Getting Into Harry Potter

[Rames]

All stories have been added to the yearbooks now, and points have been awarded.

I just wanna remind everyone that absolutely everyone here has their own GiHP story, so don't procrastinate and write yours /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> In the end it's also worth 10 points for your house.

And please - read the initial post in this thread - please "sign" your post the way it is asked in there. This is part of the task and it is mandatory to get the full 10 house points. Thanks.

[Fumbly]

Fine fine fine... /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

It was the winter of 2000 and I'd been living with a set of borrowed Harry Potter books for several months. They were on loan from my in-laws, and with the books came frequent nagging sessions urging me to read and return them. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it... The cover art gave me the impression that Harry Potter was just TOO childish. (I still detest the American artist).

A nasty flu-bug finally forced me to crack open the world of Harry Potter instead of going to work. And I remained "sick" for about a week, strangely the same amount of time it took me to read the first four books. *G* I was hooked.

But, as I mentioned, I still can't stand the American art... I will always hold a grudge and blame Mary for delaying my introduction to Harry Potter.

/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

[Prof. Justin Hostutler]

Well, let's see... I must have gotten into Harry Potter just as the fourth book came out. We had to write a fictional story in 5th grade on what it would be like to go to Hogwarts... well, I hadn't read the books yet... so I made stuff up as I went along. After that, I decided I needed to buy one of the books. When I was at the grocery store later that day, I saw the fourth book sitting there. Well, I bought that book and tried to read it and understand everything that was going on in that book. Didn't work. I must have gotten to Chapter 2 and I just quit reading it. Well, shortly after that, I went out and bought the first book. BOOM! Instant obsession. I locked myself in my room, determined to finish that book. Well, I did, and I went out and bought the other two books. I finished all four books in a matter of a week and a half.


(Justin Hostutler, ju311, Hufflepuff)

[Laurenia Westmoreland]

Summer 2000: A German 10th class (students from 15-17) awaits the holidays. They await them desperately, especially because they hope to get rid of the quite annoying English teacher. But - oh no, he even forces a new book upon them. Harry Potter, a children's book, no less. The students, including me, are less than pleased, even though they have no clue what is it about, anyway.
When getting the task to write an obituary for a nameless character from a completely different story, the boy next to me spontanously names him Harry Potter.
So much for a positive attitute when starting a book, right? /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Anyway, I don't really remember reading the book. I knew I went through it fast. I started correcting the teacher about the pronunciation of the names, I think he never managed Gryffindor correctly. Somewhen I found out he didn't know half as much about the book as I did, because I had finished it weeks before he did. Well, what can I say? The addiction started without me noticing it /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

After the end of that class, I started reading book two and three, GOF came out not much later. I read book five the weekend I had three theatre performances. The only way to get my nose out of it was: "That's your cue, go on stage, NOW!"
Of course, my class and my friends frowned at me. Why reading even more of the book we had to do in class? Unbelievable. But on a party a few weeks ago I started chatting to one of my former classmates, and after a while, I seriously have no clue why, we discussed heatedly if Harry should be together with Cho or Ginny and what a cute couple Ron and Hermione would be. So, thankfully, I'm maybe not the only one who was not scared away by the nasty teacher but enchanted by the books /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

~Laurenia Westmoreland (Slytherin, la320, Germany)

[Prof. Cassandra Lobiesk]

I was always a fan of fantasy books. That childlike selfishness for the need of a good fantasy novel was always there to haunt me when I lacked books to read. And then, there was that time when I almost grew out of it. That was my 7th grade year, when I was only 13. For some reason, that fantasy lover in me was a bit subdued (perhaps from the many other interests I had, or perhaps from the lack of time to rekindle that love). Until, of course, Harry Potter came out.

I had first seen Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on a school book order form (my school sends their students book order forms to encourage to buy books and read them). At that time, I merely just flipped the page over, and didn't give the book a second glance. My sister seemed interested in it, and when she told me of her interest, I looked at her with distaste and told her that it was a 'kiddy' book. I had no idea that there would be a Harry Potter craze.

