Stepping into the magic #1: Wizarding World of Harry Potter

It was 2010 and the summer lay before me. My parents had planned a marvelous holiday; taking me and my siblings to Florida for two weeks of pure Disney magic, exploring and dazing in the sun. I would celebrate my 18th birthday while there and I imagined spending my birthday wearing mouse-ears and eating caramelized popcorn. 

But then news reached Denmark that a Harry Potter section would be opening at Universal Orlando. That Hogwarts would actually be built, wands made and butterbeer served. That the books that I loved so much would come to life. The opening date fit perfectly with my family's travel plans, and it seemed like it was meant to be. I would be spending my 18th birthday in the wizarding world, drinking butterbeer and waving wands. And I couldn't imagine anything better.

Back then, Diagon Alley wasn't built. Interactive wands didn't exist. And because I visited only a month after Hogsmeade opened in the middle of high season, the crowds were ... everywhere. No one had foreseen the success, and I had no idea what to expect. This was, after all, before Instagram.

The entire day at the park went by in a blur. I still remember looking up at the Hogwarts castle, not quite believing my own eyes. The book came to life right in front of me and for a moment even the artificial layer of snow in the middle of summer seemed real. I bought a chocolate frog and a unicorn plush; a pygmy puff and some Bertie Bott's, and I felt like I could have spent an eternity just looking at the odd items and carefully arranged store windows.

Now, I of course dream of going back. Of experiencing Diagon Alley and doing proper wand tricks. I dream of stepping into Gringotts, tasting hot butterbeer; I dream of riding the Hogwarts Express, buying a robe in Madame Malkin's and staying for the light show at the end of the day. Everything has gotten so much bigger since my visit to the wizarding world; but the magic of my 18th birthday still remains. I was so incredibly happy. That day I stepped into the magic of my favourite books.

(Please bear with the pictures. They were taken in 2010 with shaking hands and a rather old camera. But that's perhaps part of the charm.)

Battered books and lost memories

My books are among my most priced possessions. I own over a thousand books and each and every one is carefully selected; I spent hours searching for the perfect edition with the most beautiful binding, and as I read them, I turn the pages carefully, always making sure that I don't damage the  spine or, even worse, leave a dogeared page behind. While I do buy books for the stories they contain, I also consider them to be objects of beauty and the most beautiful decoration one could ever own.

But it hasn't always been that way. My first set of Harry Potter books is proof of that.

In fact, my first set of Harry Potter books are a mess. They are framed with cracked spines and bent covers and inside they are filled with tea stains, torn pages, dogears, underlined sentences and even faint traces of fallen tears. They have been read my mother, my sister and my 10-year old self. They have traveled with me to France, California and China. They have a history of their own. And just by looking at them, you can see it. These books have been loved. 

These books are from a time, where I was so enchanted by the stories and the words they had to tell, that I didn't care about cracked spines or food stains. I didn't care that I owned half of the books in hardbacks and half in paperbacks, because I couldn't wait for the perfect edition, I couldn't wait for a hardback publication. The thought alone was unthinkable. Just like I couldn't take breaks from reading, so I ate while I read, not caring about what I spilled on the books. What mattered was the story. Nothing else.

And while I would never be capable of that kind of book vandalism today, I still appreciate the marks I left on them back then. Because this means that the books have a story of their own to tell. When I reread these particular editions, I do not only reread Rowling's story; I also reread my own, hiding between the lines and in the stains, dogears and margin notes. The torn pages in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince suddenly make me remember my uncontrollable crying over Dumbledore's death while the underlined sentences in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire reminds me of how I took notes of every foreboding sentence, trying to figure out what would happen in the next volume. My edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone automatically opens on my favourite chapter, caused by an infinite number of rereadings on how to enter Diagon Alley. 

What may look like battered books are actually a capsule of lost memories. A wordless diary written between already existing lines.

