In the summer of 1997, when we were shopping in Dillon’s in Nottingham, my mum pointed out a book she had heard reviewed on Radio 4 and thought I might enjoy. We bought it. That book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
I started at Nottingham High School two weeks later, and got round to reading the book sometime that term. I couldn’t put it down. The idea that this boy, nine days older than me*, was suddenly whisked away to a secret school for wizards was utterly enchanting to me. I had just started at the High School, a 500-year old institution with arcane traditions, strange rules and (to an 11-year old) imposingly grand buildings where I knew no one and which was about as different as you could get to my primary school, and, while I couldn’t exactly relate to the magic element, I knew exactly how alone Harry felt when he first arrived at Hogwarts.
I didn’t read book two, the Chamber of Secrets, when it was first released. I don’t know why – I guess I missed it: Potter-mania was still practically non-existent back then – the first book had not been published in the US, the film rights had not been sold, “muggle” was not in the OED, there were no midnight launches. I eventually borrowed it from David, I think. Book three, the Prisoner of Azkaban, was released on the last day of my second year of school, when we finished at lunchtime, and David and I walked down to Waterstone’s to buy it that afternoon. Harry’s published school years coincided exactly with my own, and it seemed almost as though he was growing up at the same time as I was (although I didn’t have the transfiguration classes, evil dark wizards or house-elves).
The next four books were released at two-year intervals, so that link was slightly lost, but there was still some connection present. Harry and I developed together. When a new book was released, I rushed to buy it, not because of any hype**, but rather as if to find news from an old friend.
My Harry does not look like Daniel Radcliffe. My Hogwarts is more Durham than Alnwick, more Nottingham High School than Oxford. My Ministry of Magic does not resemble an underground station. The potions master is more like… well, I’m not going to say. But you get my point. I transferred into Harry’s wondrous world the people, the places, the things that I knew and loved or hated. Which is, I would argue with anyone, exactly the point of fiction, and especially of the type of fiction that Rowling writes.
And now, whether or not Harry is dead (I’m not going to spoil any endings for people who haven’t read book seven yet – there are plenty of other places for that), it is clear that we are not going to hear any more from his world. His story has come, quite definitively, to a close. It feels almost like moving away from somewhere and knowing that you’ll never speak with an old friend again.
If this reads like sentimental twaddle about a fictional character, then yes, I suppose it is. Harry is not real. I have no problem with that. I’m not one of those “fans” who obsess over every single detail of the books, or who ‘ship certain relationships. I am well aware that there is no Hogwarts, no Ministry of Magic, no hippogriffs. But the joy of Rowling’s writing, whatever its flaws, was that she created a world that was so believable, characters that were so engaging, experiences that were so, well, real, that as an 11-year old, I had no problem imagining that they could exist. And I have stayed there for 10 years, happy to suspend my disbelief and follow the escapades of someone who grew up with me, someone who encountered things that I could only dream of, someone who, outside of his adventures, faced the same day-to-day joys and troubles that I did, someone to whom I could relate in those times when, perhaps, I had trouble getting close to people in the real world, someone with whom I could escape to another time and place when I really needed to get away from this one.
And now, I know that I won’t hear from him and his other friends again. And I’ll miss them. But it was fun.
*Yes, pedant, I know Harry was born in 1980. But he first came to life, just before his 11th birthday, in 1997. And that’s how I know him.
**The only book I ever bought based on hype was the Da Vinci Code. I wish I hadn’t. It eats at your soul and messes with your mind, rather like a tapeworm does with your digestive system. Damn you, Dan Brown.
