My Harry Potter Story

Honestly? I don’t know if I am a Potterhead. But Harry Potter is one of my favourite books ever! I used to be so obsessed that I was bullied as a kid. Anyway, my point is that everyone has a Harry Potter Story. Here’s mine.

My mum was the awesome aunt who gifted Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to my cousins. Back then, I couldn’t even read ( I was 2). They read it; they loved it. All of us went for the movie together. I loved it so much! It was exhilarating! I remember Daniel Radcliffe’s smile at the end and the troll on Halloween.

My cousins continued reading the series. Whenever I would visit them, they would be having these lengthy discussions with their mum (my aunt). I knew the entire sixth book even before I read the first.

During one such visit, I was bored to tears. So my aunt offered me some of my cousins’ books to read. Eager to follow their footsteps and desperate to be a part of the discussions, I immediately started with the Harry Potter 1. The very copy that had been gifted by mum.

I read a chapter and stopped. The first time I read Harry Potter, I found it boring and very different from the movie. Mind you, the first chapter is about the Dursleys in all their muggle glory.

Six months later, I decided to try again. Mum got the first book from the library. I read it. I loved it.

Back then I was a good girl who read only during vacations. So in three vacations-summer, Diwali and Christmas, I finished six books of Harry Potter.

Somewhere along the line I started buying the books. The first Harry Potter I owned was ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. I remember going to a second book shop in Santa Cruz with my mum and buying it. It was old with yellowed pages. But it was mine. I think I was 10 then.

Let’s fast forward to the summer of 2007.

It was the very first time I had visited a big, magnificent mall alone with my friends (well, er, almost. Two of my friends’ mums had come along but they sat in crosswords while we roamed all alone! ).  It was a whole lot of fun! We had great food, stole some hearts (literally, cloth ones tho) from a Make your own Teddy shop. And we went to Crosswords.

It was the first time I had visited such a huge bookstore. I was absolutely enchanted. I soon lost myself in one of the many aisles. I had almost no money left with me. But the temptation to buy a book was hard to resist. I bought the kids version of Jane Eyre worth Rs 30 from the change at the bottom of my purse. So when I went to the counter to pay the bill, I saw an advertisement.

There was a super special sale at Crossowords. The latest and the last Harry Potter book that was coming out the following month was being sold for a special price of Rs. 950.

I never wanted anything as bad as I wanted the book.

That day, I went home and begged, literally begged my parents to buy me the seventh Harry Potter book. I cried, I pleaded, I made promises to be a god girl for the rest of my life and I promised to score 90% marks in all my exams henceforth but to no avail.

My mum thought that paying 1000 bucks for a book was way too much. My heart broke.

But then my uncle came to the rescue. See, I’m one of those lucky people to have their birthdays in the month of July. Guess what I got as a birthday gift that year?

YES! HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS!

MY KAKA (uncle) IS THE BEST KAKA IN THE WORLD!

I remember the day. I had accompanied my mum in visiting her aunts. I don’t remember what I had been doing when my mum got the call. It was kaka and he asked us to come downstairs. We went and there he was in the silver Indica holding out a plastic bag…

I won’t tell you what I did next. It was some demented, hardcore fangirling. Demented, I tell you, demented.

It was the end of July. I had my first unit test in August. Mum being my mum locked up the book in her cupboard. I was to read the book once I was done with my exams.

Did that happen?

Nope.

My mum left for work every morning. I knew the hiding place of the book. Haha.

Everyday I took out the book and read all day. I put it back in just before 7 pm. It was a covert operation. No one was to know that I was reading the Harry Potter.

By the time mum found out, I was more than halfway through the book. So she let me finish it.  Anyway that was the first time in had broken rules. Harry Potter made me a badass 😛

I remember obsessing over all the newspaper articles about it. I remember dancing around for a day when JKR declared the Harry Potter encyclopedia.

A few months later, my dad took me book shopping. So far, I owned two Harry Potters. He bought me the remaining five books. Then I had to go to school. I couldn’t wait for school to be out so that I would be able to reread the entire Harry Potter series. The moment I reached home, I started. It was awesome.

Rereading the Harry Potters is always awesome. Now it’s like visiting old friends and recounting our escapades and adventures.

I love my copy of Book Seven so much! Last year, I reread till Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince. I have a strong urge to reread Deathly Hallows now. I miss my childhood buddies :’)