You might want to skip this if you're not a Harry Potter fan.

[constance]

Oh my God, isn't the internet swell? Do you remember how you filled the hours before it came around? Do you remember back in the dark days when you were convinced that you were the only, only freak in the world, that your love for bondage or narcophilia or, you know, a bunch of British children's books about wizards, was unique and troubled you greatly because there was no one in the world you could share that love with?

Thank you, Internet, for supplying a girl with porn beyond measure and a Harry Potter community that's kept one in useful fanfic and a state of high excitement for about four years now.

:::

I've been reading HP since the second book came out. I've had to wait for each book since then, and CoS came out in 1998, I believe, and I would just like to point out that that is a long time to anticipate. Granted, I was given my fixes more or less on schedule, but always in the back of my mind as I finished each book was the idea that IT WOULD BE YEARS BEFORE THE NEXT ONE HOW WAS I GOING TO MAKE IT THAT LONG.

This is why the Internet's been a blessing and also a curse. And I'm not even talking about all the bad-shit fandom trapdoors just waiting for you to fall through--let's ignore for the moment that fandom is chock-full of people spoiling for a fight. I'm talking about the fact that being constantly around a bunch of people waiting, patiently or impatiently, for a thing, it just ramps up your enthusiasm until the day arrives and it's all you can think about and you're up until midnight doing laundry the night before and biting your nails on the phone to your friends and planning the next week of your life, trying to decide how many readings you can get in before someone notices that you can't really concentrate on anything else.

Would I love the HP books if I weren't a part of fandom? For sure, I would. I love the things I love hard, man, and I really love them forever as well, and being the only person in my universe who loves a thing has never stopped me before. Would I love them quite this obsessively, with quite this much daily attention, if it weren't for fandom? I really don't think so. That fanaticism, it is hard to sustain, on a daily basis, without reminders, for six years solid.

That's really why I am so ambivalent about this book coming out. I mean, of course I am OMG SO FUCKING EXCITED I HAVE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE OF NOTE FOR DAYS. But also. After tonight, after this weekend, after the afterglow, there is just the one book left. The last book. And in a couple of years it will all be over. It's the beginning of the end, this weekend, and endings are just things that always make me anxious and regretful. I grieve a little over all my endings, you see, no matter how unimportant they are to the rest of the world. And this weekend, for all that I'm having palpitations and catch myself bouncing in my seat and have written TODAY IS THE DAY on shiny rainbow letters on my stylish whiteboard and that is my secret code for HOLY SHIT DUDE FOURTEEN MORE HOURS, I am also grieving, just a little, for my Harry (I am sorry, but he belongs to me) and for his world and for the fact that we are not going to be seeing so very much more of him.

I won't be getting out the Victorian mourning jewelry just yet, and not just because I don't actually have a lock of Harry Potter's hair. But that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling, today, just a little sad.

TODAY IS THE DAY. THIRTEEN HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES TILL MIDNIGHT.

Comments

[somniesperus.livejournal.com]

And in a couple of years it will all be over. It's the beginning of the end, this weekend, and endings are just things that always make me anxious and regretful.

I have very deliberately not been thinking about this.

Also, I think I have just been accidentally spoilered. WOE. And if it is true, :(( as well.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhh, I'm sorry, sweetie! :(:( On both counts!