The girls went on vacation, I went to Hogwarts

The girls have been gone all week, on vacation with my mom.  They’ve been down in Branson playing mini golf, seeing acrobats, swimming and eating and laughing and having a blast.  On their way home the girls wanted to detour through Joplin to see the recovery from the tornado.  So, Mom, being Grandma, indulged them. Clearly.

In the meantime I’ve had a quiet house, where I don’t have to cook dinner every night and I don’t have to do dishes ever night (because there aren’t any) and the television hasn’t been turned on since they left.  Sounds boring doesn’t it.

Actually, it’s been peaceful.  Well except for the prisoner escaping from Azkaban, all the classes at Hogwarts, saving the Sorcerer’s Stone, Buckbeak, Ginny Weasley, meeting He-Who-Must-N0t-Be-Named.  Yes, I’m reading the entire Harry Potter series.

I have read the series before, but never beginning to end.  I read each book as I got them, but as those die-hard Harry Potter fans know, they weren’t released any closer together than the movies.  It was a long wait between books, much like Harry’s summers spent on Privit drive.  It seemed endless.

But reading the books now, one after the other, and knowing how the story ultimately ends, the magic that JK Rowling put into those books is so magnificent and brilliant and moving and touching.  And not just the wizard magic.  The magic of friendships, and loyalty, and love.

I haven’t seen the final movie yet.  I want to read the books, the entire series, first before I go see the movie.  I want the entire story to be fresh in my mind.  I want to have lived Harry, Ron and Hermione in my head throughout their entire career at Hogwarts before I go and see the final battle.