Patrick and I were anxiously awaiting the final Harry Potter book. We both read and watch movies for the same reason, a great escape, and have found over the years that we can easily get sucked into this fictional world. We had to know how it ended, but we were also afraid of what the end would mean. We joked all through the week that we were going to be so sucked into the reading that we wouldn’t be able to watch Brenden and so I mentioned this joke to my parents just to tell them how excited we were. And my Mom said, “ok, drop him off.” I hadn’t been hinting, but slowly it began to seem like a great idea.

Saturday morning I dropped Brenden off for his first ever night away from home without Mom and Dad. When I got home our 2 copies of the book(neither of us is patient enough to wait for one to read it first) had not arrived yet. We kept ourselves busy until they finally got to our house around 1:30 or 2:00. When we finally dove in, we only came up for meals and bathroom breaks. Patrick had somehow gotten about 15 pages ahead and at one point as many as 20, but then I caught him and remained 3 pages ahead of him until the last chapter. We had thought we might go to a movie while Brenden was gone, but we silently agreed at around 8 to keep reading. We could have gone to bed around 11 both of us about 400 pages in, but at that point I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep without knowing the end and it felt like a mission we had to complete. We hunckered down further and emerged in the wee hours of the morning on the other side of the book.

I think I was near tears and full of anxiety throughout most of the book. I, like a few others, felt that the whole “two major characters will die” thing was extremely misleading. The story got where I knew it had to end up, I just didn’t see how it was going to get there. There were a few things, especially regarding Snape, that I had predicted though. I loved the book. I can’t imagine too many things that I would have changed. Though there were a few bits that just seemed cruelly unnecessary! There are still questions left to answer, but overall, I’m very satisfied. I’m sad to have such a great series end, but I do feel the last line leaves room for the possibility of new adventures…

And Brenden had a great time at his grandparents by the way!