Beginnings

My first introduction to Harry Potter almost doesn't count - it was through a Disney Adventures magazine when I was 16. Looking back, I remember that my brothers were just getting into this new thing called "Pokemon" and that my mom had specifically purchased this issue for them because it was a special Pokemon issue and had a giant yellow Pikachu on the cover. Well, at this point in time, I was homeschooled and bored, and totally willing to read anything that wasn't a textbook, so one afternoon I flopped down onto the couch and made my orderly way through the pages, from front to back.

Now, the front cover announces a "Sneak Peek" of Harry Potter's 3rd book, but since I didn't know who Harry Potter was, I didn't particularly care. As I made my way through the glossy pages, however, I inevitably came across the excerpt which I would later recognize as the scene in which Professor Trelawney identifies the Grim in Harry's teacup. Remember, I had no background knowledge of who Harry was or anything about the Potterverse, and after I finished reading those 5 or so pages, all I could think was, "Wow. That was dumb." And I moved on.

Three months later (and this is the part that counts), my mom excitedly showed me the book she had purchased as a gift for my youngest brother for Christmas: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I didn't make the connection between this book and the excerpt I read in a Disney Adventures magazine three months earlier, and so I just gave her a vague smile and a thumbs up before one again falling into blissful Potter ignorance.

Come Christmas morning, my little brother wasn't the only one who received a copy of Harry's first book: I received a copy as well from a distant relative. I remember looking up at my mom in confusion, wondering if she had accidentally mislabeled the gift intended for my brother, but she only shrugged and shook her head at me - this wasn't her doing. That night, my brothers and I piled into a heap on our mom's bed to listen to her give us our first taste of the Dursleys, of letter carrying owls, of an old wizard in high-heeled buckled boots, a shape-shifting cat, and, most importantly, a baby - a baby with a lighting shaped cut on his forehead. At that time, we did not know that Harry was special, we did not know that he was famous, we could not have known how intricately entwined he would become in our lives, or how deeply felt his presence would be during some of our darkest moments. It is strange for me to look back and realize how disparaging my first impressions were. Over the last 18 years, Harry Potter has come to symbolize many things for us, for me: Hope, friendship, perseverance, and not the least of which is family.

To Harry Potter - the boy who lived.