Dear Harry Potter, We Are Lesbians And We Love You

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 premieres this week and obviously a select group of us have some feelings we’d like to share. A lot of feelings. It’s no secret that lesbians have a special place in their heart for Harry Potter — well, arguably, everyone has a special place in their heart for Harry Potter, but we think ours is specialer. This is an ode. This is our Greatest Opus of Life, possibly.

Senior Editor Rachel K

I did in fact grow up with Harry Potter – I mean, I think I was ten when I read the first book, but I grew up with him in the way that you say you grow up with childhood friends, and what you really mean is I can’t remember a time before I knew them. I can’t remember the world without them in it. I can remember the first time I knew about Harry Potter – my mom gave me a book over the summer and told me that it was “very popular in the UK.” In retrospect, it may actually have been a copy of The Philosopher’s Stone as opposed to the US title, which makes me feel very cool looking back, very hip and with it and up on my imported pop culture. Anyways, I read this and thought it was pretty great. Then I went to the first day of school in September and found out that EVERYONE ELSE DID TOO.

This was a little scary/annoying; as a general rule I hate liking things that other people also like. But it was also kind of amazing. I’d never been cool. I’m still not cool. I don’t do cool things; I read and type and lay on my floor and I spent the years that other high school kids were blacking out in their parents’ basements looking up Ani lyrics obsessively. But this time – this one time – something I liked was cool. A book was cool.

VIA MUGGLENET.TUMBLR.COM

I wasn’t good at Pokemon cards, Pogs, obsessing over male celebrities, or trying to convince my parents to buy me expensive shit, so I’d kind of given up on trying to relate to any of the other kids or find common interests. But all of the sudden we had one – and it wasn’t something I had gamely tried to foster an interest in, it was a BOOK. It felt like I had won something, some small social victory that, had I known how rarely it would ever reoccur, I would have savored even more than I did.

I was a painfully uncool little girl who would spend all of the next few years straightening her hair, caking on makeup, and reading Seventeen in a sad effort to be something, anything else. But for a little while there, we were all talking excitedly about when the next book would be released and whether our parents would let us stay up all night to read it. It was like we lived in a world that made sense to me, where the things I did and loved made sense to other people. It was pretty beautiful.

That feeling didn’t last, but it still comes back sometimes even now. When you see Emma Watson interviewed for an international magazine wearing Miu Miu and Burberry and reflect on the fact that she’s world-famous for playing a nerdy, overachieving teacher’s pet with frizzy hair FROM A BOOK? That’s a good feeling, at least for this nerdy overachieving teacher’s pet with frizzy hair. That’s actually really fucking amazing. That’s not something I ever could have imagined happening in our world. The fact that it did, I think, might honestly be magic.

Julia (MISS FEBRUARY):

I was 12 when my grandmother gave me a copy of the new hit book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I didn’t expect to like it because everyone liked it and how could I ever relate to something enjoyed by the masses? But I read it to appease my grandmother.

I read the entire book in one night.

I wanted to go to Hogwarts: to frolic through the grounds, honing my magic skills with a bunch of other children who didn’t fit into the normal world. I wanted so badly to belong somewhere and this book made me feel like I did. I’d dream that maybe in the US, the wizarding age was 13 and I’d get my invitation on my birthday.

At sleepovers, I’d suggest playing Harry Potter games which involved “sneaking around the dark house pretending we’re creeping through the halls of Hogwarts on a secret wizarding mission to defeat evil.” Eventually people stopped inviting me to their sleepovers.

I didn’t get my invitation to wizarding school, but normal school gave me the tools to overanalyze my affection for these books.

In Harry Potter, the underdog thrives. Harry starts as a nobody forced to sleep under the stairs and ends up admired and adored within his special community. It was like those stories where you find out you’re adopted by your parents and are actually a Princess! I wanted to be adopted and admired because middle school felt like living in a closet under the stairs.

VIA THELOVELYLILYPOTTER.TUMBLR.COM

Furthermore, Harry’s friends are also misfits and are essential to his success. Hermione, the smartest person in Harry’s year / the world, faces double discrimination as a female and a muggleborn but despite this, she’s a rock star within the Hogwarts world.

These are the female role models I needed. Hermione is hailed for her brain, not her attractiveness to boys. Ginny is fiesty and confident and never sits back while others fight the battles. Also in Hogwarts, sports are co-ed and everyone is judged based on their ability, not their gender.

