It's That Time of the Year Again

There are a couple times each year when the activity in the Harry Potter fandom flares up again even now. Years after the last film and even more years after the last book, Harry Potter still appears seemingly out of nowhere. On the second of May, to remember and commemorate the Battle Of Hogwarts, with tributes to the fallen and praises to the heroes. On the thirty-first of July, to celebrate Harry's birthday. On Hallowe'en, to remember the deaths of Lily and James Potter and the Boy Who Lived.
And, like now, around the first of September, when the Hogwarts Express leaves King's Cross at eleven o'clock in the morning to take the students to the castle - some going for the first time, nervous and excited. Others feel like they are coming home. Older students, and, well, we. The people who for a large part have grown up in the wizarding world, we who have followed Harry from his cupboard under the stairs all the way to the final battle. Although it seems to be over, we are still there, and still in love with the world J.K. Rowling showed to us all those years ago.
I first read Harry Potter in fourth grade, it was December and I was nine years old. There were only six books out at that time, and I read all of them over the course of two weeks. I stayed up way past my bedtime - in case of the Chamber of Secrets, until two in the morning. (Now that I think about it, that may have been the point where my parents gave up trying to give me a bedtime.) I used every free moment to read. I read in bed, in the car, on my way to school, in school... I had never been captured by a book this much. I've always been a passionate reader but I had never been this intense.
I made my best friend at the time read it. For the rest of the schoolyear, we acted out scenes on the playground, using pens as wands and parallel bars as broomsticks. When the Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, I had never been this excited about a book release. I cried in the theatre when the last film was over. Finding out my Hogwarts house was a much more important discovery than almost everything else I learned about myself (Hufflepuff and proud!). Harry Potter has shaped almost my entire life, influenced my personality, helped me meet people who are now my closest friends.
And the wonderful thing is, I'm not the only one. There are millions of people like me out there. Some are older than me and read Harry Potter when it was first published, some are much younger and only discovered him two days ago. But even though 'it's all over', it will never end.
Year after year, our love for this story flares up anew. Many of us appear to have moved on to other things, other stories. But we always remember and every once in a while we return to the halls and corridors of Hogwarts to look back and feel all warm and fuzzy, because Hogwarts will always be there to welcome us home.
And yes, for many (including me), these times don't only mean happiness. There's a very real emotion called Post-Potter-Depression, that feeling of vast emptiness when you realize that there is nothing more to come. Even though by now we know that that is not entirely true - there are fan films being made, music is written, there's an official film project happening at this very moment - it's still kind of over.
Every year on September 1st we regret that we cannot take the Hogwarts Express. We regret that we live in the Muggle world and cannot learn to do magic. And that makes us incredibly sad sometimes.
But you know what? Screw that feeling. Because as long as there's people like us, it will never be truly over. The world of Harry Potter lives on, welcoming everybody who wants to enter.
So I say: Welcome back. Take a seat. Have some pumpkin juice. Here's to another amazing year, and all the years yet to come. Here's to the Boy Who Lived, and the heroes who didn't. Here's to us, who keep the story alive. And here's to all the love and friendship that still comes from this community even after all these years.

Love,
Jojo

Mediocrity Or: Miniature Crisis

Hey, peeps. 

Ever since eighth grade, English was my thing. My talent. It's not my first language but learning it is highly valued here, much more than arts, for example (which is bad in itself). I'm very lucky to apparently pick up languages rather easily but it still wasn't child's play to get as good as I am now. And I liked to be rewarded for that, I enjoyed being the teacher's pet and not having to put in as much effort. Also, it's nice to have a reputation for being really good at something - the kind of reputation that has fellow students asking you for your help, and a sort of whisper among English teachers about that girl.
A friend of mine scored an A plus in her English final. I got an A.
And that's okay, for the most part. She deserves this grade, she's been deserving it for several years and our teacher somehow failed to acknowledge her abilities. I know that this English final wasn't my best performance, that I could have been better.
Not achieving the highest possible mark in this exam won't change the fact that English is practically second nature to me. It won't change how people think of me, for the most part. But now somebody else is obviously better at the thing I thought was my thing. And that stings, no matter how much that somebody deserves it.
See, in September, I'm going to go to university in England. Where speaking English fluently is like, normal. Results Day made me realise that my thing won't be a thing for very much longer. What, for years, was a big part of what people associated with me, what I used to set myself apart from others, what I thought of as special about me, will be nothing. Or at least, much less than it was.
I'll have to find something else, then. I'm the kind of person who needs to be able to remind themselves that there's some way that they're better than other people - "Her hair might be awesome but my freckles are cuter" "He's good at everything but I can read out Shakespeare without stuttering". And part of me keeps whispering, in the back of my head, what are you going to do now? What will you tell yourself, at one a.m., when all around you people are being awesome and you need something to pick you up?
For everyday life, my self-esteem is pretty high, I think. I'm relatively confident or at least good at pretending to be, and I'm starting to rise above society-induced body shame and expectations. But in the middle of the night? Entirely different.
I need something to hold onto. And I have no idea what that something is going to be for the next three years. 

Love, 
Jojo