It's Gonna Be A Long Night

Last fall, I noticed that Ryan, once an avid reader, was now a television junkie. On weekend nights, when I allowed her to stay up reading and watching TV, she would have the TV on and not a book in sight. Only the summer before, she had devoured 75 Babysitters Club books, so I knew that this was a new thing and that probably I could lure her away from the Food Network and Discovery Channel if only I found the right book. So at the very first opportunity, I went to Walmart and bought the first three Harry Potter books. That afternoon, I handed the brand new paperback copy of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone to her and watched her face fall.

"Mom, that's Harry Potter. It's a boy's book," she told me.

"Just read the back cover for me. Please."

She slumped to the couch, eyes rolling, and fell back into the cushions to read the description. Now this was a kid who watched The Princess Diaries and spent the next week wishing that Julie Andrews would come tell her she was a princess. She watched The Thirteenth Year and wanted to be a mermaid. I was pretty sure that the idea of a normal everyday picked-on kid suddenly being whisked away to an interesting and fantastical world of magic would be one that appealed to her. I was right, and in less than two months I was buying books four and five.

Now I didn't know anything about Harry Potter. I knew there was a kid with glasses who went to magic school and had a lightening bolt scar and a friend with an unpronounceable name. I think I read it as Hermy-own. The only reason I bought those books in the first place was that I was desperate and they were almost guaranteed. Harry Potter was The Book That Every Kid Will Read! I thought all of the books had been written, that I would buy them a couple at a time and she would whiz through the series to it's exciting final conclusion. And I made a deal with her from the beginning, that she could not watch any of the movies until she had finished it's corresponding book. I didn't realize that there were movies still to be made.

Why do I write about my daughter's Harry Potter obsession? Because these last two weeks have been Harry Potter Mania at my house. First the movie, which we didn't attend until the thirteenth due to Tom having surgery on the ninth, and tonight at midnight: book seven. The movie she watched half-folded in her theater seat, dressed in last Halloween's Hermione costume, completely entranced by death eaters and patronuses (patronii?) and CGI effects better (I think) than any Star Wars movie. I spent most of the film staring at her, trying to memorize her reactions. For a couple short hours in the dark she was a little kid again, and not the eye-rolling, sighing, "Whatever"-spouting adolescent she's become, which may account for why I bought her an entire new outfit to wear to the Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows release party tonight.

Hermione has brown hair, and is almost a decade older than Ryan, and until last Friday that had no effect on the pale blond child I live with. But on Friday a new character made the scene: a blond, younger, slightly off-beat and decidedly more amusing character. Luna Lovegood looked a lot more like Ryan, and acted a bit like her too. But the Hermione costume won't work for Luna, because despite Hogwarts being a boarding school with assigned uniforms, the uniform colors have to correspond to a student's house, and Luna and Hermione belong to different houses. So off we went to Kohl's and Walmart, desperately looking for navy blue and silver to replace her red, gray, and gold. I have no idea why one house has more colors than the other but having one less to match didn't help us as much as you'd think. See, Luna accessorizes. Radish earrings (and Ryan let her ears close) and a necklace featuring the cork from a fictional drink. Enter the Sculpey and a wine cork "borrowed" from my mother. Last year's Hermione costume won a costume contest but with this one, I'm just hoping it's not the worst one in the room.

Also, I'm hoping I don't get trampled by hundreds of Weasleys and Potters and Grangers tonight, although I know I probably will. But I can't in good conscience deny her the experience. Some day these midnight Harry Potter parties will turn out to be a universal memory for her generation, like getting a Cabbage Patch doll is for mine. I don't want Ryan to be that humorless bully who never had a Cabbage Patch doll. Although, how will I get her to read once she's done with this series? She's already gone through all the Narnia books just waiting for Deathly Hallows to get published.