Harry Potter is a scrawny kid with glasses who, along with his friends, fight for good, form bonds, study and do awesome magic. In Harry Potter, society’s misfits are glorified and encouraged to embrace the skills they’ve been given. Harry Potter is good for everybody and was especially good for twelve-year-old me.
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Next: Rachel B & Emily share their Harry Potter experiences, plus tips for how to survive sans-Harry in 2012.

Tech Writer Rachel B

I didn’t grow up with Harry Potter. In fact, he and I didn’t meet until I was nineteen.

It was a lonely spring for me; sitting in my little rented room, watching Donnie Darko over and over and listening to bad 80s pop radio all by myself. I’d just moved 500 miles away from my family in Arizona to California, where I had no job, one friends, and just enough money in my wallet for a library card. So I settled into bed with a stack of plastic sheathed books and read them as my life changed.

I’ve often thought that if I were to look into the Mirror of Erised, I’d see something similar to Harry’s completed family. Harry Potter was my best friend when I was experiencing my first loss and when he  practised Occlumencey with Snape I realised that I too, wore my heart proudly on my sleeve. I don’t think that makes us fools, though. I can’t say what precisely makes Harry Potter so special, and “everything” isn’t necessarily a satisfying answer but it’s the only one I’ve got. He’s my best friend, he’s part of me.

Four years after I first sat down with Harry, I’m ceremonially opening my brand-new copy of The Deathly Hallows; averting my eyes to avoid unintentionally reading any chapter titles, delicately sliding off the dust cover and feeling the weight of anticipation in my chest. I was careful to absorb every word/detail of the finale and, honestly, I don’t feel the same way counting down to the last film of the last book. Don’t get me wrong, I do a Harry Potter Excitement Dance every night before bed but really my number one feeling is, “I’m emotionally incapable of handling this.”

Maybe it’s because I already know what happens and I’m not prepared to see my beloved characters die. But it’s more likely I’m just not ready to see the credits roll and know that the story of Harry Potter and all the fantastic things that come with him are really and truly finally at an end.

I’m just not ready for this to be over.

Intern Emily Choo

My copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has been read and read again and it shows; the pages are yellow and there is tomato sauce on some of them. I was coincidentally in London the first time I read it — at ten years old, I was initially turned off by cheesy description and the drawing of the brown bearded wizard on the back. But my aunt had given it to me and said that my older cousin had loved it. So I read it, became hooked, and thus began my lifelong relationship with Harry Potter.

Harry Potter matters to me in a way that’s almost ridiculous and kind of selfish. And I feel like this is my one chance to tell you how much Harry means to me. I have to convince you that Harry Potter is serious business, I want you to understand because I love you. But I want to say that Harry Potter’s mine, that nobody else understands the way I feel about Harry Potter, and nobody gets Harry Potter like I get Harry Potter. Because, you see, I am Harry Potter.

Or, Harry Potter is in me.


Harry is brave and he wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s honest and naturally/modestly talented at most things. He does things because they’re right, not because they’re easy. And things happen to him, things that he didn’t choose, and he has to live with it. Harry’s parents are dead and my mother is dead and I am all these things that Harry Potter is. This is a thing that happened to me that I didn’t choose and now I have to live with it. When I was 10 I didn’t know anyone whose parent(s) had died. But I knew Harry. I know a few other people now.

There’s this part in The Philosopher’s Stone when Harry discovers a mirror that shows him his deepest desire. And he looks into it, and sees his family.

“The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness.”
– Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

For a long time I felt like no one else understood that ache. It’s a different kind of ache than a love ache or a head ache.

Famous Harry Potter gets made fun of too. I was made fun of in high school, and so were you probably, and the kids who did the bullying were probably bullied by their mother or father or older brother, or later by the cashier at the grocery store. No one escapes this world without being bullied, even though sometimes it feels like you’re the only one. But books exist in this sort of side-world, one that’s not really real, but also one where you’re understood, and you can escape to it whenever you want to.

Other things happened to Harry that he didn’t choose. You know, like being a wizard and having to kill Lord Voldemort. This is literally not comparable to being gay, or, really, to anything, unless you’re a wizard and you have to kill another wizard, which you’re not, so. But I didn’t choose to be gay, and Harry didn’t choose to be a wizard, or to be given this task that makes him different. But he is different. He is different and he feels this difference even though he’s good-looking and smart and has friends and is a good person. He gets made fun of, just because he is who he is. This is a feeling gay people understand very, very well.

