A Very Harry Summer (long post with a spoiler)

Harry Potter has taken over my life.

It's my own fault. I let him in, him and his wizarding friends. I read the first book nine years ago while I was pregnant with Travis. At the time, I worked in a book store and The Chamber of Secrets was just being released. I had never heard of Harry Potter, not too many people had, but someone at the book store recommended it, saying there was a lot of buzz about the series. Our bookstore had a lending system for employees, meaning we could "check out" books to read, so I read the first two back to back and found them a pleasant diversion. A year or so later, when the third book came out I borrowed it from someone and it was at that point that I became hooked. The Prisoner of Azkaban brought Harry out of that "kid's book" drawer and placed him into the realm of what I deem intriguing fiction. I went out and bought the first three books and have been buying them since. I think I know more adults (mostly moms) who are fans than I do kids, including my dear fellow Gabbers. We've all been gleefully riding the Harry wave, greedily awaiting each new book and now the ride's almost over and I don't know how I'll manage without him.

But I digress. The Summer of Harry started like this: with all the hype earlier this summer about the fifth Harry Potter movie coming out, Travis said he wanted to read the book first. I knew that, though he's a really good reader, he would never get it finished in time, as long as that book is and with soccer, baseball and swimming lessons, I knew it would just never happen. I wanted to re-read it myself so I offered to read it to him. I started reading a chapter out loud before bedtime. We read in the living room and Val, who likes to sit in his chair and draw in the evenings, was soon sucked in. He had seen all of the movies and liked them but had never read one of the books. We finished, finally, one night when I read the last four chapters, with me taking a little break to get myself together after choking up at Sirius's death (it still gets me), while Travis punched the couch and buried his face in a pillow for a while. We got through it, though, and they immediately demanded more so we started the sixth book a few weeks ago. I had misgivings because of the ending but kept going. My goal was to finish before Saturday the 21st so that I could dive right into book seven but of course that didn't happen. As it happened, it all culminated this weekend, in what Travis called a "Harry Potter Marathon". On Friday, Trav and I attended the party at Bookpeople, Travis in costume (he made the cover of Saturday's Lewiston Tribune!). With book in hand, I made it home that night, utterly exhausted, swearing I wouldn't start reading until the next morning. But I couldn't help myself. I read the first two and a half chapters in bed. I started reading the next day as soon as I could, taking time out in the afternoon so that Val, Travis and I could go and see Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix. That night, I read more of book 6 to the family and, four chapters from the end, made a decision not to read any more of book 7 until we were finished with the Half Blood Prince. I could foresee questions and theories cropping up in the discussion that would follow the conclusion of that book and I wanted to be able to participate without knowing myself what the outcome would be. I have a lousy poker face and knew that if Val or Travis made a guess about how the whole thing ends they would be able to read the answer from my expression. So I put Harry away three quarters of the way through. Four more chapters of Half Blood Prince, I thought. Two chapters a night, two more nights. Then I can finish this and find out what happens. I sat down to read and of course, I should have known, they weren't going to let me stop after two chapters. I ended up finishing the book for them that night, reading nearly 100 pages out loud, my voice thrashed, all of us emotionally spent.

Yesterday was the day. I would finally find out what happened to Harry. Of course, life being what it is and kids being what they are, I was interrupted often. Travis occupied himself with a video game, more game time that I usually allow, but this was a special circumstance. I let him rot his brain for my own, selfish gain. Riley was more of a problem. After pulling out all the tricks--puzzles, paints, books, etc., and with only three chapters left, I finally felt too guilty to continue. I gave in to her pleas to go visit the new play structures at the park next door. We went and so did Harry. I pushed Ri on the swings for a while and then let her go explore the place while I settled down with my book. I sat in my lawn chair, my daughter comfortably within my line of sight and prepared to finish the book. It was not to be. Three older boys, twelve or thirteen, showed up, troublemakers from the looks of it. I swear to you: there were two big boys, heavy set and dark haired and one skinnier, smaller kid with blonde hair. God, I thought, it's Crabbe, Goyle and Malfoy! I kept reading but was keeping an eye out for them too. making sure they weren't pushing the little ones around. They were moving uncomfortably close to my lawn chair. Eventually, one of them noticed what I was reading.
"My stepfather just tread the new Harry Potter book," he said to his friends. In this group, Goyle was the ringleader and Malfoy was one of the stooges.
The other kids showed very little interest in this statement but the Goyle kid went on.
"Yeah. Harry Potter dies in it." What a miserable little shit, I thought. This kid probably doesn't read if he can help it and probably thinks it would be funny to ruin the ending for someone else.
"Really?" Brilliant conversationalists, these kids. They were, for some reason, gathered around my chair now.
"Yeah. Little Harry Potter dies," he said in a mocking voice. "Hey," he said to me and I looked up. "Harry Potter dies in this one." Now, just prior to leaving the house, I had finished the chapter where Harry "dies". At this point, I was on about the 3rd page of the next chapter and knew that he had somehow survived, though I hadn't yet read how.
"No he doesn't," I said, taking a shot and hoping that I was right and it wasn't some sort of weird wizarding afterlife I was reading about.
"Yeah he does. My stepfather said so!"
"He's wrong," I said. "Go ask him." And with that, I nonchalantly returned to my book. There was silence from above.
"Who is that?" Malfoy asked his cronies, obviously meaning me. "Do you know who she is?"
"Excuse me," I said to them. "You're bothering me. Please go away." They looked at each other and shrugged. They moved a few feet away and contented themselves with chucking large dirt clods onto the new cedar mulch of the playground. I eventually packed up my daughter and went home to finish the book.

I don't know why those kids bothered me so much. They were just ignorant and mean-spirited. I found out later from Travis that they hang around the playground and pick on little kids, nothing serious, just taunting and name calling, but I detest bullies. I was burning for a long time afterward, but I contented myself with the thought that they could go around telling anyone who would listen that Harry dies at the end, thinking that they were spoiling the ending, not knowing that the joke was on them.

Harry doesn't die. Harry lives and grows up and has babies with Ginny.

So there.