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| Source. Also: yes, yes I do. |
2) Twelve: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone comes out in theaters. My sisters tease me to no end for my nerditude, citing the tag line 'Have a very Harry Christmas' as further proof. I beg and beg and beg my father to force them to see the film with me. After sunset on a Saturday he turns into the movie theater parking lot silently, buys tickets and popcorn and watches Harry Potter with my sisters and I. My sisters are converted and I am a very happy eleven year old.
3) Fourteen: We're at a thrift store and I scour the book section for the fourth Harry Potter book. I beg and beg my mom to buy it and she finally relents, staring disapprovingly at the boy with a wand on the cover. She warns be to go to sleep later that night while I'm reading, shuts off the light and I pretend to sleep. Later, I shine my alarm clock over the book and read on until the harrowing end. A few hours later I crawl into bed with my mom, and say I can't sleep because of monsters. She sighs, says 'I told you, Sumayyah' then turns over and goes back to sleep.
4) Fifteen: My sister's fourth grade teacher loves me. For my birthday she buys me Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and a very pretty journal from Borders. I ignore the journal for the mean time and devour Harry's new adventures shamelessly.
5) Sixteen: The sixth book comes out, we pre-order it and my sister gets it for her birthday. She reads it first, cries, hands it to me that night and I read and cry. The youngest gets it last and by then she knows the ending is not happy, it is harrowing and horrible and so wonderful we cannot wait for the conclusion.
6) Seventeen: The seventh book comes out, but Harry Potter isn't finished it lives on and my sisters and I have a Harry Potter shelf in the basement with all the books. We have the films, they are a family activity.
7) Twenty: The first part of the finale of the Harry Potter franchise is released. It is the beginning of the end of an era. The beginning of the end of my childhood. I am not in middle school, the journal I got for my fifteenth birthday is filled, my Harry Potter books - hard cover and paperback - are frayed and beaten and old and I feel just as old as they are. I watch each new trailer, new television spot with goosebumps appearing on my arms and drink coffee while I watch and wait and wait and wait for my sister to come back from school so we can go see it as a family because it's a family tradition.
