My name’s Gina Elliott, and I’m a Harry Potter fan. A massive Harry Potter fan. In fact, I work at a Harry Potter fan site, The Leaky Cauldron. I’m part of a volunteer staff of over two hundred people, all of whom work tirelessly to create the best Harry Potter experience possible for the millions of fans who devour each new book. Obviously, I’m surrounded by Harry Potter on a daily basis. When I’m not listening to Harry Potter podcasts or reading the books again, I’m discussing them with fellow fans, coming up with crazy theories and just living and breathing the Harry Potter fandom.
But this week is even more intense. With the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, coming out on Friday at midnight, my week is completely devoted to the boy wizard. I just returned from dinner with another Leaky Cauldron staff member, on Thursday I will be going to a Wizard Rock concert (with bands such as Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys), and on Friday night I will go to not one, but two Deathly Hallows release parties. But all of that will end at midnight, when I will put in my earphones (to avoid any spoilers), grab my book, and race home as fast as I can.
A popular topic of conversation on the Potter websites these days is how quickly you will read the book. Most people reckon they will read through the night, and emerge on Saturday evening, exhausted but finished. Others, like me, think it should be savored a bit more… I’m planning on finishing sometime on Sunday. Any longer seems almost unfathomable for those of us who have been waiting almost ten years to find out what happens to Harry. So throughout this crazy, Potter-filled week, I will be updating you on what is happening in the Harry Potter fandom–the emotions and fears of those of us looking at Friday night with a mixture of pure excitement and absolute dread for the end of an era.