I wasn’t made fun of for being gay, because I stayed in the closet. But the lonely side of me hung on to Harry Potter and I felt what he felt, and that mattered. I mean, it doesn’t matter to anyone else. But it matters to me. The books — physical books — were there for me before I went to college and met all these wonderful people. They’re a blanket of comfort, like, “here’s a world you can dive into. Think no one gets you? Harry Potter gets you.”

I have choices though. I could choose to “not” be gay. I could get a boyfriend and then I wouldn’t have to come out to my family, or anyone, and I could hold hands with him in public without feeling nervous about being stabbed in the eye, and I could forget about this equality shit and let someone else deal with it ’cause who cares it doesn’t affect me anymore. But you know what? Harry Potter would never do that.

“But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.”
– Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

If I may step outside of the books for a moment to point out: Harry Potter has a mass following, not yet overshadowed by Twilight, which is poorly written and doesn’t send quite the message that Harry Potter does (and this is the last time you will ever see me compare HP to Twilight). As someone who loved reading even when reading wasn’t popular, it makes me so happy to know that J.K Rowling has gotten kids to read. And it makes me even happier that she sends positive messages about standing up for what you believe in, being yourself, and having courage in the face of adversity. She writes about death in a way that makes it seem less scary, and she gives Harry so much life that he’s practically bursting with it. J.K Rowling gives us female characters who are equal to the male characters, and she gives us a gay character whose gay identity is so non-consequential that we don’t even find out he’s gay until the series is over.

If there’s anything that you should take away from Harry Potter, even if you think the books are stupid, or you just don’t understand the hype, you should at least understand that Harry is brave. There may have been times when Harry was scared to be himself, hated himself for being him, wished he could just be normal. But he faced the world, and he held his head high. I want everyone to have a little bit of Harry inside of them, to make them a little braver, to help them wake up and face the world, because that’s what Harry is for me. Harry inspires me to live as I am. Maybe you think it’s stupid because it’s just a book and Harry Potter doesn’t exist. Well, he does for me. And I’m a better person because of it.

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Are you still feeling sad / in denial that we won’t get any new Harry beyond 2011? That’s okay. For starters, there will only be about a year left before the world ends anyway so you won’t have to be sad for long! And also, we’ve compiled a small list of things you can do to help you cope:

+ ALL OF THE BOOKS

Duh. Seven whole books full of all the wonderful little details that the movies didn’t include. Did the movie version of The Goblet of Fire have S.P.E.W.? No, it did not, and that is why you can’t go wrong cracking open the covers.

+ MOVIE MARATHON

They aren’t perfect, but they come damn close. Make a weekend of it! Have your girlfriend make some caramel popcorn and snuggle under a blanket with her and the cats. Look at how pretty all those kids turned out to be.

+ CHANGE OF ADDRESS

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando is open now! My girlfriend tells me that it isn’t a realistic plan but I’m thinking of just moving in. Florida is too far away for frequent return trips and honestly, I’d like to live in a permanent state of enchantment. You could always just visit for a day though, I guess.

+ EMMA WATSON’S HAIRCUT

What. It’s really cute.

+ BUTTERBEER IS GOOD

Remember that part in The Half Blood Prince when the Trio were at The Three Broomsticks and Hermione drank her Butterbeer really fast and got foam on her face? That was cute. You should try making some Butterbeer at home. It’s really good. Try the Firewhiskey too.

+ YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD TO PLAY HARRY POTTER

Seriously, just ask Julia! All you need is a broomstick/cape/stick for a wand, and possibly a few friends. It’s even ok if you don’t have those, though. There’s evil out there just waiting to be fought, and don’t even act like you don’t have all the spells memorized to fight it.

+ Never let go.

Remember when this happened? It is good to have hope for the future.

Rowling: They’re all in my head still. I mean I could write – I could – I could definitely write an eighth, ninth, tenth – I could – easily.
Oprah: Will you?
Rowling: I’m not going to say I won’t. I don’t think I will. I loved writing those books. I love writing it. So, I feel I am done but you never know.

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Rachel

Originally from Boston, MA, Rachel now lives in the Midwest. Topics dear to her heart include bisexuality, The X-Files and tacos. Her favorite Ciara video is probably "Ride," but if you're only going to watch one, she recommends "Like A Boy." You can follow her on twitter and instagram.

