Growing up with Harry Potter

From the NY Times:

Growing Up With a Dose of Magic by Kaavya Viswanathan

I wish I could say I started reading Harry Potter before the mania hit, but the first time I ever heard about the books was months after the release of "Sorcerer's Stone," when I ran across a small display table at the local Barnes & Noble. I read the jacket flap, decided not to buy a copy, and forgot all about Harry Potter.

It wasn't until "Chamber of Secrets" hit best-seller lists, the summer before I began eighth grade, that my dad brought the first two books home and persuaded me to read them. Within three chapters of "Sorcerer's Stone," I had jumped on the Potter bandwagon, little realizing that more than an innocent - and forgettable - children's series, "Harry Potter" would prevail as my favorite through adolescence and into adulthood in a world that doesn't feel so safe anymore.

I spent $17.95 of my own allowance to buy a copy of "Prisoner of Azkaban," broke every lights-out rule at sleep-away camp by reading under the covers till dawn, then promptly (and unethically) returned the day-old book for a refund. When "Goblet of Fire" was announced, I ordered my copy a month in advance and waited impatiently on my doorstep for the U.P.S. truck. And by the time "Order of the Phoenix" finally hit stores, I was in line at my local bookstore by 10 p.m. the night before the release date. My three best friends and I shrieked when midnight arrived, abandoned all dignity and scrambled over 10-year-olds in our mad rush to the counter, then stayed up all night reading.

Even though I'm now in college, and buried in a reading list that's more Proust than Potter, I made sure I got my copy of the "Half-Blood Prince" on July 16 and seriously considered taking a day off from my job to read. Every Harry Potter remains compelling, especially because I feel as if I've grown up with Harry. Throughout elementary and middle school, I had read the "Little House on the Prairie" series and the "Chronicles of Narnia," Roald Dahl and the eternal "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, but these were finite, already completed series. I never doubted that Frodo would eventually destroy the ring, or that Aslan would save the day; there was no risk of unforeseen plot twists, no tantalizing feeling that I didn't quite know what was around the corner.

But Harry's development followed my own. Of course, the long waits between books meant that I aged faster than he did, but I never lost the feeling that each Harry Potter story was relevant to my life. With the "Sorcerer's Stone," Harry and I were both young, still bubbling over with excitement and discovery, certain that every story had a happy ending. I saw "Prisoner" end with a sympathetic character on the run despite his innocence, and realized with a pang that life really wasn't always fair.

And by the end of the "Half-Blood Prince," I came to the same heart-wrenching realization as Harry - that parents and friends and mentors couldn't always be shields, that some things you just had to experience and overcome on your own. Sure, my freshman year romantic heartbreak wasn't in the same category as Harry's life-or-death struggle with Lord Voldemort, but it was nice to know that my life and Harry's enchanted universe had something in common - not everything was perfect.

That knowledge has been especially driven home during the last few years. As a 12-year-old, I relished the Harry Potter novels as simple outlets of escape. The first few books were enchanting because of J. K. Rowling's extravagantly imagined universe, which tempted me to dive in with no thought of resurfacing. But especially from the fourth book on, Harry's world grew successively darker, and all of a sudden, far from being complete flights of fantasy, the novels became a reflection of reality.

The Death-Eater attacks ravaging Harry's world bear a frightening resemblance to today's terrorism, and scenes where Hermione scans the daily paper for the latest casualty toll must have been achingly recognizable to thousands of American families reading the headlines about Iraq. In eighth grade it had been easy to put off studying for a geometry test in favor of a trip to magical Diagon Alley, but it wasn't so easy to forget about Sept. 11 and subway bombings, especially when Harry was struggling with loss and betrayal and the wizarding world was its own war zone.

So why did I keep reading? Considering our current international atmosphere of fear and terror, where every week seems marked by security alerts and suicide bombings, it seems counterintuitive to seek fantasy that faithfully mirrors an increasingly grim reality.

But if Harry Potter is a reminder that not even magic can solve everything, it is also a promise of hope, sustaining the fundamental childhood belief that in the end, good really does triumph over evil, and justice is meted out to those who deserve it. Harry is an endearingly normal hero, enduring the same romantic insecurities, friendship pressures and temper tantrums that I encounter all the time, and it is oddly comforting to think that such a seemingly ordinary boy could achieve the extraordinary.

Each time I reread a Harry Potter novel, I am reminded of the ability of everyday people to reach unprecedented heights for a cause they believe in, as well as of the importance of love, friendship and loyalty - qualities as essential to the wizarding struggle as to our own. Even adults like to think that somehow, everything will be all right.

(Kaavya Viswanathan, a sophomore at Harvard, is the author of the forthcoming novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.")