Then...one day, one of my friends was sitting on his chair, completely engrossed in an overly thick book. I was curious (I had an interest in many-paged books then, and I still do now), so I went over to him and looked at the title. To my surprise, it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I asked him if the book was good. He told me it was excellent. So...I decided that I'd read it for myself and see what on earth was good about it.

From that moment, when I read the first sentence, I knew that the book was going to be big. I mean, HOW can it not be? It was BRILLIANT. I loved it to pieces. Harry Potter became an addiction. The first book drove me to read more and more of the series. It fueled me back into the love of fantasy books I've almost lost and now regained. JK Rowling's novels became a masterpiece to me. A piece of art, a wonderful sonata. It was just amazing.

Cassandra Lobiesk (Ravenclaw, ca313, USA)

[Caitlin Caretis]

When I first got Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, it seemed like a great book I'd finish right away, even with my obsession of mediocre Babysitter's Club and similar books. I ended up getting to about Chapter 10. That was in 1999, I do believe. I finally ended up finishing the book that summer, and re read it over and over.

I hadn't even known there to be more books, I thought the first was the only. Evidently, I did not expect to be given the 2nd and third for Christmas that year. Had I known about more Harry books, I'd probably have demaded them all sooner. So, that Christmas, we opened our presents Christmas Eve, after Midnight Mass, as we normally did. Except for the one present my Mom made me leave for my Grandmother's house the next day.

It was easily the heaviest there for me, and that just made it intrigue me all the more. When I finally opened the gift near the fireplace, I found the two books and hugged my Mom harder than I had all holiday season. They were easily my favorite gift and I had them devoured in a matter of weeks. Since then, I've been obsessed with Harry Potter, Slytherin, Fanfictions, and anything possibly related to HOL.

Caitlin Caretis (Slytherin, ca416, USA )

[Angelina Osbourne]

As a little girl my mother used to say that I swallowed books whole, but when the first Harry Potter movie came out I hadn’t read a book for a while. I’d heard of Potter as just another book series, and I saw the first movie without understanding much of it. But I was planning on reading it *some* day, just not very soon, because I wasn’t too keen on reading at that point. Then I went to see Lord of the Rings, and suddenly I felt the need to read and had the joy of reading again.

A girl in my class (Zerah of Ravenclaw) kept bugging me to read Harry Potter, so I bought the first book, and instantly fell in love. They all were “swallowed wholeâ€Â￾. I stayed up at night reading, and put off school work for a while just because I was too caught up in the books to even think about anything else. Many months went by where you probably didn’t see me without by nose buried in a Potter book.

When I’d read the first four books four times through, I had to stop myself from reading them over again, in fear of getting tired of it. I probably don’t have to say that it worked, I’m still as exited as I were the first time I read them. But hey, I’m always glad to have something to add my geeky obsessions list /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

Angelina Osbourne (Slytherin, an311, Norway)

[Zerah Mandragoran]

I work in a bookshop, and when we first got the 3 first books in in Norwegian I dind't really care much for them. They looked like ordinary childrens books to me. This was in the summer of 1999 I think. Then I noticed that it was som kind of weird curiosity about the books, that lots of people were asking about them. I started wondering what was so grand about them, but didn't really bother to actually read them. Then, I got HPPS from my grandma for christmas the same year, and I ended up reading it 3 times in less than a week, and I didn't want to put it down. I was so hooked that I didn't read any other books than HP for about a year I think, because everything felt like rubbish in comparison. (Luckily that's changed now!!)

I was desperate to read the next two books, (this was waaaay before GoF was out in norwegian) but they were all out of the at the library, except PoA in english. I tried to get though it, but I'd never read a book in english before that so I had some problems. Luckily my mom is responsible for the library at the school she works, so I got to read them before she put them out there.