Rachel has written 1141 articles for us.

131 Comments

    • I would like to point out that you look exactly like the Ginny Weasley I have in my head.

      *le flirt*

    • Professor McGonagall said “Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.” (Book: Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix)

  2. Lesbians love Harry Potter because Harry was alone and different and he had feelings and powers he was hardly aware of and he didn’t understand. He was estranged from the only family he had, they despised him because of something he was born to be.
    And then he discovers the world of Hogwarts, where there are people like him, who understand his feelings and love and accept him. He is important.

    For me that is exactly what coming out was about. I found a world where I belong.

    Also Ginny is totes hot.

  4. I reread Harry Potter every year. I just finished the seventh book for the fourth time. The first time I finished it, I carried around with me for a week like a security blanket. Seriously, Harry Potter owns my heart. I don’t get to see The Deathly Hallows until my girlfriend finishes rewatching the first six movies. Marathon on Friday night yo.

    My internet bff is seeing Harry Potter in Orlando and then going to Harry Potterland. Obviously I hate him forevs now.

    • Most AMC movie theaters are having a marathon right before the midnight release, a few of my friends and I are going to go watch it and wear costumes!

  5. Have reached the Battle of Hogwarts in my last minute re-read of Deathly Hallows.

    I CAN’T DO IT. I CANNOT. NO. CAN’T. CAN NOT.

      • I can’t handle that chapter! The first time – oh man. I was sobbing as hard as I ever have! I’ve since re-read it at least four times and I still tear up every damn time.

        • I know what you mean! I cried so hard when I first read it that I couldn’t see the words anymore. My heart literally broke for Harry.

  6. I hope if she writes another book she writes James and Lily’s story and not another Harry story. Like how they ended up together when james seemed so awful all the time. And about the original order of the phoenix.

  8. I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was 9 and thought the first two pages were boring so I put it down. Bad decision. I caught up in 7th grade though. It’s never too late you guys.

    (but I still liked His Dark Materials better.)

  9. this is the final proof that my childhood is over and I feel like my stomach is about to fall out of my butt. I’m tearing up over a book. :/ thanks you guys

  10. Okay, a moment of confession. I stopped at the fourth book. I bought it… then didn’t read it. It was huge. I couldn’t wrap my mind about it.

    I know, I know. Off with my head!

    However, thanks to this post, I hereby solemnly swear to read the books over the holiday break. I promise!

    • I did this with the fifth book for a long time. I started it but it was 200 pages before they got to Hogwarts and I just couldn’t get through it. But I recently picked it up again and read the rest of the series and it’s SOOO GOOOD. I would highly recommend just finishing them already because they’re amazing.

  12. As much as I love the books and the general phenomenon, I can’t help but see the films as a terrific letdown ever since seeing the third one, and have therefore boycotted going to see them at the cinema since. So the new movie doesn’t count as ‘new’ harry potter for me. I also find it amazing and awesome that Emma Watson is now a super megastar, and I hope she continues her modeling career. hi, yes I’m a cynic.

    • The films always kinda annoyed me (especially with what they chose to include/exclude), but the moment when they finally completely lost me was in the fourth movie, when Voldemort was finally revealed… as Death from Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Who then did a tripping-over-my-cloak-fight-dance. Voldemort was always so terrifying in my head, and that ruined it for me.

      Now it’s just become a tradition with one of my friends to see them, and spend the entire time turning every line into innuendo. “POTTER! … Touch my wand.”

  13. There was a question in an English test in my first year of uni that said: “Write about something that changed your life”, I wrote about the Harry Potter books. Don’t get me started, srly
    (this post gave me feelings)

  14. Harry Potter is a big fat sack of feelings for me. I’ve read them all so many times it’s actually stupid. When Dobby died, it was the first time I ever cried over fiction. No, wait, the first time was Pokemon…
    #NERD

  17. God, I love Harry Potter. I have only ever read Deathly Hallows once, though. It is literally too much for me to handle. I have midnight tickets to the movie tomorrow and I think I will just weep the whole time.

    Also, I think Hermione was the first girl that I admitted (to myself) to having a REAL LIFE ROMANTIC GAY CRUSH on. All the others I explained away as platonic admiration, but I totally knew that I didn’t want to be Hermione’s best friend, I wanted to be her life partner and kiss her face a lot.

