What do you say after almost a dozen years of fandom “officially” closes? How do you say goodbye to the characters with whom you’ve literally grown up? How much emotion are you allowed for characters who, while fictional, show real strength, real courage and real care? These were among the questions that haunted me on my drive back from the Harry Potter 7.2 midnight premiere. Actually, I didn’t think of these things at all. I just thought of them now. I was too busy trying to focus on staying awake for what was supposed to be a 2 hour drive.
My brother Matthew was asleep in the passenger seat beside me, and my friend Andy aka Leroy (long story) was sleeping in the back seat. We were driving back from Woodland, about 15 minutes north of UC Davis, where my brother goes to school. Even though it’s summer, my brother’s Lion Dance Club meets weekly, and in his two weeks back from Vietnam, he asked me to drive him to both meetings.
For convenience’s sake, we decided to watch the midnight showing in Davis, since seating would be nonexistent in San Jose if we decided to drive back after his meeting was over at 10. Naturally, we bought our tickets about 48 hours before the showing, which turned out to be “last-minute” because almost every theater within 100 miles of San Jose was sold out. Luckily, we were able to find tickets at a 5 theater cinema in Woodland, which after some Googling, we decided was convenient enough for us.
The tricky part was that we couldn’t stay in Davis for the night, like Mat and I did the week before, since Mat needed to catch a flight to Spain the following afternoon. Friday flights are always hectic, but as is my filial duty, I knew I had to agree, at least in order to spend time with my brother before he leaves for a 5 week pilgrimage to Europe. It was especially difficult for my mother, having raised two college-aged boys. She rarely saw her children during the school year, and now one was perpetually abroad for summer as well.
Indeed, the two weeks in between my brother’s Vietnam trip and his Europe trip seemed more like the vacation than the homestay. But this isn’t about that. It’s about our midnight showing trip with our childhood friend, Andy.
The reason why the Harry Potter characters are so indelibly ingrained into our emotional psyche is that they are the loyalest friends we have. From ten years ago, I can probably only count one hand’s worth of close friends who maintained their closeness throughout the time. But Hogwarts housed all our friends, some of whom left, but most of whom stayed with us. Even when the books ended, we still had the movies to watch, to meet again our old friends, who have never, ever let us down, unlike many of our “real-life” friends.
That’s why we’re so obsessed, see? We call ourselves the “Harry Potter” generation. We put each other in different Houses (even though no one really wants to be in Hufflepuff, which I never understood). We dress up and we daydream about the wizarding world, bask in both its perils and luxuries. We do it because of the people, who are at once so intrinsically different yet so instantly and believably similar to how we are and most importantly, how we want to be. They are our friends, and have been for far longer than most of our “real” friends.
So when I drove home, with Mat and Andy sleeping in the car, I felt a certain love I reserve for very few people in the world. Andy and Mat are two of only a few people whom I can call lifelong friends, though in Mat’s defense, it wasn’t by choice. Regardless, though, it’s these kind of relationships that are the most important. They are not the bright flashes of brilliance you see in a firework, bursting into blinding colors, but fading quickly, making the night seem darker somehow than it was before. No, these relationships are the sun and the moon, steady and unyielding and reliable, no matter the time of day and the distance. They will always appear.
And in a way, Harry and his friends were the same. They were always reliable, and we love them for that.
So when I dropped Andy home, what he said and how we responded was both poignant and hilarious.
“Mat,” he said with his door ajar, facing the walkway into his home. It was 4:35, and certainly his parents were asleep.
“Mat, I won’t see you for 5 weeks, so be safe in Europe, okay?”
“Yeah…” Mat muttered, still half-asleep. They hugged despite the passenger seat’s backrest obstructing them. The hug lacked awkwardness only because of how long they had known each other, a feat you can’t do with an acquaintance.
“Take it easy,” I told Andy, and offered my hand for a shake.
“Yeah, I’ll see you around.” He took a step outside and paused.
“Oh, yeah,” he paused. “Mischief managed.”
“Mischief managed,” we both replied in unison without skipping a beat. He closed the door, and walked toward his house.
Mischief managed.
Thanks, Harry. Thanks, friends.
Mischief managed.
Goodnight.
