When Harry Met Andy
On August 16, 2014, life wasn’t exactly going to plan.
My husband and I had recently relocated from Indianapolis, our home of nearly a decade, to Minneapolis, and the transition was anything but smooth.
We had both started new jobs that, very quickly, we could tell were not going to work out. The passive aggressive “Minnesota Nice,” was off-putting, and shifting from a single-family home to communal condo living was more of an adjustment than anticipated.
After two months, the word “mistake” was being tossed around, and knowing that we needed to stay in place for at least five years sunk us both into depression. One saving grace was my brother and his family were close by, so becoming hands-on guncles was a tangible way to distract from our new reality.
When my niece, nine-years-old at the time, mentioned she was going to start reading Harry Potter, I offered to buddy read it with her even though I wasn’t particularly interested in the series.
The first book was published in the United States when I was 16, and my tastes at the time were more aligned to classic Stephen King than a fantastical boy wizard and his hijinks.
Throughout the 2000s, I was aware of Pottermania, especially when the latest installments were published and films released, but I had no FOMO. While I did watch the first film, it was a struggle to see what all the fuss was about.
Then Harry Potter re-entered my life at the perfect time. My need for a distraction from reality, a desire to bond with my niece and interest in getting back on a regular reading cadence (it had been two years since I finished a book), all factored in to my quick agreement to tackle more than 4,000+ pages.
There was no goal or timeline for completion when I cracked open the first paperback. I honestly wasn’t even sure I was going to finish the series after “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Chamber of Secrets” left me underwhelmed.
But as summer turned to fall and fall to winter, my appreciation for the world J.K. Rowling created started to take hold, and by the time I finished “Goblet of Fire” – my favorite of the entire series – I was completely and unabashedly a fan.
So much so that I convinced my husband to also start reading the series, and he quickly caught up with me. With “Half Blood Prince” we reached the point where we had to check out a copy from the library because we wanted to read it at the same time.
Entire weekends would be spent reading in silence next to each other on the couch, and then our evenings were a dissection of what we had just read and the broader mythology that was starting to unfold.
We took about every Harry Potter-focused quiz, primarily from Buzzfeed and Pottermore, getting answers to pressing questions, like what is your Hogwarts house (both Slytherins), and your cat’s Hogwarts house (also both Slytherins), your patronus (Scottish deerhound, although I prefer a snow leopard), wand core (dragon heartstring), favorite spell (Expelliarmus) and the animal you’d bring to Hogwarts (a cat, duh).
While we felt alone in the broader context of our adopted home city, socially isolated and professionally unfulfilled, Harry Potter brought us together in a way that few things in our relationship had before or done since.
The series gave us a purpose and connected us to something bigger when we needed it most. It was a shared positive experience, a bright spot amongst the negativity, and an excuse to stay home without guilt for not trying to ingratiate ourselves to the few fledgling friendships we had cultivated when our heart wasn’t in it.
I will never, ever forget what that felt like.
On February 15, 2015, almost six months to the day that I picked up "The Sorcerer's Stone" I finished the series. It left me with equal parts relief and rue that something that become such a big part of our lives – and a wonderful escape – was over.
Six years later my niece hasn’t finished the series, but its magic still isn’t lost on us. Harry Potter remains a strong bond between me and my husband. We regularly talk about it, purchase Potter-themed art (mostly Slytherin), watch the movies, attend the occasional local event and even traveled to New York City to see “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway in April 2019.
Many people that read the series as young adults and teens share how it made them feel less alone and hopeful they could overcome the challenges in their life. As 30-somethings we felt the same way, which speaks to the power of J.K. Rowling’s writing.
Life did get better in Minneapolis, but it took almost three years before it felt like home. We made fantastic, lifelong friends, and I found the closest thing I could to a dream job. When it was time to relocate to Iowa in late 2019, I was truly sad to leave the city and the life we created behind. Still, I’ll never forget those early days, and how the first friends we made in Minnesota – Harry, Hermione and Ron – made all the difference.