  18. Does anyone else feel like a lesbians who look like Harry Potter tumblr wouldn’t be that hard to put together?

    • OMG that is so true lol! – I can’t belive the bloody films are ending, WTF will i do wiv my life!

    • Lord, there was a crazy time that lookin’ like HP definitely got me dates with queers who were big fans of HP slash fiction. Oh my. Big blush.

      • I hope there are queers out there who got dates because they looked like Remus and/or Sirius, I’m just sayin’.

        • I would totally tap a queer that looked like Sirus or Remus, but I’d most like to get ahold of some Snape.

  19. I read the first three books the summer after kindergarten, and the final movie is coming out the summer after my senior year. Harry Potter has been the bookends of my childhood, and it’s so crazy to think that this phenomenon that defined my time in school is coming to end. I know this movie isn’t even the last, but I tear up just thinking about it. Lord help me when I see the last one.

  20. It’s so weird to see this worldwide mass phenomenon about a thing that is so intensely personal to me, and yet to know that lots of those other people feel the same about it, why is WHY it is a phenomenon.

    Harry Potter feels like home to me. I don’t have words for it; it just is what it is.

  21. These books came at a time in my life when I was without hope and wanted to give up. Reading these helped me hold on until things got better.

  22. I resisted HP for the longest time, writing it off as a craze. Then I wrote a paper on censorship during my undergrad, and all my students (preK-6th graders) were going on and on about it, so I caved and read them (it was research!). I think the 4th book was out by then. I was immediately hooked. Also, I was Hermione for Halloween two years ago. This is my Harry Potter shelf: http://twitpic.com/1tuzon I am a huge nerd and I’m ok with that.

    • Ah! Also! I just restarted to reread HP7 for the second time and I fear I waited too long. I won’t be done in time for when my whole family goes to see it on Sunday…

    • I have a Harry Potter closet and a Harry Potter room and a Harry Potter bathroom! I literally have every object that has ever been created by the Harry Potter franchise! I have read the book so many times that I could rewrite it if I wanted. I have loved Harry Potter since the 4th grade! I have all of the audiobooks on my Iphone so that when I’m driving I can listen to them!! Saying that I am obsessed with Harry Potter is a huge understatement!!

  23. Didn’t get into it until after the first movies came out. Saw my older brother reading the 5th book & finally decided to pick it up…but soon realized I obvs had to read 1/2/3/4, so I borrowed them from my friend and read 1 through 5 in about 4 days. I don’t think I slept. Pretty sure Harry Potter is why I have insomnia. — <3

  25. oh, the love!
    I waited for the letter from hogwarts like I had waited for the enterprise to come pick me up before that.
    also, there was this huge german hp community that two teenage girls had invented – where you got sorted into houses and could compete against the other houses.
    accidentally I was always being sorted into Gryffindor/Ravenclaw (I AM a Ravenclaw) because I forgot to check two of my three siblings, otherwise I would have been a Hufflepuff…oops.

  26. SO MUCH AWESOME. also you can read “The Tales of beetle the Bard” it’s been made into a real book. and OMG 2 days. i may have reread deathly hallows again last week :)

    • I hate to admit it but me too – mainly because it was over more so than any specific part of the book.

  29. Did anyone have Harry Potter bed sheets? No? Just me? That’s fine. I have had them since I was 13 and I am now 22. I also have my ticket for the midnight premiere and I am so excited.

    • One time at summer camp, everyone had harry potter sheets and during the ‘harry potter’ themed session we had a massive quidditch tournament that was so competitive we skipped swimming and arts & crafts for quidditch practices.

  30. I have loved Harry Potter from the minute I read the first book. I had a crush on Hermione before the movies even started and now that Emma Watson has grown up….pardon my drool. Harry Potter always spoke volumes to me, the nerdy misfit who had my own little group of nerdy misfit friends.

  31. the only thing I dislike about Harry Potter is that my friends make fun of me for self-identifying as a Hufflepuff

  34. I read the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone when I was 11(I’m from Canada and we only got the English versions, and I did feel a little elitist).
    I had to wait each year for the next one to come out, so I was 14 when the 4th came out 15 when the 15 came out etc. I. Grew. Up. With. Harry.
    He was like a friend I didn’t get to see all the time, but when I did it was MAGICAL. My friend Shelby started the Harry Potter series before I did, and of course loved it so much she bought every Harry Potter related thing she could, including a parchement and quill set, with The Hogwarts seal.
    As a result, when I was 11, I got a letter adressed to me from “Dumbledore”, written in scarlet in welcoming me to Hogwarts, with list of materials I would need.
    She instantly became my best friend.
    I felt a huge need to say this.

