I’ve been hearing for a while that Harry Potter is pretty good. I’ve missed out on it for all these years, mostly because it hit at the wrong time for me. I was too old to get into it myself but was also pre-kids so it sort of passed me by at the time. I always appreciate when people really love something, and I loved seeing kids lining up at midnight to buy a book, but I was content to admire from the sidelines. I’d just smile and nod when people talked about horcruxes and patronus charms and boggarts and muggles and about a zillion other things. If I don’t know what someone’s talking about, I assume it’s either Harry Potter or Game of Thrones.
Fast forward to 2016, and I have two big kids of my own now. They have always loved books, but this is the year that Dash’s attention span has grown from picture books to chapter books. We went through most of Roald Dahl, all the Ramona books, the Fudge books, then after we finished Mary Poppins I asked, “Do you guys have any interest in Harry Potter?” OH MY GOD OUR LIVES WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
We started book one in August and now we’re up to book six. Miraculously, we have all managed to avoid spoilers, so we have no idea what’s about to happen. It has been so fun to talk to people already in the know (ie everybody but us) about our theories and speculations. Dash never trusted Sirious Black, Lucy can’t figure out why Neville is in Gryffindor, and I’m convinced that Draco Malfoy has some good in him, deep down. (You can laugh if I’m wrong, I’m like, always wrong so I’m used to it.) We’re all constantly readjusting our top five favorite characters lists, but Hermione and the Weasley twins are always the top three. And right now, all eyes are on Snape. We’re watching you, Severus!
I know we’re ridiculously late to the party here but I’m never too proud to jump on a bandwagon. No spoilers! I’m sure most of our theories are off base, but I do have one that so far has been rock solid: When you ask people which house they would be in, all dads give themselves Gryffindor.
