Finite Incantatem

I swore I wasn't going to do it. I said I would savor it, take my time, relish every word.

It didn't happen.

I reread the series, cover to cover, starting last week. I finished book 6 Thursday night. With shaking hands, I slowly opened the book at lunch on Friday and began to read. The end of my lunch hour came too soon.

Around 10:00 I hit page 200-something and there was a lull in the story. I turned to my wife and said "Good, I can get some sleep now."

No sooner had I gone upstairs than the book was open again. So I turned on the TV in the background. Maybe I could distract myself to the point I could put it down.

When Conan came on I thought, maybe I should go to sleep now. But my heart was literally pounding. I couldn't stop thinking about the book.

Conan ended and I turned off the TV. Big mistake. Now there was nothing to distract me. My heart rate hadn't dropped. I had to know what happened.

At 4:30, I found myself cheering out loud through a massive lump in my throat as the book reached its conclusion. Everything was coming to a brilliant resolution. By 5:00 I had finished slowly reading the epilogue. I closed the book and sat there staring at the back cover. It was over. Those characters whom I had come to feel were good friends had reached the end of their wonderful journey. As much as the ending was perfect, I still felt a sense of loss.

Of course, the beauty of books is that you can come back and visit your friends again and again, and relive their trials and triumphs.

J.K. Rowling, God bless you. You have made the whole world a little better by showing us that magic is possible, and that nothing is greater than Love.

Comments

Cat Herself said…
Delightfully true, isn't it? Marvelous story from beginning to end. But still - who put more potion into that bowl???

:-)
August 3, 2007 at 12:55 AM
Steve said…
While it's earned me much derision in certain circles, I still haven't read a word of this series...
August 10, 2007 at 3:38 PM
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