    • YES THIS wrt literally growing up with Harry – eventually I got older than him but man, it was like reading Barthe de Clements at all the right moments – Harry was going through, well, not really what I was going through, but at least he was my age (and when he left Hogwarts, I’d left high school, so it was the same again.)

      Your story with the letter is the best thing ever.

  35. Ah…I love it when Autostraddle understands! I’ve been having “the value of Harry Potter” debates with my circle of friends this week (none of them have read it/seen most of the movies), and now…it’s ok. I won’t kill them I guess. Homicide averted.

  36. Oh my god, am i the only lesbian who has no idea what’s going with harry potter…It’s not like i’m not into it, it’s just that i never got around to watch it. that being said (please don’t crucify for saying this) why can’t harry or ANYONE break the wand that belongs to that guy with the weird nose (or lack thereof) and like shoot him or something? or can’t he die from a bullet like that stupid vampire Edward?
    i’m not trying to be a pain in the ass here, i just don’t get it. So, would you guys recommend watching the previous movies, or just reading about them on wikipedia? i (along with 10 others) was just given a movie tickets by a friend, and i don’t want to show up clueless.

  37. The other thing I love about HP is the way it connects people. I was worried about living with flatmates, because I had never done that before, but then they started gushing over my Slytherin mug, and then one of them told me about how she’d seen JK Rowling in the street the week before (we live in Edinburgh, she lives around there somewhere). Instantaneous friendship, yo.

    • THIS! I didn’t know any of my roommates before living with them this year and I was terrified we wouldn’t get along. Luckily, we bonded over Harry Potter and even went to the midnight showing together last night ^^ without Harry Potter I wouldn’t feel such a close bond to them <3

  39. I remember last year, my friends and I at school had a Harry Potter party and we made alcoholic Butterbeer. It was amazing :)

  41. OMG, Harry Potter! He feels like a long-lost friend, because (I don’t like admitting this) I kind of forgot how much I loved Harry Potter. The first book came out when I was 7. I remember getting it (possibly a year or so later) from the school library. I thought I was so cool, because the book was huge and “grown-up” and made me feel smart. I waited in anticipation of each book’s release putting my name on the waiting list at the library really, really early (b/c hardback books are expensive, y’all), and finishing each of them in a day or two. Even though I have a million other things on my To-Do List, I think I’m going to be re-reading all of them again soon. It’s time me and Harry had some one-on-one. We need to catch up.

    • I’m totally the same way – I loved the books growing up but I think at some point, I became so focused on the plot and what was going to happen instead of reveling in the (no pun intended) magic of it. But I reread this summer, and fell back in love.

      If you do reread, I would recommend checking out Mark Reads Harry Potter. This guy (Mark, duh) basically “live-blogging” his way through the Harry Potter books chapter-by-chapter. And he’s gay and very well-versed w/r/t the concepts of power/privilege and he really expounds on how Rowling presents these ideas in the books.

      He did this with Twilight also, but with very different results obvs.

  42. HP was the first novel I read where I wept while reading. There are literal tear stains on THE FOREST AGAIN chapter.
    I have been to the WIZARDING WORLD OF HP in FL. it is amazing. you get a wand.

    I Love this article. I love this website. ya’ll are da best.

    • for realz? its good? some of my friends went and I was somewhat disconcerted by the photos they brought back of them in tank tops next to snowy-roofed hogsmead cottages…

  43. I was 10 when PS came out, so I read all of the books as they came out, but at first I wasn’t wildly in love as I was over books like the DiR sequence. I liked it well enough, but I had so many books I liked better that the hype that was growing kind of bewildered me.

    And then PoA happened.

    Harry was never anywhere near my favourite character, but MWPP were my imaginary best friends for -years-. I wanted to run around pulling pranks and being idiots with them forever, and than watch
    them slowly dissolve into darkness and figure out WHY. More than anything, I wanted them to be happy for a little while, particularily Remus. And finding the fandom, where other people not only watched the same ridiculous movies, read more than they spoke to their classmates and were generally just like me, but wanted to -talk- about these characters like they felt they were real people too was one of the most defining moments in my life. Harry Potter may be silly and strange and all right, not the most well-written series out there, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without it and I’m so glad that it exists.

