Harry Potter is my best friend.

It sounds ridiculous, yes. And don’t get me wrong—it’s not that there aren’t real people whose company I prefer to a book. Being three-dimensional does have its advantages.
But still. How can anyone be cooler than the wizard kid who defeats the Dark Lord at age 17, escapes from death practically a million times, and is (at least, based on the description) pretty attractive, too?

Honestly, it just can’t be done.

But I didn’t realize how addicted I was until this past summer, when I went to camp at the same time that the sixth movie came out.

At first, I wasn’t worried. I’d been planning this for years. Of course they’d take us to the movie premiere at midnight. I mean, it was journalism camp—we were word nerds. How could they not promote our love of fine literature by taking us to view cinema of almost equal quality?

Lord, was I wrong.

The movie came out the midnight between Wednesday and Thursday. They said we wouldn’t see it til Saturday afternoon. So for the duration of that half week, every time I logged on to Facebook I would see someone’s status commenting on the movie. Or whenever I browsed news sites, I’d see a link to another Harry Potter review. It was, putting things mildly, torture. I mean, sure I’d see the movie eventually. But it wouldn’t be as exciting as jolting myself with Coke and making Harry Potter jokes with an energized midnight movie crowd.

Saturday finally came. I wore my Gryffindor scarf as we proudly marched down the streets, bursting with excitement. (OK, maybe that last part was just me.) And I still loved the movie. It wasn’t the same as the book, but it was, after everything, worth the wait. Even if it had been three days, we were happy to be there. And it was the same movie.

It’s nice to see things right away, and often we really want to. But the experience of seeing Harry with a bunch of friends kind of does transcend time. It wasn’t the scenario that I had spent months envisioning, but it was still a blast. Because even if life turns out differently from how we anticipated it would, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

When the first part of the seventh movie comes out, I’ll be in college. But this time, I’ll miss a day of class if it means getting to go to the midnight screening.

I mean, really. Once is enough to learn that lesson.