Harry Potter and the Salvation of a Generation

EXPELLIARMUS!

INCENDIO!

EXPECTO PATRONUM!I

Using my grandmother's broom to play "Bewitched" as a child, I never thought, nearly half a century later, I would have charms and spells to disarm my opponent, start a fire with my wand, or create a patronus (look it up). But there you have it, those Latin sounding words J.K. Rowling so deftly made up can do all those things, and more, in the land of Wizards.

One of my cousins is a senior in high school this year, less than a year away from being a legal adult, yet she still reads Harry Potter books, watches the movies, reads fan fiction, goes to as many nerd-fests as she can (think COMI-CON), has a place and a life on Pottermore.com and a season ticket to all that is Potter in Orlando. She is a friendly, but at times meek girl who nevertheless fiercely defends HP, as if the franchise were a real friend to her, a living, breathing person.

She is but one of a unique generation of kids who had an entire series of books creating a magical world for them, next installments they had to look forward to, stories to discuss the minutia of, to bond with like minded people, shy, awkward kids. This is a phenomenon unique to these people, one I honestly don't think anyone else can fully appreciate. Certainly I know of no other cultural phenomenon with this much impact on an entire generation. The closest thing would be either Star Wars or Star Trek, one of which was limited to 3 superficial (but awesome)movies, the other a weekly series with good ideas and morals but nothing people could really relate to on a personal level...Star Trek dealt in social issues.

I have tried very hard to understand her feelings on this and she has tried to explain  them but I don't think her feelings can be verbalized.

She had to write a paper for school and asked me to look at it. I did and ended up crying and thinking maybe I finally understood. Here it is, edited for space....

In a barren hallway sat a bookshelf full of classic novels with curling spines and dusty pages....the book that stood out to me was Harry Potter...My preteens were a very difficult time for me, my parents never seemed to stop fighting with each other, I was struggling in school, and I felt like I was completely alone. It was when I decided to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone...that my life changed. Suddenly there was something that would always be there...Harry Potter was there for me when I needed it most. A book really is powerful enough to change a person's life. The life in a book can be so beautiful...Harry Potter was how I coped with my parent's divorce, the loss of friends, my brother leaving me with my alcoholic mother. After dad left, my mother would sit on the couch in a daze until midnight. The feeling of loneliness consumed me...The characters were my closest friends and Hogwarts was my home, also my escape...This character (Hermione) was never afraid to be who she was...helped me understand it is okay to be who you are no matter what people say...Through reading these books I understand life is fleeting so we should do everything we can while we are alive...HP introduced me to a whole other world of people like me: nerds who seem to have an intense passion for knowledge and things that are ...out of the ordinary. HP introduced me to the world I belong in and how magical reading can be...

Of course I had begun crying almost immediately when I read this. between the lines lurked the depth of her pain, loneliness, confusion, and lack of sense of self. What her parent's divorce and annamosity put her though, the profound effect of having her brother kicked out of the house had on her, and all the things she never really talks about; I saw between those lines, and it was almost like reading into a mirror.

So much of what she went through, of who she is, could be said about my life too. Yet I had no Harry Potter to console me. I had Nancy Drew, hardly more than fluff, and that was it. Nothing. And my generation sparked the beginning of the "divorce is normal" generations so there were so many out there like me. Plus I had her love of books, knowledge, and that feeling you get when you are smart and dorky, when the kids make fun of you or worse, ignore you all together.

I have not read but the first Harry Potter and I have seen all the movies. I see now, after having the memory of those feeling tear through my heart again via my lovely cousin, how this series can bind all the hurt, broken, lost children together, or even console the single child on a dark

lonely night. This series teaches morality, strength, how to honor your word and your friends, how to stand for what is good and what is right, how to have the courage of your convictions and still see the wonder of magic that is out there, and it is there, even if between the pages of a book.

I have no love lost for KJ Rowling, but I must give her credit for saving a generation of children from their parent's bad marriages, addictions, abuse, neglect, or simply bad parenting. For beginning the trend that nerd is cool, that being smart is not dorky, it is to be admired, even though the dumb kids will always jealously make fun of the smart ones.

One of the beautiful things about this series is that these children grew up with the characters, and as they grew so did the dangers the characters faced, the magnitude of the situations, and the difficulty of the moral issues they had to grapple with. They babysat our kids through the beginnings of school, through the beginnings of puberty, and all the emotion that entails, to young adulthood, all the while guiding and entertaining the lost and lonely. Giving these kids a sense of self, helping them find their sense of self, teaching them lessons and morals no one can argue with.

I seem to be switch perspectives here, from parent to child, but I see both sides of it both from my own difficulties growing up to watching my generation pass or fail at parenting.

Thank you Hogwarts and friends, for properly parenting our children when we were too self involved to do it ourselves, for keeping them company when they were alone, for giving them courage when they were afraid. Thank you for taking away the pain we inflicted and showing them there is a bright wonderful world out there, just waiting for each of their unique shining stars, something we woefully neglected to do.

Shame on us, and thank you Harry, I wish you had been there for me too.