ALL IS WELL

You wake up minutes before the time you set your cellphone to alarm the night before. It is still dark outside and you can hear your roommate snoring on the other side of the room. The clock of your cellphone, which is just behind the headboard, read: 5:30am. You could still close your eyes for another minute of sleep but then a lot of things had been going on in your mind, which is the very reason why you wake up unusually this early even though today is Saturday
Things are rushing in your mind like the first time you read the book—you were not yet in high school then—and you believed that you were the only one in school who knew Harry Potter.
You fell in love to the Boy-Who-Lived and the fact that you wore glasses made you fantasized that you were the real Harry Potter. When you read the first book, it was you that you imagined living on the closet under the staircase of the Dursley, it was you who ate the Every Flavor Beans and Chocolate Frogs inside Hogwarts Express, that it was you who caught the Golden Snitch and brought victory to Gryffindor.
If only you have a lightning bolt-shaped scar on your forehead, then you have all the reason to believe that an owl will soon come to your house at daytime to deliver your letter from Hogwart.
When you were in second year high school you covered the bulletin board of your classroom with cutout pictures of Harry Potter and at that time many still don’t know him and a classmate thought that Harry Potter was your personal pseudonym, that you were just making it up.
But later that year the movie came out and that was the start of the hype. Everybody knew Harry Potter. Everybody claimed they were Harry Potter. And you felt betrayed, cheated. You felt that what was yours was taken away from you and claimed by everyone else. Now that everybody loved Harry Potter, you didn’t find it cool anymore.
You still buy yourself copies though and you still love the book more than the Goosebumps that you used to collect when you were in elementary.
Deep inside you, you still tell yourself that you are Harry Potter and that you are the only one with authority to be called as a fan since you know that you were the first to read and love the books than anyone you know.
You’ve been saving your allowance for months just to buy the fifth and sixth books on the first day of its release.
Now that the Deathly Hallows will be released any minutes from now, you think that buying the book would be the perfect gift that you could give to yourself since it was your birthday a week ago.
You check again the time on your cellphone: 5:45am.
You could still go back to sleep but your feeling of excitement overcomes your desire to doze. So you jump off your bed and instantly take a shower.
After changing your clothes, you check again the time: 6:15am.
The bookstore will open at 7am and you need to be there the moment it opens its door. This is the last of the saga, everything will wrap up today and you have a mix feeling on this. Harry Potter became part of you adolescent years, the years you experienced all the turbulence a confused, curious mind could have. These days, just when you turned 20, you realize that Harry Potter has somehow defined your teenage years. Your fascination toward the books can be matched up to the fascination you had toward Ninja Turtles when you were still a kid, but minus the Ninja Turtles outfits you wore from head to toe.
Time check: 6:17am.
You are sitting on your desk, waiting for the time to near 7am since the bookstore is just a walking distance away from your dormitory. Your roommates are still sleeping.
Who will die in the book? Will Hermione really die as what the spoilers from the internet say? Who will die between Harry and Voldemort? Of course Voldemort will die, he is the bad guy… but Harry may also die and JK Rowling could always come up with a good reason if it will happen….
Time check: 6:20am.
Is the time even moving?
What will happen to Dobby? Did Dumbledore really die? How about Sirius Black? What will happen to the Dursley at Number 4 Privet Drive? Is Snape really on Voldemort’s or Dumbledore’s side?
Time check: 6:26am.
You start to become sentimental. Harry Potter will end, it keeps on repeating in you mind.
Harry Potter will end.
You remember Harry when he was still a baby and how Hagrid brought him to Privet Drive through a flying motorcycle. How the glass wall in the zoo disappeared on the thin air and setting free a snake that caused panic to Aunt Petunia. How Harry ran straight through the platform between 9 and 10 to reach platform 9¾ at King Cross station. How Harry learned to plant Mandrakes without becoming deaf. How Harry first mounted on a broomstick and how he received a Nimbus 2000 as gift from Professor McGonaggal.
Time check: 6:33am.
In high school you were at rage when the book was banned by private schools, saying that it was satanic and all those crappy claims. When your friends borrowed from you the book, you would instruct them to carefully read the book in such a way that there would be no creases on its spine when they open it.
In high school, you read the Sorcerer’s Stone eight times, the Chamber of Secrets six times, as well as the Prisoner of Azkaban, and four times for the Goblet of Fire.
Harry Potter will end.
You feel that after all those books, you already know Harry Potter like a best friend. And now that it will end, you feel that are about to bid goodbye.
Time check: 6:42am.
Now it is time to go to the bookstore. You step out of your room and the lobby is very quite, everyone is still sleeping.
Outside, the morning is sultry even though the sun has just risen. Your excitement has doubled this time. You seem to be walking unconsciously in the school campus because you can’t clear off your mind the thought of finally reading the last of the series.
Who will die in the book? Will it be Hermione or Ron? How about between Harry and Voldemort?
You hardly notice the first year students crowding at the Amphitheater for their NSTP.
Did Dumbledore really die? How about Sirius black? What will happen to the Dursley at Number 4 Privet Drive? Is Snape really evil?
Your feet seem to do all the walking because the next thing you know you are already standing outside National Bookstore, which is just outside the campus.
Time check: 7:03am.
The security guard opens the glass door and you enter, seeing that there is already a line of people at the cashier. You see familiar faces, but you miss to give a smile since you hurriedly walk directly to the Customer Service counter and you show to them your reservation receipt.
After you pay the rest of the amount at the cashier (you have a 10% discount, by the way), you have your first glimpse of the book, and its orange jacket seem to glow before your eyes as the lady put it inside the cellophane. You instantly get your book and you can’t wait to open it, to smell its pages, to scan the content, to savor the words.
You hope your LitCritter meeting today will be cancelled so that you could read the book for the whole day, uninterrupted.
Shit you still need to edit articles for the Weekly Sillimanian.
But you can deal with that later.
What you need now is coffee. And at once, you are walking toward Dunkin Donut, the first place that comes into your mind that is open at this time. You order the biggest cup, find yourself a seat and right away take the book out of its red plastic bag.
You run your hand on the jacket to feel its texture before opening it.
And now you are finally reading it as if the book is about to reveal the greatest secret of the universe.