Muggles, originally uploaded by Cracker and Cheese.

No, no, no, I don’t mean that he’s killed off or anything. I actually don’t know yet, since I am currently reading the Order of the Phoenix, but I am saying that attending the midnight release party for the Deathly Hallows last Friday is my end to Harry Potter month.

Since I had never been to one of these, I thought I might as well go to the last one because I was sure the weirdos would be coming out of the woodwork for it. Once Kim, Katie and I got there (at 9:30 pm), Borders was already packed with kids and adults all dressed up. I saw this little girl dressed up as Professor Trelawny so I had to tell her she had the best costume! Her mom was so happy that I complimented her daughter. There was a guy there who had a tattoo of the dark mark on the back of his calf, would have been way cooler if it was on his forearm. But the funniest thing that I saw there was this blond girl wearing this skimpy, tight red dress. I had to ask Kim who she was dressed up as and her answer was “A skank.” I wonder which book she was in.

Now, Kim and Katie dressed up as well (I passed on the offer for a tee-shirt, I just wanted to be an observer) and I thought they looked pretty cute, subtle, a little obscure reference but fun, nonetheless.

To have some semblance of order, everyone had a group number, in the order that they walked in. Each group number had about 30 people in it. Kim picked up her group number Friday morning around 11 and was in group 9. That means, at least 240 came by Borders before her. By the time we left, around 1:00 AM, they had given out up to group 26. That’s got to suck to be in that group. And just to be sure, nobody would accidentally open the boxes early:

And because I know that Kim and Katie would run straight home and not come out until they had finished the book, I suggested some reading on Saturday out by the pool. We had snacks, alcoholic drinks, the sun and the water. It was a perfect day! They read the last book while I finished the third book while Bob worked on his laptop. Everyone was hunky-dory, peachy-keen.

Due to the fact that you cannot escape Harry Potter during the month of July, I decided I might as well join the party. First of all, I began re-reading the books in preparation for the last one coming out on July 21. As of today, I just finished the first one which means I have one week left to read the rest of them. Yeah, not going to happen. Secondly, Kim and Katie came over Wednesday and Thursday to watch the four movies before watching the fifth one. Of course, I had to go with British food in honor of Harry Potter so Wednesday night was Shepard’s Pie (my first experience making and eating), Trifle (courtesy of Katie) and Kim brought butterbeer (butterscotch schnapps and cream soda). Wow! Surprisingly, butterbeer tastes wonderful! Thursday night was fish and chips, magic cookie bars and an encore of butterbeer. All of this hoopla led up to the 10:00 AM show today of the Order of the Phoenix! After watching it, I’m glad that I didn’t have a chance to read the book again before viewing it or else I would have been more outraged at the amount that was cut out. It’s a good thing I don’t seem to remember every detail of the book, only the general points. Other than that, it was awesome! I won’t say anything about it except that it was great, it did not disappoint and I can see why JK Rowling is rolling in the dough. Now, even though I did not pre-order the final book like the rest of the world, I will still attend the midnight party with Katie and Kim because I must have closure to this Potter-mania.