Why Harry Potter Is Fucking Amazing

On Youtube there's a guy who makes movie montages, his name is Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr., or at least that's the name he goes by on Youtube. His movie montages - his series entitled [the films of] and his cinema series - have introduced me to great music and shown real beauty to me. Last night, while cooped up in the ice box that is my bedroom - candles flickering on my desk - I came across his page. There, glaring at me, was the retrospective of 'Harry Potter' we, all of his fans, had so eagerly waited for. I clicked on it and watched the thirteen minute video in glee, remembering my own story of 'Harry Potter'. The thing is we all have our Potter stories. I remember sitting on the sofa in my parent's house, the fire blazing, the lamp next to me as I listened to Stephen Fry read me the first book. I remember coming home from school and waiting for my mum to bring home the third set of cassette tapes - as I had trouble reading then - so I could begin the third book. 

I remember being on the bus to go to high school and my friends Jacob and Ben telling me that Sirius died in the fifth book. I remember being in Turkey and reading that Dumbledore had died and feeling empty inside. I remember locking myself in my house for three days so I could ploy through the final book and coming downstairs to pant to my mother "they all survived." I remember all of this because this is my 'Harry Potter' story. We all have it. The lucky ones have two stories - the books and the films. Of course we, as the dedicated, hardcore nerds of 'Harry Potter' remember getting angry that they cut out the elf story-line in Order of the Phoenix or had an angry Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire. But we loved it - I did - because it showed my imagination on the screen, it showed the beauty and the wit of J.K. Rowling's beautiful world.

I remember going to see Goblet of Fire with my mother and my friend Joe and having him ask me questions throughout. I remember going to see the first film and my father coming home from work one night to have a 'pirate' copy ready for me, something I had never heard of. I remember buying my first DVD - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - and being fascinated that I didn't have to rewind it. 

Why is 'Harry Potter' fucking amazing? Because one woman, one fantastic woman, created a world. She, like many writers, made up her own rules, her own characters, her own stories and we loved it. But what did she do different? People will be asking themselves that question for the next hundred years. All of us will have different answers, all of us will have our favourite character - Snape, for me - or our favourite story-line - the back-story debate of Dumbledore - or our saddest moment - Dobby's death. 

For me it's also the small details - the fact that by Prisoner of Azkaban we were told there was Hogsmede, by Order of the Phoenix we were taken to the ministry. It's the fact that they drink Pumpkin juice and have Berty Bott's Every Flavour Beans. It's the fact that there are houses and headmasters that we know very little about but know that Rowling knows everything. In an interview J.K. Rowling was asked what she liked to see when she read a book. She said that she liked to have the feeling that the writer knows everything - she knew everything and I totally agree with her. She knew that McGonagall was in love with a Muggle and married, she knew it all.

She created a beautiful, magical world. I'm sad it's gone but, as Dumbledore says, "it's not really good bye after all."