Growing Up With the Golden Trio: Reflections on Harry Potter

Harry Potter and his friends entered the lives of millions of children around the world more than 10 years ago. J.K. Rowling's words pushed us beyond the limits of our imaginations and her characters led us on endless adventures through a world of magic.

Words like "muggle" and "hippogriff" entered our vocabulary and our taste buds salivated every time we read about Butterbeer and Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans.

Although I was two years behind the Golden Trio in school, Harry, Ron and Hermione were as much a part of my childhood as my flesh-and-blood classmates.

As a bushy-haired know-it-all with the added adolescent humiliation of glasses and braces, I identified primarily with the character of Hermione Granger. Hermione and I were both only children and shared an insatiable hunger for the written word. Let’s put it this way, if my 11-year-old self could have checked Hogwarts: A History out of the school library, I would have read it cover-to-cover and then obliviated the librarian in order to keep it.

At about age 12, I realized that the owl carrying my Hogwarts invitation wasn’t coming, but that didn’t stop me from begging my parents to send me to boarding school so I could be sorted into a house and wear a snazzy uniform.

In retrospect, I should probably thank Merlin they talked me into staying in public school.

From witches and wizards to unicorns and Crumple-Horned Snorkack, nothing about the magical world was too much for my already overactive imagination, but for many of my friends and classmates, who were part of generation losing its ability to make-believe, the Harry Potter series was–in essence–magic.

With Harry, Ron, Hermione and many, many others, a new generation learned to appreciate the mesmerizing power of fiction. Those of us who would never be picked first for kickball always managed to capture the snitch in Quidditch and each and every one of us could identify our own Draco Malfoy.

Despite our best efforts, we knew we would never be able to cast Wingardium Leviosa, but if friendship, loyalty, cleverness and guts could help Harry Potter overcome the most evil wizard of all time, certainly those same traits could serve us well.

This Friday, at 12:06 a.m., I will don my homemade Hogwarts uniform and embark on my final adventure with the Golden Trio. Once more, the boy with the lightning-shaped scar, his redheaded sidekick and the brightest witch of the age will rise off the pages on which they were created and finish the epic battle between good and evil that began more than a decade ago.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I will now part ways, but I have every confidence we will meet again someday when I take my own children through the pages of Rowling’s books and onto Platform 9 ¾.

For now, mischief managed.