"Why would I ever read about a stupid boy named Harry?" – My Harry Potter Journey

It started with a book. As these things always do. A book given to me by my mother who had heard "brilliant things about it". Though my mother had this peculiar gift to always find the books I didn't even know I was looking for, I was sceptical at first. Because the book in question was about a boy. And even worse, it was about a boy named something as ordinary as Harry. It took me ages to pick up the book, because in my 10-year old mind, I couldn't believe that anything remotely interesting could ever happen to a boy named Harry. Luckily, I was wrong.

Today I have forgotten what I thought, when I first read the book. I have forgotten what I first imagined chocolate frogs to be like, what I thought of Mr. Ollivander or what my favourite store in Diagon Alley was. The details are blurry, but I know this: my world was suddenly divided between a time before Harry Potter and a time after. Something shifted inside me, when I read that book I was so reluctant to pick up at first. I read it in one sitting, staying up past my bedtime, turning the pages. And it worked its magic on me.

It's not that I hadn't immersed myself in books before. I was an avid reader, even at the age of 10, and I was slowly reading my way through the entire children's section at my local library. I had cried, gasped, laughed and fallen in love with books before. I had already met characters on paper pages, that I considered as real as the world around me. But still, I had never experienced something like this. The Harry Potter books were different.

Suddenly I ached for a world I could never reach. It felt like Rowling had offered me a glimpse through a keyhole; a glimpse of a world so similar to mine, but filled with magic, wonders, adventures, lasting friendships and such joy. I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone just one week before my 11th birthday and I still remember how eagerly I anticipated my birthday and hoped and wished for the Hogwarts letter of my dreams. I was so sure that Rowling's world was real. That I would receive a letter that would send me off to Hogwarts where Harry, Ron and Hermione would be waiting with open arms; already knowing me, the same way I knew them so intimately and intensely. But of course, the letter never came.

Instead, I received the next book in the series for my birthday. And in that way, the adventure continued. Even without a Hogwarts letter.

For some reason, I remember reading the second book much more vividly than the first. I remember staying up 'till past midnight; reading silently beneath my duvet after my parents had turned out the light and falling asleep midway to foul nightmares about giant snakes and dark curses. I thought the second book was so incredibly scary. And yet I devoured it anyway. Nightmares seemed like a small price to pay for sharing in on such a great adventure.

And then came the wait. I had to wait a few weeks for the next book in the series, rereading the first two books constantly in order to pass the time. The wait seemed endless back then; and I still remember how my mom surprised me with the third book on a day where we had to drive to France for our summer vacation. Needless to say, I had finished the book before the carride was over.

Things were so different back then. I was young and it would never have occurred to me, to find out when the next book was published. Instead, I relied entirely on my mother, who as a proper grown-up would "know those things". Publication dates and releases seemed like a weird and mystical thing back in those pre-internet days. So I just waited. Waited for the next piece of magic to appear and whisk me away to Hogwarts.

But then everything changed. The first movie came out, and suddenly Harry Potter was a world-wide phenomenon. Something everyone talked about. Chocolate frogs were sold in Danish supermarkets, and the book series adorned every bookseller's window. While the publication of the third book had been a surprise to me, the release date of the fourth book was marked in my calendar, and I attended the midnight release for it. I remember actually queuing up in front of the book store in the middle of the night, gazing longingly through the window at stacks and piles of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  Parents, children and teenagers alike stood in that queue and exchanged theories and hopes for what would happen next. And I never realized how rare and extraordinary it was; that something as simple as a book release could get people out of their beds in order to line up in front of a bookstore. It was never seen before, and it have never been seen since. I'm so grateful for having been a part of it.

Fast forward a decade or two, and here I am, sitting in my armchair, looking at the books that started it all. I'm now in the middle of my twenties and I'm still obsessed with Harry Potter, still rereading the books, still looking out for a Hogwarts-letter that will never come. The books still seem like gateways to another world; allowing me, and everyone else, to catch a glimpse of just how far our imagination can take us. If we wish it.