It All Ends

I remember the first time I heard of Harry Potter. I was in fourth grade, standing in line with my fellow fourth graders to go down to lunch when the classmate in front of me started talking about a book called Harry Potter. I thought it was a funny title to be named as it sounded like Hairy Potter and assumed that it was about a boy with a lot of hair.

Photo Credit: People.com

I remember the first time I laid my hands on the books. There were presents underneath our tree for Christmas and three of them were wrapped with the edges ripping (probably from me trying to get a peak of what kind of gifts I were getting that year.) I noticed that they were books and was excited as I was and still am quite the book worm. I opened them on Christmas morning and was delighted to get the first three books and proceed to read the first chapter of the second one first because I couldn't figure out how they were labeled. I then discovered the numbers on the spine and read all three in numerical order. I lost count of re-reading those books at 13 and that was when I was twelve years old.

Photo Credit: People.com

I remember the first time I saw the first movie. I was in sixth grade and went with my mom, sister, best friend at the time and her mom. We got in a little bit late and missed all of the previews. As we entered the theater, I looked up at the huge screen looming over me and saw an owl perched on a sign that read "Private Drive."

And now I can say that I remember the first time I saw the last movie in Harry Potter saga. I was on my way to meet up with friends on late Thursday evening to catch the midnight premier (12:35 actually as the earlier shows were all sold out) and got into a minor fender bender a couple of exits before I needed to get off. I was totally fine as was the other driver and my car was in perfect condition minus the fact that my driver's side mirror was swiped off and dangling on the side of my door due to it getting swiped. I got lucky in the sense that I was okay and that, for the most part, the car was fine, but I was so annoyed and upset that I couldn't see my beloved franchise coming to an end - my dad told me to come straight home.

I finally saw it on Sunday evening and I must say that I loved it! Everything from the acting, the scenes, the humor, and the sentiments, all of it. I, as well as all people my age, grew up with the three characters on screen and to see it wrap up beautifully was one of the most satisfying feelings. It was a two hour movie but it felt like it went by too quickly My only complaints was that they should have had a slightly better recap as I didn't get to watch Part 1 before I saw Part 2 and, while I know it wasn't in the book, I would have loved a better montage of the previous movies showing them growing up. Also, *spoiler alert!* while it was funny to watch Voldemort uncomfortably hug Draco towards the end of the movie, it didn't fit in with Voldemort's evil character and, though I got a good laugh, I felt they could have left that out. Other than that, it was all love, love, love.

On Monday, July 11, they held the premier in Lincoln Center, and while I knew that I wouldn't get anywhere close to the red carpet due to the massive amounts of fans waiting, I thought I needed to go, just to say that I was there and that I was a part of it. So after I got out of my internship at 4:00pm, I took the subway over to the west side with my fellow intern, and got to the place around 4:45pm, with celebrities due to arrive at 5:00pm. On a fluke whim, we went to the back of the theater where we had an awesome but distant view of the red carpet. I was going to see my favorite actors! Lo and behold, on sheer luck and good fortune, the police guards decided to take down the barrier and let us move closer to the red carpet. I was mere feet away from where they would stand and hopefully give autographs. Long story short, I got some great pictures (from my cell phone which makes them a bit blurry when increased in size), awesome videos, and autographs of Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Tom Felton in my Harry Potter book. It wasn't the seventh book as I brought the fifth one because I was re-reading it, but at least I got them in the cover! They rushed Daniel Radcliffe passed us and and Mathew Lewis was giving out very few autographs so I unfortunately missed his. Rupert was such a nice guy - he was taking pictures and trying to the best of his ability to get everyone's merchandise signed while Emma was nice but seemed a bit overwhelmed and was not as warm and friendly as Rupert. I still love her though! I also saw a bunch of other celebrities, as seen with the Sarah Jessica Parker shot above!

Mischief Managed!

All Photos:

By me except where credited 

Video from Youtube