What HP Taught Me

Many people know about the final installment of the Harry Potter movie franchise has come out and many people are mourning the end of this saga....I am one of them.

I must admit that, initially, I had absolutely no desire to read any of the HP books. In fact, by the time I purchased the first one, the third book was ready to hit the shelves. The primary reason I was not going to read/invest in the series, though it pains me to say it, was because at the time I was only reading books by African American authors. I was a senior in high school when the first book began to make waves in the literary community and had discovered that I had basically sheltered myself as a reader by only reading books written by white authors. It wasn't even that no one had introduced me to black fiction, I hadn't been interested in it. I hadn't looked for it. So when I found it around my junior year in high school, I jumped into it head first because I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. So when the HP books came out, I didn't bother to look at them because 1.) the author was white, and 2.) it was a children's book (the mindset of an almost young adult) and I was beyond that. The other reason why I had some reservations about reading the book had to do with the uproar that it had created in the religious communtiy. There were so many people damning the series because it had a magical setting that it was pushed even further off of my radar.

Then, my second year of college, I had decided that I wanted to try and form a youth reading group with the summer program at my church for the 3 months that I was out of school. That desire led me to ask some of the kids I knew as well as search on the web for some books that would be entertaining, without being fluff stories that would be too easy to read. I wanted it to be a fun challenge. Guess what kept coming up, both in recommendation and online searches: the first two books of the series. Now, me being me, there are only so many times I'm going to pass up on a book. So I went to the bookstore on campus and bought the first book, and the rest is history. In fact, I read the first three books so quickly that I had to wait almost 8 months for the fourth to hit the shelves.

Here is what I realized: The HP stories were no more demonic or evil than anything else I was watching or reading at the time. I am a HUGE Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, I watched Angel, Charmed, watched some horror films. I read stories by V.C. Andrews about young girls getting raped and abused by their parents/caregivers and other stories about people who had sordid affairs and lived lives of complete promiscuity....HP was no where near as evil or against the values of Christianity as some of those stories were. Coming to that realization taught me that you can't listen to fanatics who are quick to demonize something just because it's different.

This is some what I gleaned from reading HP:
The "least of these" can be used to be wonderful instruments of deliverance
True friendship doesn't come from never fighting, but from never ending the friendship because you fought
Being popular can make you loved and hated at the same time
Being different is not wrong
Evil is taught
Life is worth living when you have something/someone you are willing to die (not kill) for.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but nothing of that sounds evil-based or against my faith. But I only know that because I read the books.

I could go on and on about this series because it has truly entertained me, both in print and on screen, and I am saddened to see the final end of the empire that is HP. But I will end by saying this.....The best thing about a book is that when you get to the end, you can begin again. So while there will be no new HP books or movies, I own them all. Fourteen so far, fifteen when the final movie hits DVD. So I can read and watch them over and over again...and I will.

 Note: Originally written in July 2010