I was out of the loop until about the time the fourth book was released. I would have most likely said something like, “Harry Potter who?â€￾ before that point.
I started hearing more and more about it and wondered why on earth it was so popular. I didn’t read them though because of the things I had heard.
Being Christian, things like Harry Potter aren’t exactly talked about nicely. As I heard more about it I mostly heard it from the Christian media. I was brainwashed to think that Harry Potter was bad and they had several twisted points to supposedly prove it.
It was a few weeks before the sixth book was released that I sat down and watched about an hour of the beginning of the first movie. It immediately caught my attention and left me wondering why the Christians were so frazzled about it.
I told my mom all about it, I was already hooked. My mom didn’t care whether I read them or not, as long as she didn’t catch getting on a plane to England and trying to run between platforms nine and ten, she was okay with it.
The week that book six was released I got a paperback copy of the first book and started reading it to see if I liked it.
I immediately decided I needed the others. By the end of summer I had seen the first two movies and read the first three books. I read books four and five that fall and saw the third movie. I’d never read books that big all the way through, not to mention so fast. I actually get mad that I read them so fast because they end so soon.
Since all my books were paperback I was going to wait until book six was in paperback so I occupied myself with Harry Potter fan fiction, fan sites and general Harry Potter information. My mom and I even went to see the fourth movie in the theater.
By January I bought the hardback copy of book six just because I couldn’t wait any longer. I’m now collecting the hardback versions of the books and read them very carefully as not to damage to book in any way.
These books grab my attention like no other book has. I was depressed for two days when I got to the part where Sirius died and was practically yelling at Snape when he killed Dumbledore.
I’m now extremely obsessed and Harry Potter is right up there with oxygen, okay, not quite, but still.
I got into it just because I was being a rebel and wanted to prove the Christian media wrong. Through that I learned a lesson though. That lesson being that I’m not going to take opinions like that to heart until I can come to a decision for myself.
Christians may think that Harry Potter is a bad influence, but I’ve actually been able to see things that tie into my faith.
I’m now a full-fledged Harry Potter fan. While I don’t intend to do anything too radical to prove myself a fan, I do have a tendency to make utterly random Harry Potter references, from calling the stray black dog in my neighborhood Padfoot to yelling ‘accio’ when I want something, I never cease to make my parents roll there eyes at me and make my friends wonder what on earth I’m talking about.

Ellie Lovegood (Ravenclaw, el698, USA)

Mine should be easy to pronounce, I hope.

Ellie. Just say the letter L and then the letter E.
Lovegood. Just say the word love and then the word good.

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I chose Ellie because it's one of my nicknames. Short for Ellen.
And Lovegood because I'm a lot like Luna. I can be quite weird sometimes.