  44. Oh! Autostraddle!!! I’m so glad you’re talking about Harry Potter! Harry Potter! I have SO many feelings. I was actually 11 when the books came out so it was special (even though I didn’t get a letter) AND my first lady crush is all kinds of wrapped up in Harry Potter. We met on the school bus, we both liked to read and draw and we would read and draw harry potter together… and then she started hanging out with this boy and I got all angry feeling and didn’t know what it meant until 10 years later…. oh yeah. there are feelings there.

    • Wow. I didn’t read HP back then but you just brought me back to age 13. And there was a girl who liked a guy. And yeah…

  47. I read Philosopher’s Stone when I was 10 and was pretty much hooked. Plus they were, ‘like, my age!’. The way J.K. Rowling writes… I felt completely sucked in, and could imagine every detail of every person and thing. Plus the books had a tendency to come out when I was of the same/similar age, except for the last two or three, and it always felt like we were all going through the same journey together.

    Also – I was totes a witch, obviously. They just couldn’t find a way to contact me right then. BUT SOME DAY….. etc

  48. My mum read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to me when I was five.
    She then took me to see the movie. I was dressed up as a little witch.
    The movie made little five-year-old me cry because it was so sad that Harry didn’t have his parents and he was so happy to have a world where he had friends!

    Little me was cute.

  49. I find the plot to be somewhat unrealistic.. I mean c’mon, a ginger kid with two friends?

  50. Also, I’m crying now. Harry Potter has been a part of my life since I was five. It has been a constant thing in my life for ten years.
    IT CAN’T END.

  51. Does anyone else feel like Harry Potter eternally must be the third wheel in your relationships?

    To add an item to the list of coping strategies, may I suggest reading the books out loud with a pretty lady. This is something I an a certain girlfriend may have done, and I feel like here is an appropriate place to admit that.

  53. Emily, did I tell you? What you wrote is really beautiful and I want to hug you. Thank you for it. <3

  54. Ok so, this one time when i was in college i was a nanny and the kid’s gma lived in the UK and sent him the books, I read the first 3 to him and he read my the 4th. I re-read them all the time, but whenever i read goblet of fire i hear this little 6 year old boy’s voice in my head and I feel warm and fuzzy inside. also i sob like a little baby every time i read them… not so much the first 2 but the last 5 yes. I AM NOT ASHAMED. I AM A PROUD POTTER FREAK. and I love everyone’s HP stories, I LOVE ALL HARRY POTTER FANS, ALL OF YOU. #harrypotterforlife

  56. Harry Potter was like my alter ego as a kid. Since fourth grade I have collected anything that had anything to do with Harry Potter! I even have a replica of Hogwarts, I have Harry Potter dolls, I have Harry Potter cups, anything you can think of I have one that has something to do with Harry Potter. I wanted to move to England just so that I could get a letter to Hogwarts, and even though I am older now, I still love Harry Potter. I grew up with him, I know every word in the whole series, I know the characters like they were myself.

  57. haha this is awesome…
    I found out today that my friend is having an end of year party on the same night as Deathly Hallows comes out. I’m soooo fragging torn.

  58. I must be the only lesbian (or just person!) who doesn’t like Harry Potter (as a character) and feels fairly meh about the series. My third grade teacher read it aloud for us (I must’ve been around 9) and while everyone was completely enthralled, I just sorta sat there twiddling my thumbs. I liked Rohld Dahl being read aloud better :( I read them all a few times, but nothing ever struck out to me. This is the point where I go hide…

    • lol don’t, I feel the same way. I never liked the character of Harry all that much, and I despised both the Hermione/Ron and Ginny/Harry relationship. Not to mention I didn’t exactly enjoy book five and seven, and I also remember quite a few convenient plotholes that infuriated me at the time.

      However, I do quite love the third and fourth book, and they are the only ones I feel I will read again in the future. So I’ve never experienced Harry Potter as something life-changing, although I do like both the books and movies well enough I suppose.

      Personally, I’m more of a Lord of the Rings girl when it comes to the ‘fantasy books turned into movies’ type, but to each their own.

