Goodbye, Childhood aka the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Post

I was nearly late to the ending of my childhood.

I'd only gotten home at 2AM in the morning, and the end was to begin at 9:30. I was still a child, so obviously, I slept in just a little too long before hauling my ass out of bed. And because the world was conspiring against me on this morning in particular, my bus with the petrol fumes spilling out the back into the crisp morning air, pulled up around ten minutes late.

Still. I made it there on time -- well, only a minute or two late -- for the end. Even if I did have to run down George St, and take a short cut through the train stations beneath the city streets. It was all worth it to get there on time.

Later, my friend told me that if I'd come five minutes earlier I'd have experienced the best part. The way the girls and boys, eighteen, nineteen, twenty and dressed in preppy school uniforms with a crest featuring a familiar badger, snake, eagle and lion all surrounding a large letter H, greeted each other by saying, "Hello, fellow wizards."

Me, I think this kind of nerdiness is awesome. I think, in my childhood, I would have found it more awesome. I'm sad I missed it, but at least I was there, stumbling up the cinema steps into the hushed, darkened theatre before the movie began.

I want to say that I loved the movie. That I loved every last minute of my childhood's ending, but the truth is that sometimes I was distracted. By a friend's melodramatic laughter, or tears, the way she accidentally knocked an entire tub of popcorn into the aisle by jumping at one point. And my 2AM bedtime the night before meant that sometimes, just sometimes, my attention was divided between the dark lord vs Harry and my sleepiness, or the chill of the cinema.

Still, it was amazing. I no longer want to experience a transformation like Cinderella. I want to experience a transformation like a female version of Neville Longbottom. And Bellatrix Lestrange, you bitch, I am so glad that you didn't get Molly's daughter. Old Draco was such a laugh. Albus Severus Potter sniffed every ten seconds and was adorable and Severus Snape made me tear up behind my 3D glasses.

I wished that it wouldn't end, but it did. My childhood slowly died. It only took a few hours, and by the end of it, I felt grown up. More grown up than I did after my eighteenth birthday. More grown up, even, than when I go out and don't get asked for ID.

Afterwards, we hung around the cinema, staring at the posters of characters who'd become our childhood friends. We milled around in the shabby exhibition the cinema had put together, marvelling over bits and bobs of paper from the films of the set. The stupidest things, really, apart from this gorgeous dress of Luna Lovegood's, but there was a sense that you had to marvel. You had to be awed, because this was the end.

And then we left the scene of the crime, the place where our childhoods died, and we went and got lunch. At an almost respectable establishment that didn't serve hamburgers or french fries or pizza or anything like that. And then we went to a cafe and I ordered two long blacks, because God, I was still tired from the night before. And the barista looked at me like I was crazy, because how many people my age like their coffee that strong with no sugar?

But my childhood had just died. I wasn't in the mood to justify the maturity of my youth.

Much later that day, when I got home, I searched for my ticket. The one with cinema 3 and that fantastic title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, emblazoned upon it. I dumped the entire contents of my wallet and bag out onto my desk, turning over odd small change from foreign countries that I didn't even know I had in the process, but it wasn't there. The ticket was gone. My childhood was gone.

So, this is me saying, goodbye childhood. I'm hoping to look back on you frequently (Pottermore had better be good...)

PS. Forgive me for the dorkiness of this post.

PPS. If I owe you an email, I'm terribly sorry and I'll get back to you soon. I've had a crazily busy time recently.