There. I said it.
When I found out that Warner Bros and JK Rowling were teaming up once more to bring her textbook like "Fantastic Beats and Where To Find Them" book to life on the big screen, I didn't scream with joy. I didn't even jump up and down. Hell, I didn't even smile really.
What does that mean? How can someone as obsessed and in love with the beautiful world JK Rowling created as I am not be excited about this? Have I gone crazy? Am I "over" it all?
Well, I'm definitely not over it and I'm not crazy, well not any crazier than usual. I think my lack of excited anticipation for this project stems from my fear of too much of a good thing. Too much of a good thing is not a good thing, to put it redundantly. And I guess I am nervous that this will be too much. I'm nervous it will flop. I'm nervous it won't be anything. I guess I'm nervous as to how it will or will not make me feel. Pretty silly, right?
Let's get emotional for a second. The Harry Potter series has done for me what nothing else has. I am like the many others who grew up with it, who wrapped our arms around it when we were scared. Who immersed our eyes in the words on the pages and let it transport us to Hogwarts when our would didn't make sense anymore, when it wasn't someplace we wanted to be. Who sobbed like small children at the mall who couldn't find their mother when Dobby died because nothing made sense. Who read those last three words "all was well" and sighed a beautiful yet heartbreaking sigh because it was over. The storytelling was over, but the story will never be over, and that's the beauty of it. It began, it happened, it ended, and we will always have it when it's 3am and we are scared of the dark.
I remember the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows Part 2. Decked out in my Gryffindor uniform, Hermione Granger. Sitting in the theatre. Holding my cousin's hand and squeezing and squeezing and squeezing. Refusing to get up when the credits stopped rolling. Crying. Crying with a theatre full of people. Crying because we had a lost a piece of ourselves that we could never get back. Crying because our childhood had ended, and we were left defenseless against the cold of the real world. And it was magificent and we were all there together and had one another and we all understood without understanding at all. And that was magic. And that will always be magic. The storytelling has ended but the story lives within us, the story lives in the books, in the films. It could not have been a better goodbye, a goodbye that wasn't a goodbye at all.
And that was beautiful. Because the chapter of our lives ended but the story was still there. But I think it was very important that that door closed. Very important that our childhoods ended, very important that the storytelling was done being told. It gave us the closure we needed while at the same time wrapped us in a blanket of security by knowing we could always go back.
I worry that Fantastic Beats will poke at this too much. I worry that it will try to rip back open the door that was so elegantly closed. I worry the shape that it will leave us in. Unfulfilled, let down, craving more, addicted. I worry that it will meddle with the beauty of our memories. I worry it will poke the vase at the end of the table just enough for it to wobble a few times before falling, shattering on the floor into a million little pieces.
What does this say about me? Analyzing so much about a movie that doesn't even have a storyline yet?
It makes me a Harry Potter fan. One who doesn't want the magic to be tainted.
And let's just be clear: I still plan on attending this at midnight. I still plan on giving it a chance. I hope I'm wrong. And I have all the faith and admiration in the world for JK Rowling. There was just a humming in me that wouldn't be silenced until I wrote it down.
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