Started hanging around internet for more info (that's when I first found HPGalleries, which lead me to HOL btw) and heard about GoF, but thought I'd never get it in Norway (yeah, I didn't know that I could order it in english. Stupid me). Went to England as a language student that year, and ended up spending more time with my hostfamilys copy of GoF than with my fellow students. Realized that I'd missed out of very much by only reading then in norwegian, and when I got home it took me less than a month before I had the whole series in english.

Zerah Mandragoran (Ravenclaw, ze311, Norway)

[Julia Weflynn]

I was first introduced to Harry Potter when I was in sixth grade. Our school system has a sort of reading challenge, where you earn points for the books you read. My teacher thought it would be nice for the class to read a book together, so he decided to read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to us. However, we only made it through half of the book before it was banned from the school. Certain people thought the books were teaching "witchcraft" and weren't fit for its students to read.

A few years passed before I would actually be drawn to Harry again. The summer before my freshman year at high school, I was completely bored out of my mind. I was constantly looking for something to do, and complaining to my mother about it. "Why don't you read one of those 5,000 books you have piled up in your closet." she responded, while reading one of her magazines.

I reluctantly made my way to the closet to find a book that might interest me. I was hoping she would have said something like "Lets go to Cedar Point!," but I had no such luck. After nearly 10 minutes of searching, I came across my small stack of Harry Potter books. Since the sixth grade, I had received books 1-4 as gifts from my grandmother. I looked back to when we read the second book, and remembered how much I enjoyed it. Thinking it would be best to read them in order, and not confuse myself, I picked up the first book and began reading. I was hooked. The only thing I did for the next four days, was read Harry Potter, eat, take the occasional bathroom break, and sleep.

Once I had made it through the four books, I found that I had read myself into a corner. Not wanting to give up, I ran to the computer, and looked up anything I could find about Harry on the net. I was turning into one of my own worst nightmares... Like one of those people who base their life solely on a romance novel, only mine was Harry Potter. Needless to say, my fears did not hold me back, and I was officially an addict.

Julia Weflynn (Hufflepuff, ju404, USA)

[Brittany Halbrook]

Unlike most of you, I used to pretty much hate books. I thought they all were boring and there was always something better to do then READ. On my 11th bithday I received the first two Harry Potter books. (hahaha it is cool that I got introduced into witchcraft and wizardry at age 11.) So I read the first book just so I could tell my mommom, the one who gave it to me for my birthday, that I had. Unusually, I could NOT out the book down! I finished it in two days of almost non-stop reading!

After that, I was still reluctant to keep reading! I think the reason was, even though I loved the Harry Potter books, it made my life seem so boring. So like a year went by without continuing on. Then, one day after my Harry Potter fan- best friend was done telling me how good the books were I decided to read the secound. Then I read the third. Then in about ONE WEEK I had read the whole series that is out at this point! J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books got me more interested into other fantasy books. To this day now, I still LOVE and read fantasy's regularly! Luckily I found this site, and can LIVE HP, too.


My friends at school don't like books but I often find myself relating HP to the muggle world. Like just today we had to give example of the word "notorious" which means "known for bad conduct, trouble maker" So when my teacher was nameing people like in jail and bad guys in movies I shouted out "Fred and George Weasly." The whole class laughed. I officially consider myself a Harry Potter nut.

Brittany Halbrook (br482, Gryffindor, USA)

[Prof. Angel A. Elendili]

Getting into Harry Potter

Ahhh, now I do believe I need to retitle this to Getting into Severus Snape. Hehe, yes, I started out by reading the books...and I was on the edge of my seat at the release date of every one. But, truth be told JKR drew me in with Snape...being an obsessive Snape-fan scowering the net for Snape-sites and forums and fan-fiction is what really got me into the HP world. JKR is leading us slowly through a wonderful adventure, with great lessons and intriguing charactors. I started out on discussion boards that basically analised him until there was just nothing left of him to pick apart. So, once I exhausted all the Snape outlets I could find I begrudgingly went on to other charactors. Luckily, I loved doing that too. Eventually HOL, Rps, and fanfiction came into play too. Fun ways to live inside the magic of HP everday.

