Expelliarmus!

I’ve just emerged from a solid 20-or-so hour immersion in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. If you’re at all invested, and/or are a slower reader than me, don’t worry: No spoilers in this post.

Now that I’m done, I can make note of an odd sensation that was with me from the afternoon leading up to the book’s release, to the present: excitement to finish the book that was not purely due to the pleasures of the story, but to the fear of the ending being revealed to me.

Friday afternoon, Ashleigh mentioned in an e-mail hearing a horror story about people standing in line outside Barnes and Noble, just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, suffering the disappointment of a car full of teenagers driving past and shouting, “[Main character] dies! [Other main character] kills him!” Swearing we would not leave ourselves open to similar, outrageous behavior, we bypassed the whole midnight festivities, which had looked fun when we’d stopped in earlier in the afternoon. (I did, however, apply a temporary tattoo, which did me fairly well as a visible token of my enthusiasm.)

I finished the book in a cemetery not far from my house, and the paranoia I’d felt for the last day and a half was made manifest by the tension that would creep up every time a car would creep along the path, or people out for a stroll would pass by. I found myself hiding the front of the book, lest one of the passersby should feel moved to shout, “[Pithy but utterly complete revelation of the entire surprise ending of the book]!” At one point a car passed by, out of which a dog was sticking its head; the dog barked and for the instant before my brain translated the sound, I was sure the noise was meant only to get my attention before explaining what the deal was with Snape, or which of the series’ main characters would die.

I’m glad to have devoured the book and for there to be no secrets that might be spoiled for me, but a very small part of my current feeling of relief is something like regret at having finished so quickly and due to feelings of paranoia rather than pure blissful absorption. In my mind I had compared the book to things like the conclusion of Six Feet Under, or the twists in movies like The Crying Game, The Usual Suspects, and Audition. But none of those was as big as the Potter franchise and none, except maybe Six Feet Under, had as big or as emotionally involving a build-up.

None of those things, either, attracted the kind of little brat who would laughingly spoil the pleasures of surprise for others. I got a text message from Ashleigh on Saturday afternoon: “OMG our fears were legit–some little asshole is at the airport bookstore flipping to the last page–I put my earphnes [sic] on and ran.”