Rambling and Raving:
Harry Potter will always be that series for me. The novel that takes my mind off the present, off scalding fears and worries, off anxiety or anything coming in the near future. It's a series I can return that feels a little bit like home, one that feels as familiar as if I've walked these halls hundreds of times with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, sneaking through empty trophy rooms with magical mirrors, hiding under an invisibility cloak.
Anything could be on my mind — anything at all — and Harry Potter will whisk me off to a foreign land where I don't have to worry about my own troubles. I think that's why we read: to get our mind off the panic, the pain, our trembling, aching fear of reality. Instead of having to face those things, I can pretend. I can think about how to stop Voldemort from getting the Stone. I can think about how to get through the trapdoor beneath Fluffy's paws. I can think about how the hell I'm going to get ride of Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback. And it doesn't matter that I've read these books six times — I'll never grow tired of it, and each time I reread them, I know I'll have grown somewhat closer to the characters and the world than last time, and that's all I could ever hope for.
JK Rowling:
J.K. Rowling's new reputation has of course bothered me, but in all seriousness, I'm not here to talk about the author; I'm here to talk about the book. Usually if I don't agree with an author's actions/thoughts/beliefs outside of their works, then I don't support them. But Harry Potter is different, because it was one of the first series that got into reading fantasy in the first place, and I won't let Rowling ruin that for me. I'm not disregarding anything she's said or done about transgender or anyone else; I'm simply stating that I choose my thoughts and my battles, and will therefore not allow her to take away the pleasure from reading a truly amazing series.
Now, I refuse to use up anymore of my review talking about her. I never thought I'd actually write a coherent review for Harry Potter because it's a series that almost everyone has read and that everyone has heard about, but I decided to anyway because I felt like it.
Characters:
I've always liked Harry and Ron, but Hermione Granger was always my favorite. Hermione is an extremely bold character, which is why it doesn't surprise me that she got chosen for Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw. Her character arc is by far the best out of the trio's, because she grows from an intelligent, timid girl into one that raises her chin when faced with a challenge. She punches Malfoy, stands up to Snape, helps protect the entire school from both ignorance and danger, and boldly makes the decision that it was more important to stop Voldemort than it was to follow the rules. That education was important, but that ignorance was dangerous.
The thing I love most about Hermione is that she was born and raised in a Muggle household, and she's a Muggle herself, yet she still manages to be the best witch in her year over all the other half-bloods and full-bloods. She teaches young readers that "fighting like a girl" is a compliment, is good thing, not something to be laughed at or looked down upon. Hermione's character has always motivated me to be both a better person and a better student; she had a goal in mind and she followed through with it. She taught me that you can be anything you want if you put your absolute hardest work. She was one of my very first role models, and Emma Watson isn't much different from her.
World-building:
Hogwarts is one of my favorite worlds to visit because it's a place where everything is just so different from the real world: you have your own shops like Madame Malkin's Dress Robes for All Occasions, newspapers like The Daily Prophet or Transfiguration Today. You have only one sport called Quidditch with four balls. You have characters with names like Didalus Diggle and Albus Dumbledore, seemingly the weirdest names ever, but that somehow feels completely natural in this world. Rowling takes the most bizarre aspects of the world and turns them into everyday, normal, realistic things, and that's what I love most about Harry Potter. The wizarding world allows the reader a true sense of escapism, to fall between the words on the pages and to forget their very existence...allowing them to let go of who they were and to become someone else for a little while. And maybe that makes us all a little bit of imposters, trying desperately to fit into new skin with every book we read, but I think that's the most beautiful thing about being a reader. You're never only yourself — there are so many people underneath your skin, so many people you've been, so many things you've seen, so many places you've been, that it's difficult to remain the same person. I wonder why we even come back to the real world at all.
Plot:
I've always loved the unpredictability of Rowling's plots, especially The Prisoner of Azkaban's. What makes the plot especially enticing is the constant foreshadowing and dropping of hints throughout the first half and middle of the novel. The series as a whole gets very interesting because of all the mysteries just waiting to be uncovered in the rest of the books.
Additional Points:
Overall, Harry Potter is a world I'm extremely grateful for; without it, my middle school years probably would have sucked more. It's an adventure the moment you pick up these books, the moment the precious words sink onto your tongue and you taste and you feel them. This was the first world I read about where I realized I could be a reader in a true sense; I remember being so relieved I had found a place where I was understood and where I could just forget, where I could sink into words like a warm bath and return home again.
Putting aside the qualms I have of Rowling, I know I'll always return to these books in any great times of needs; times that I wish to return to a childhood long misplaced, or to return to a world that still holds the child part of me inside of it, that twelve-year-old girl who believed she'd still get her Hogwarts letter even if she discovered the magical world a year too late.