End of an era
Young and old reflect on final installment of magical Harry Potter series
The Harry Potter series that has captured hearts old and young worldwide will close on Saturday.
The final installment of the seven-book saga has sparked much discussion among fans as author J.K. Rowling has admitted that two characters will die.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be in book stores July 21. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, based on the Fifth book, opened in theaters July 11.
For some Harry Potter fans, the ending of the series has produced mixed feelings.
"It's sad," said Avery Bedard, a 17-year-old Elgin resident. "It's going to end and I don't have the fun of looking forward to another book, so it's bittersweet."
Bedard has been following the series since it began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 1998 and has grown up with Harry.
"The reason I think I connect with the book so much is that, while I was reading it, I was kind of aging with Harry Potter. When I started the books I was 10. He was 10 going on 11. ... When the seventh book comes out, I'll be 17 and he'll be 17."
Buckhardt first took notice of the books when he witnessed students purchasing the stories at the school's book fair. After asking the kids about the books, he picked up his own copies and became a Harry Potter fan.
To Buckhardt, what attracts people to the series is no mystery.
"It's the love over the hate, the students trying to come up with different things on their own as they've grown, the mystical parts of it," Buckhardt said. "And just the way it has hooked children into reading again, which I think is just about what everybody has said about the series."
Buckhardt incorporated his students' love of Harry Potter into his teaching, using one quote in particular.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Professor Dumbledore says, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."
Buckhardt often would have this quote over his chalkboard, leaving a blank space where Harry's name is. He would tell students to insert their names and realize that it applied to them as well.
Bedard thinks it is the themes of the stories that hook people.
"I think it is because all the underlying messages of the story relate to friendship and loyalty and love, and those just don't die in any book," Bedard said. "Its something that, regardless of your age, you really need to see more of and you want to see that in the world, and I think when people read the books, that's what they connect to at any age."
Buckhardt saw a change in the book that seemed to go along with the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
"On a personal, gut-level feeling, I felt that the Half-Blood Prince was delving a little bit into the politics of the world," Buckhardt said. "I don't know how much the 2001 to 2004 happenings played into it, but with the visits of the wizarding chiefs into the prime minister's office and things like that, it seems similar to the events that were happening in the world."
It also seemed to Buckhardt as though readers could substitute terrorism in place of the dark arts in the book's dialogue, and the conversations would translate to the real-world discussion about terrorism.
"Was that weighing in the back of the author's mind as she wrote the book? We'll probably never know, but it's just one of those nuances in the story line that, as an adult, I felt might have more to it," he said.
While Bedard and Buckhardt each have speculated which characters might be killed in the new book, neither will know for sure until they pick up their pre-ordered copies and read them.
"You can't help but start thinking, 'Who is it going to be?'" Bedard said. "And you start making up story lines and plots, and I think that is really what is so awesome about the book, is that it really just inspires you."