I was into Harry Potter more than my children, and in my mind that just would not do. /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" /> So, (as I was homeschooling my children) I assigned the first book. They of course loved it. Then we even read the the rest of them outloud together, taking turns with every chapter. Ever since we started reading together, Harry Potter not only became my little obsession, it's now big part of our shared family culture in way. As huge a fan-base as it has...It seems to be a part of our family that others can't always relate to. But, getting into Harry Potter has been one of the best things that could have happened to me/us because it has actually brought my family that much closer together and gives us a common ground which we all can connect on.

Professor Angel Archer Elendili, pr_ele, Ravenclaw, USA

[Ryan Lobiesk]

When I was in third grade, I heard a lot of how good the Harry Potter Series was and *I*, who wasn't very much of a fan of books back then, didn't really seem to care. Later that year for Christmas, I got the 1st book and my brother got the 2nd book. Once again, my brother and I really didn't care and just put the book somewhere.
One day when I was really bored I decided to read the 1st book...I managed to finish it but I didn't understand it. So yet again I just put it back where the other books were.

Two years later, the first movie came out and since I wasn't a fan, I really didn't want to watch it in theaters so I waited until the DVD came out. I immediately bought and watched the Harry Potter DVD when it came out and was hooked! In less then 3 days I finished the 2nd book. hehe..I then pestered my mom to buy me the 3rd and 4th book. I had to wait for like a week (it felt more like a month X__X) The day finally came and I received the 3rd and 4th book and finished it in about a week. I guess now I'm a potterholic? ^__^

Ryan Lobiesk (ry370, Ravenclaw, USA)

[Valentina McKnight]

Well, I remember hearing about the Harry Potter phenomenon when I was a freshman in high school. I had friends that went absolutely bananas when the movies came out; I just kind of sat & looked at them funny. What was the big deal about these books, anyway?

I politely ignored everything until my senior year in high school ( last year). I happened to catch the 1st movie on Cinemax one Saturday, and started watching it. I realized it wasn't so bad, and decided to give the books a go. I was more of a Lord of the Rings fan at the time, and was about halfway through Return of the King when I got interested in the HP books. I stopped reading ROTK and read all 4 HP books that were out in the span of about 2 weeks. Needless to say, I was hooked. I must have read all 4 about 3 times that year. And then *dum dum DUM* OoTP came out. Woot!!

Valentina McKnight ( Ravenclaw, va480, USA )

[Pezzie Wolfe]

I'm guessing the year that I first picked up the first Harry Potter was in 1998 or 1999. I believe a friend told me about the books. So I read the first year. I was hooked. I read the first three books and knew I found a new favorite series!

I found it to be an escape to go to Hogwarts and visit with Harry and his friends. Feel what they feel on adventures and more!

I had done searches online for more Harry Potter fun. I remember before the first movie came out I would get the collector stones or by anything that had Harry Potter on it...or look at them.

I then thought it would be fun to find a Hogwarts on line...I did find HOL back in 2001 or 2002...I was like joing to join, but sign up was over...I got busy with R/L and it wasn't till August 2003 when I checked in again and signed up. I'm glad I did!

Getting into Harry Potter has been the greatest experience to happen in my life so far!

Prof. Pezzie Wolfe (Gryffindor, pr_pez USA)

[Prof. Cosmo B. Mott]

Putting off Potter

Gee, how did I get into Harry Potter? It's only been about a year for me. (A year? Has it been that long? It seems like only yesterday....) And what a year it's been!

I first heard about them when the first movie came out. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed or interested. I didn't care that the second film was released. I just rolled my eyes when the commercials came on.

Two of my good friends are fans of the books, and I'd hear them talking about them. Being a fan of L.M. Montgomery and little else when it comes to books, I didn't really think too much about the series, figuring it just wasn't my thing. I went home for several months, leaving my Potter-fan friends back at school.

