I'm an adult and I just read the 'Harry Potter' series. Why it's not just for kids.
David OliverMy boyfriend will tell you I don't have that many flaws. Can I be impatient? Sure. Do I get hangry? Absolutely.
But my biggest one? I never finished reading the "Harry Potter" series.
I know, I know. Cue the gasps. The outrage. The shame. If you're a millennial reading this, maybe you've stopped reading. If you're Gen Z reading this, you're probably ready to cancel me for bringing up the "Harry Potter" author in any remote way.
In an effort to appease my new beau – and admittedly check an item off my bucket list, as I had been a devoted fan of the movies for decades – I decided to actually read the original seven-book series. So that's exactly what I did from January through March of this year.
What did I find when I was done? There's power in revisiting childhood tales and giving into a bit of magic. You shouldn't let anyone – not even one of the movies' stars, Miriam Margolyes, who recently told adult Potter fans they "should be over that by now" – tell you the stories are only for kids. Like anything else, enjoyment of Harry Potter books is far from black and white.
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Why did I stop reading 'Harry Potter' in the first place?
When I was younger, I devoured the first four books in the series. Like, stay-in-my-room-during-Thanksgiving-when-all-of-our-family-is-over devour. Then at some point during "Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix," boredom took over so intensely that no spell could cure it. The movies fulfilled me enough, and I was OK not knowing the intricacies of the books vs. the films.
And then when critics slammed J.K. Rowling as transphobic – and I understood what they were talking about – I figured it's for the best I leave the books on their metaphorical shelf.
But something was always missing whenever "Harry Potter" whisked its way into a conversation. Someone would mention a scene in passing that wasn't in the movie. Someone would talk about staying up all night finishing the last book. I felt left out and there was only one way to correct that. I opted to listen to audiobooks instead, and the reading (listening?) journey began.
What Harry Potter means to me as an adult
Once I started listening to the books, I couldn't stop. The characters accompanied me on runs, train rides and while I cleaned my apartment. It was all-consuming. Magic flowed through my ears and into every part of me. I empathized with the woman on TikTok documenting her experience reading the books for the first time, who regularly entertains her followers with dramatic, dumbfounded reactions to various turns of the screw.
I grew up in hyperspeed with all the characters matriculating through Hogwarts, facing early problems like school pranks and Quidditch matches to confronting life, death and the unknown. I crashed into the Whomping Willow with Harry and Ron, heard the house elves' plight, accompanied Dumbledore and Harry in and out of the Pensieve.
This time around I paid even closer attention to the nuance. I felt compassion for everyone, even You-Know-Who sometimes. I recognized we're all a product of our upbringing, the friends (and enemies) that surround us and our teachers. While our inherent kindness, ambition, wit and courage can shine, these qualities take nurturing, too. When ambition envelops a person, it can spiral into greed and terror (Voldemort). Kindness can lead to your downfall (Cedric Diggory).
It's not enough to get sorted into Gryffindor and be blindly brave – as our heroes often learned the hard way. It means working with those around you and standing up for what is right even when it's scary.
Look, I get what Professor Sprout – err, Miriam Margolyes – is saying. I don't want my future wedding to be Harry Potter-themed. But that doesn't mean I can't smile thinking about Harry, Ron and Hermione walking about the Hogwarts grounds. I still get teary-eyed thinking about the sacrifices Snape made to secure Harry's safety. I wonder where I would've ended up at Hogwarts (Hufflepuff, probably).
While I don't understand Rowling's logic about, um, a lot of things, I can separate the art and the artist here enough to know reading and watching "Harry Potter" changed my life, again and again.
Now if only my boyfriend will finish "Grey's Anatomy," then we're even.