Patronus

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.  ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone


It's here. 


It feels so foreign...like it's almost too impossible of an idea to actually be real. 


But it's here. 


Tomorrow afternoon, I will gather my beautiful and precious collection of jewelry...


...my long black skirt and my flowing black blouse...


...my carefully hand-crafted wand...


...and I will begin the preparations for my final Harry Potter premiere. 


I feel like I'm going to a celebration and a funeral, all at once. 


This world is more than paper and ink. It's flesh and blood.


J.K. Rowling did more than simply pen seven epic novels. She laid bricks and stone upon one another, and sealed them with mortar. She built towers, and invented lives. She composed another world.  


It seems strange that my children will never have this new anticipation...never fiddle with their ticket or anxiously await their Hogwarts acceptance letter. 


Of course, I will never let this magic die. 


This is not the end.


It is the end of an era, but the beginning of an age. 


Seven books. 


Eight movies. 


Fourteen years. 


Tomorrow night...

...at 12:15am...

...I will slip between the wall at Platform 9 3/4 and board the Hogwarts Express for the last time. 

I will cheer as Patronuses are conjured and battles are waged...I will watch Harry and those whom he has walked this road enter Gringots and burst out on the back of a dragon.

I will weep as friends slip from this life into the next...I will watch death upon death in the name of freedom. 

I will watch the darkness be broken, and the Boy Who Lived will live again. 

I will watch my youth come to an end. 

And at the very last moment, as the credit roll in tandem with the tears coursing their way down my cheeks... 

I will raise my hand to the sky, and cry at the top of my voice...

Mischief Managed.

Thank you, Harry. 

Thank you, Ron and Hermoine. 

Thank you, Dumbledore. 

Thank you, Order of the Pheonix. 

Thank you Leigh from PrettyLittleCharmsUK for feeding my Harry Potter jewelry obsession with the most stunning pieces in the known universe, both magical and Muggle. 

Thank you, Luna and Ginny and Neville and Fred and George and Sirius.

Thank you, J.K. Rowling. 

Thank you for 14 years of magic. 

Thank you for my childhood. 

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban