and a series needs romantic entanglements to sustain it. And to be honest with you, somewhere through the seventh book, I became less of a Harry fan, probably because he was pretty stagnant throughout that book in preparation for the big ending; Harry’s big change, post-books, was going to be peace, settling in. Hermione needed to end up with the best possible person, someone who could help her grow; Ron still had some growing to go.

Ron still annoys me a good portion of the time. But I understand Ron more now that I ever did as a teen. I empathize with him much more after years of standing in every one else’s shadow. I adore Neville Longbottom.  Every one likes Neville when the series is starting to end, but I mean, I liked him all the way through. That was a character that really grew, changed, and came into himself. This is probably the same reason why I like Hermione so much, too.

I’ll be honest, I still think Deathly Hallows was the worst written of all the books. I’m still not a big Snape fan. But I sympathize and empathize with Rowling’s characters so much more going back than I ever did as a teen. And I think that’s why the books will become classics, why they transcend YA, and why they are worthy reads no matter where you are in life.

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