Bewitched and Besotted by Book 7
Potter Fans Count the Minutes Until They Can Learn Boy Wizard's Fate

By Fredrick Kunkle and Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 21, 2007

For a seventh time, Harry Potter held the world in his spell.

At 8:04 a.m. yesterday in New York, where the boy wizard's broom first landed at a U.S. publishing house, "Harry Potter Place" stirred to life at the headquarters of Scholastic Corp. with the arrival of the seventh and final copy of J.K. Rowling's spectacularly popular series. Fans were treated to a giant Whomping Willow, a Muggle board and a Knight Bus, modeled after the "violently purple" triple-decker in the books.

Music swelled as the Knight Bus churned down a narrow alley at the end of a national tour, discharging six children in black Hogwarts gowns who held books one through six. Then came Arthur A. Levine, the U.S. editor who snagged the rights to publish Potter here for a mere $100,000. In his hand was the first signed U.S. edition of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" inside a transparent lockbox.

Then all seven volumes were deposited into another lockbox designed to look like a Pensieve, or stone basin for storing thoughts and memories. With the wave of a wand and a cloud of fairy dust, a digital clock began ticking. For the next 15 hours, 44 minutes, and 18, 17, 16, 15 seconds, and on until midnight, Potter fans would not move forward with their lives.

From London to Leesburg, legions of fans, many dressed like Potter characters, lined up outside stores and attended parties while awaiting the book. Downtown Silver Spring and Old Town Alexandria turned into late-night witching alleys as fans counted the minutes to midnight.

"There are other good books out there, but this one seems to be the most captivating of all," said Peter Adler Ash, 12, at a Borders bookstore in Silver Spring. Wearing a pointy sorcerer's hat plastered with silver stars and moons and carrying a wand, Peter said he began reading the series when he was 6. He said he was a little worried that Harry and some of his other favorite characters might perish in the climactic battle with the evil wizard Lord Voldemort.

"I hope that he will live, but nobody knows. I mean, how can J.K. Rowling make him die?"

Pottermania, which has been building for the better part of a decade, peaked last night. The phenomenon is familiar to anyone who has not "disapparated" (disappeared) from the planet since "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" appeared in the United States in 1997. Orphaned after his parents are killed by Voldemort, Harry lives a Cinderella-like existence of abuse and neglect with relatives until age 11, when he is summoned by a message-bearing owl to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There, Harry encounters a marvelous host of classmates and instructors, villains and heroes, with Dickensian names and supernatural powers. While learning the basics of potions, dorm life and frat house-like rivalries, he also discovers that he must face Voldemort in a decisive battle in which one must kill the other.

Drawing on influences from myth and legend as well as such contemporary sources as Roald Dahl, C.S. Lewis and even "Star Wars," the books teem with magical delights and terrors, such as Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Whomping Willows, Avada Kedavra spells, Quidditch and Horcruxes. The books also became progressively darker, offering readers an adolescent identity quest within an epic struggle between good and evil.

To some, navigating Rowling's sometimes-pedestrian prose is like undergoing a Cruciatus Curse: a form of torture. But to many, many more, the books have become a beloved rite of passage.

"I think there's a very resonant story at the core of it: good versus evil," said Andrew Pendergrass, manager of the Patrick Henry branch library in Vienna.

The series has been credited with inspiring a generation of young readers, especially among boys. More than 325 million copies of the first six volumes have been sold. Five Potter movies have been made, including "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which opened this month. They have grossed more than $4 billion.

At 12:53 p.m. in the District, there was a crush at the Potter check-in table at the Borders at 18th and L streets.

"I should've kept that purple wand," said Kiera Armantrout, 7, of Phoenix to her father, Jim, and sister, Alea, 10, after learning that the bookstore would have a "Grand Hallows Ball" costume party.

David Lee Ridley, 23, had dashed over to Borders from a nearby foreign policy think tank in the afternoon to secure the silver wristband that meant he would be in the second group to get his 784-page Potter fix after midnight. "I'm going to stay up all night to read it," Ridley said.

At 5:50 p.m., Adam Rice, 32, of Alexandria arrived at A Likely Story Children's Bookstore, which was organizing a party in Old Town. He said he spent the week "a wreck," avoiding news Web sites that might ruin the ending. "I've been honestly kind of freaking out about the spoilers this week," Rice said.

At 8:27 p.m., at The Potter's House cafe and bookstore in Adams Morgan, bookstore manager Tom Taylor breathed relief: He had found and retrieved 70 "Deathly Hallows" copies that had been mistakenly delivered elsewhere. "That would have been a lot of angry customers," said Taylor, dressed as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in long blue gown and hat.

Back in the kitchen, manager Meade Hanna, dressed in the black gown of Professor McGonagall, mourned the series' completion while brewing pumpkin juice and preparing Chocolate Frogs.

"Would you be up for holding the ceremonial cauldron at the procession at midnight?" she asked another Potter fan.

At 9:10 p.m. , hundreds of people gathered at King and Royal streets in Old Town Alexandria to watch a crowd of Harrys, Hermiones and other characters compete in a costume contest.

Trevor Moore, 9, of Fort Washington separated himself from the pack by limping across the stage in a full-length brown leather jacket.

Yes! Mad-Eye Moody it was, the Hogwarts professor.

Trevor's performance moved him to the front of the line at A Likely Story to claim his book. "I'm getting the book right at midnight, and I'm going to start as soon as possible," he said.

About 10 p.m . , more than 1,000 people jammed Diagon Alley in Silver Spring, a.k.a. Ellsworth Drive. McGinty's Public House became the Leaky Cauldron, serving up "Deathly Hallows" shepherd's pie, Fizzing Whizbee ice cream and Butterbeer, which was actually Boddington's ale. A caped robe thrown over a mannequin turned the Marimekko shop into Madam Malkins' boutique. And Muggles (non-magical folks) mingled with wizards and witches.

A woman with a stuffed vulture on her head and black makeup drank a cup of Butterbeer, and a magician made balloon brooms in yellow and brown for children. A Death Eater, wearing a mask, carried a sign that said, "The end is nigh."

"It is a turning point in my life," said Gardi Royce, 14, of Silver Spring, with hair dyed white and the long cape and solemn garb of Draco Malfoy, Potter's Hogwarts antagonist. "I am in love with Draco."

One of the organizers of the block party, Megan Linehan, 23, of Silver Spring, wrote her senior thesis at American University last year analyzing the battle between Harry and Voldemort as a conflict between different political and cultural systems. Harry stood for a heterogeneous society of Muggles and wizards that is more open to change, she said, while Voldemort represented a closed society structured by racial hierarchies and resistant to change. She got a B-plus, she said.

"I was, like, can I have this party? Please!" Linehan said.

Minutes before midnight, Temar Powers, 37, stood in line with her sons to claim one of the first copies from A Likely Story because, she said, the Hogwarts kids seemed like part of the family. "It's a concluding experience with these fictitious friends," she said. "You'd gladly pick up your friends at the airport in the middle of the night. Same thing."

Midnight: Screams erupted outside the Silver Spring Borders when the book went on sale.

William Winstead, 10, his twin sister, Talia, and his brother, Trenton, 9, of Vienna, held their "Deathly Hallows" aloft like trophies.

"It feels like I just won first prize at the Olympics," William said.

All three quickly opened up their books and dived in. They said they didn't plan to skip ahead and would read all night.

Staff writers Michael Alison Chandler, in New York, and Matt Zapotosky, in Alexandria, contributed to this report.