When I returned to school for my last semester, one of the benefits of my apartment was that HBO was included in the cable system without the hassle of the monthly fees. I ended up watching a lot of random movies. Curious about the schedule, I looked up the listings and saw they were airing Sorcerer's Stone a couple of times. I figured, hey, why not? It's free. I can tape it, watch it, and tape over it if I don't like it. No harm done.

Even then, it took me about a month to get around to watching it. During this time, my two friends and the Institute director were already starting to talk about Order of the Phoenix. One of my friends got the hardcover box set of the first four books. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

So, I watched the movie with my other friend, who made sure to fill me in on all the details the movie left out. I found that I really enjoyed the movie. I decided, since the pocket paperback was available, I'd buy it and actually read the darn thing.

Still, it took me a while to read the first book, what with school projects and all (plus a desire not to "cheat" on the other book I was trying to read-- Fellowship of the Ring-- a task that was soon abandoned). In the meantime, I bought the DVD of both movies.

Finally, as the semester was winding down and I'd finished my big project, I started reading Sorcerer's Stone. It went so quickly! So, I picked up a pocket paperback copy of Chamber of Secrets as well. That tided me over until after graduation, when I bought copies of Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. I only had a little over a month to wait until Order of the Phoenix was released. In that time, I read the four books... five times each, I believe. I discovered web sites devoted to the series. I was eager for any news on the books and movies, for commentary and analysis. I even came across this lovely site back then.

Now, I am eager for the release of the next movie and for news about the next book. Sadly, the only people in my life who share my love of and fascination with Harry Potter live far away from me. My family's not interested (though I got my parents to watch the movies, which they enjoyed), so I'm often mocked for it. But I will prevail against their slings and arrows because I have experienced the true magic within Harry Potter.

Cosmo Brown (Hufflepuff, co483, USA )

[Tawny Tonks]

It all started the first week of 7th grade. We had to go and buy a book to read during our reading class. Well my friend Melissa and I went together. When we got there they had alot of Harry Potter books set out. I just walked right past them and went to look at the mysterys. About twenty minutes later I still hadn't found anything I would like so I went to ask Melissa if she had found anything and she showed me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So we both decided to get it.


Well about two weeks went by and I hadn't read any of it because I didnt think I would like it. and one day the teacher was calling on people to tell the class about thier books. So while everyone else was talking I started reading in like the 6th chapter so that when she called on me I could tell her something about it. I really liked it so I went back to the first chapter and read the whole book and I fell in love with Harry Potter. I was constantly reading the books that year and I still do now!

[Pandora Boxtrott]

My mother teaches 4th grade, and she used to read a chapter a day for the kids during class. She always knows about what books are big with kids. They loved it, and so did she, so she brought it home for me, and I was so into it that I finished it that night! I've been reading faithfully ever since...even though I'm 23.. hehe

[Rames]

All stories added to the yearbook now - up to this point /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

[Arwen Wood]

How fun!!!!

How did I get into Harry Potter? I was out shopping one day at a discount store looking for sandles to wear for vacation. I was in the check-out line and say Goblet of fire sitting there. Now I had heard of Harry Potter but never really thought anything of it. People talked about it at work bit I always sorta shrugged it off. No biggie. Had no interest in it. anyway. I was standing there in line and picked the book up. I read the little flap that talked about the story. Sounded interesting. It was cheap. (15 dollars or so) So I bought it. Wow!! What an amazing book it was!!! I think I read it 3 times before I actually went out and bought the other 3 books. So now i've read all of them at least 3 times. Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire are my favorite so far. /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

That is all. Short and sweet.

Arwen Wood (Hufflepuff, ar418, USA)

[Ilona Littrell]

All stories added to the yearbook now - up to this point /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Um...Rames?


I posted mine a while ago, and you haven't added mine... ?
it's not in my year book.

I know I'm probably not supposed to post about it here, but you could just delete this afterward. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />