The End of an Era.

13 years.

3407 pages.

17 hours and 28 minutes.

The end is here.

*tear*

I have my tickets to the 12:01 a.m. showing, and the day off of work tomorrow (which isn't quite as nerdy as it sounds-- my summer hours allow for every other Friday off and this one happens to coincide with the movie). I won't be going so far as to dress up for the premiere (although I joked to my husband that I wanted to dress as a snitch), but I have entertained the idea of whipping up a treacle tart and mixing up some butterbeer.

In all honesty, it is a bit bittersweet for me. I started reading Harry Potter in 1999 as a sophomore in high school, while I was working at my first job in a toy store and happened to catch wind of the initial buzz about the series before it became a household name. I have so many memories of staying up late to read the books for hours on end, spending the night in a bookstore with hundreds of kids waiting for the latest release (being utterly entertained by the costumes and general mayhem), getting my husband so hooked the series that he's reread each of the books 5 or 6 times, and going to the movie premieres with my college friends with lightning bolts drawn on our foreheads with eyeliner.  I'm so grateful for the series for bringing the love of reading and such a sense of collective excitement to so many over the past 13 years... even if it feels like a little piece of my youth will be gone after tomorrow.

{I'm totally going to bawl.}