Brae was technically supposed to write this post for his "favorite Potter experiences" contribution, but he claims he's lost all inspiration and doesn't have time to contribute to the blog anymore. So you're stuck with me telling this wonderful tale of inspiration, creativity, excitement, and adventure.
Every year in my dorm in college there was a door decorating contest for Halloween. As anyone who knows me would tell you, I love competition and don't compete for “fun”. I'm always out to crush the competition, leaving no doubt that it was my entry that was the best in anyone's mind. I guess that's the odd combination of Ravenclaw and Slytherin in me that causes me to spend hours contemplating how to prove this to others and putting in the effort to go through with whatever plan we concoct.
The first year we competed, I begged my roommates to go in with Brae and myself on a Harry Potter-themed door. However, we were out-voted and we did a Tim Burton-themed door. It was admittedly awesome, but we came in second or third (I've blocked out the loss, I guess, because I cannot remember for certain). I was sure that if we'd gone through with my HP-theme, we would have won hands down, but I kept my mouth shut (for the most part) until the contest rolled around again the next year. Two of my roommates that year didn't care about competing, and the other sort of liked HP, so we all (finally) agreed to do the HP door.
Brae, the other roommate, and I sat down and came up with various ideas for the door. Since Brae and I were heavily into role playing our Pureblood Club characters during this point, we decided a Dark Arts theme would be excellent! We did some drawings and set out to buy supplies.
The trick with contests like this is that everyone can see your progress in the weeks leading up to the actual judging, so you have to keep it a surprise so no one runs out and re-does their entire door after seeing how super amazingly awesome the competition is. Because of this, our door was simply covered in black fabric (our blank canvas) for a few days, especially since people remembered how awesome our door was the year before and kept coming by to spy on us and see what we were planning. Meanwhile, hidden away inside the dorm room, I was posing for Brae (the best artist of all of us) so he could successfully draw the unique way Voldemort holds his wand, looking up pictures of Death Eater masks online, and figuring out other things we could add to the bottom of the door to make it look even more impressive.
The day of the judging was a long one since we'd been up for hours coloring, gluing, and dancing around to the HP soundtracks during our breaks (this was before we found wizard rock or there would have been some of that as well). This led to many hilarious moments when exhaustion truly set in and odd looks as people stepped over us in the hall and stared while we all sang along to “Hedwig's Theme” while pretending to duel and throwing fabric scraps at each other.
A few hours later (and just before the judges were scheduled to make their rounds), our door was complete. We immediately ran around the entire dorm to check out the other doors to find that we had, at best, two other doors that would even come somewhat close to the magnificence of ours. Clearly the competition wasn't as big of a draw that year as it had been in the past.
A few moments after we returned to the dorm, we heard a knock. I answered to be pelted with candy as the judges told us we'd made the finals. About half an hour later, another knock came, and we were presented with our prize (a small bucket of candy, a Target gift card, and assorted toys) which didn't compare to the droves of people (many of whom didn't even live on campus) flocking past our door just to have a look and take pictures with it for weeks following the contest. And the knowledge that we'd so successfully outdone everyone in my dorm that people were apparently hoping that we'd move out just so we wouldn't compete the next year (which we did, sadly, before we could make the “Are You Afraid of the Dark” door that we'd been planning for the next year).
So, what did this supermegafoxyawesomehot door look like? Am I really just being egotistical when I tell you how amazing it really was? No.
But see for yourself.
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