Harry Potter Madness
The True Story of One Who Survived Midnight on July 21st.
When my friend asked me to help man the bookstore she managed at midnight on July 21st, I agreed without hesitation. I had no idea what I was in for.
There's something magical about a book that can make people behave like they are scoping out tickets for a rock concert.
And that's what was truly amazing about standing in a bookstore at 11:59 on July 20th as hundreds of people stood in line, counting down the final seconds until they could own Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which, unless you've been living under a bridge somewhere in Nowhere Land, you know is the final book in the saga of Harry Potter.
The night began with what I would later realize was the calm before the storm. I had taken on the task of volunteering to help at the bookstore which my best friend manages. Though I don't regret a minute spent there, to say I was under-prepared was, well, an understatement.
Around 8:00 p.m., witches, wizards, Death Eaters, Dementors and a few strangely dressed Muggles arrived to get in line to claim their stake in literary history. Being head of Gryffindor House, I had to take my horde of Hogwarts Students around to each "class" they were to attend before they could purchase their book at midnight. By ten o' clock, people were beginning to get antsy. One fan stated that he wished he was living in England because "over there they had already finished reading the book."
When eleven o' clock rolled around, the store was packed. Fans of the boy wizard were spilling out into the parking lot. Some were waiting in cars, obviously afraid of what awaited them inside. A mass of people began slowly migrating toward the registers. Pleas over the intercom from the manager to step back from the registers until the line was formed were met with indifference. The heat in the store began to rise as more and more people filed into the store which, thankfully, was a pretty large bookstore.
At eleven-thirty, a costume contest was held. Helping judge the contest, I, with other members of my Muggle Crew, chose four winners. A Tom Riddle complete with diary, a Tonks with perfectly pink hair, a Hermoine and a Sirius Black, complete with prison outfit and diabolical laugh.
Immediately following the costume contest, the line was formed. The line began at the start of "register row" and snaked around the inside of the building, back around the front, through the middle pathway and back again. Tensions were beginning to get high and, as the books were rolled out in their "Do Not Open until July 21st" designated boxes, we had to fight to get through the crowd to make our way to the front.
Standing behind the counter as the last minutes ticked by, I could hear tempers beginning to flare. But only a few. Most of the fans merely waited - excited to be a part of something that was bigger than all of them put together. Something they could tell their kids about just as our parents and grandparents tell us about planting "Frodo Lives" stickers throughout the cities in the sixties.
Finally, only seconds remained. Counting down from ten to one, when the clock struck twelve, sheer pandemonium struck. Screams were let out. One woman attempted to maul one of our poor volunteers as he attempted to organize the line to the four registers.
As the line moved steadily through due to advanced ticketing, fans claimed the now empty boxes as others cheered and took photos of themselves holding their books. It was hard not to feel both lightheaded and oddly proud to watch children hold a book in their hand with the excitement one feels only on Christmas mornings and monumental birthdays.
With the last of the fans attended to and everyone in possession of Harry's last stand against Voldemort, the employees and volunteers heaved a heavy sigh and headed home - desperately wanting to read the final chapter of Harry's saga and, yet, too tired to crack the book open.
It was a memorable experience just to watch the excitement - to feel it in the air as something so palpable, it could be cut with a knife - and to watch something occur that you know you will always remember fondly, despite the tired feet and sometimes indignant people. And what makes the experience all the more memorable is what started it all: a book.