  59. To prolong the HP joy, there’s a band called Harry & The Potters, and they’re actually super-entertaining, if you like indie-pop bands like Islands. They’re two brothers who assume the stage persona of Harry Potter at different ages.
    They are having concerts called Yule Balls in NE cities next month, and they are totally worthwhile.
    Here’s a link to some of their music.
    http://harryandthepotters.com/music/
    “The Human Hosepipe” is about Harry’s disastrous date w/ Cho Chang, and it sometimes comes to me when I think of my own love life. “This Book Is So Awesome” also pretty great.
    Some of my favorites (“Felix Felicis” also “Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas,” which includes the line “My Wizard scar still burns for you” and a Lisa Simpson-esque sax part) aren’t there, and they’re way better live but…

  61. I used to work at the movie theaters and my manager was completely obsessed with HP so when the half blood prince came out she split everyone into houses and the four managers were the heads of house. We got house points by doing our jobs really well and extra stuff and trivia questions. I was in Hufflepuff! We totally lost.

    And if you didn’t dress up they put you in a house elf costume which was basically a moo moo over your uniform lol

    I remember it being a very productive couple of weeks

  62. YOU GUYS. You guys! Forget the end of the seventh book, THIS POST made me tear up. (Although: still not over Remus. :()

    I was 11 or so when I read the first book and I’d just started at school for the first time and met my two best friends (one of whom is basically Hermione in every way, although to be honest we were all *mostly* Hermione) and so the pattern of my life has been at least a little bit like Harry’s (part of the reason I think these books were so successful.) And I agree with everything in this post, and Rachel K’s thoughts about Emma Watson make me feel a whole lot better about her (since I’ve always felt that, although Emma Watson is adorable and not too bad an actress, costuming and make-up have consistently dressed her prettier and made her hair less bushy than Hermione ever was. You know that scene in GOF where everyone’s supposed to be shocked by Hermione? a) she wasn’t wearing periwinkle-blue dress robes in the movie and b) it just doesn’t work because she looks *exactly the same*. Anyway, it’s not Emma’s fault that she’s pretty, I just wish they hadn’t constantly dressed her like Lavender Brown.) ANYWAY gosh all these unhappy feelings when really I am totally covered in love and excitement and this week my sister and I are marathoning the movies, even though my sister has her NCEA level 3 exams (pretty much the NEWTS) and should be studying. I’m a rolemodel!

  63. Also, fanfiction anyone?! There is ridic amounts of fancition out there. Harry Potter is never getting old, never going away. You will never run out of Harry Potter if you have the internet.

    • every time I get sad about dumbledore/dobby/hedwig/etc, I go and read fanfiction to make myself feel better.

      Epilogue got you down? There’s a fic for that.

  64. Ahhh!! Love love love love Harry Potter! I go to Lawrence University and us Lawrentians are convinced that Lawrence is the Hogwarts of North America :D Also, there is a course offered here called Thinking About Harry Potter :)

  65. Hearing other people talk about how Harry Potter makes them feel less alone, makes me feel less alone, too. This was a wonderful article and it made me feel more than a little emotional. I love Harry Potter and I love lesbians.

  66. I LOVE EMMA WATSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Now, after that was done. Harry Potter is and was awesome. Not a bad movie and a kick ass party on top that. Yeah, Sirius Black was out last night and shamelessly flirting with all the Bellatrixes that were hot. Oh yeah ^_^

  67. I spent 4 hours the other night at a bar dressed as Ginny, wearing clothes I already owned (what, you don’t all own quidditch goggles?) I also created the largest Harry Potter group on Yahoo Groups back when Yahoo Groups was THE THING. <3<3<3 HP

  68. I was three when the first book was released. The first “grown-up” (no pictures) book I ever read by myself was HP and the Sorceror’s Stone (I was in SA, so we got the English versions).

    The movies grew darker and scarier as I grew able to handle dark, scary movies. I’ve built entire friendships based on a shared love of Harry Potter. The last movie comes out a couple of days after my projected high school graduation date. HP was the first thing that I loved so passionately that my parents didn’t quite “get”.

    I am so sad that this is almost over, but I will never allow it to end.

  71. “But you know what? Harry Potter would never do that.”

    this this this. every time i reread the books (which is a lot of every times) i am amazed at how brave harry and ron and hermione are, and not brave in a fake knight-in-shining-armor way but in a real way; they are afraid but they know that giving up is worse than being scared, and so they keep going. thank you, harry potter. thank you.

  72. I can’t wait to reread all the books this summer. The 7th book came out on my 16th birthday and it was the sweetest 16 ever.

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