Chapters, and Other Ramblings...

It's a little late in coming, but I've finally got some inspiration and the tiniest bit of time to actually give to the people who read our blog. I am sorry about the wait, but honestly Kat's posts have been more than enough, and I've barely had the energy to do anything much less anything creative (we just got back from doing laundry when we decided that it needed to be done simply WEEKS ago, outrageous I know!). Luckily for me, that bit of time while waiting for the laundry to wash and dry (don't I wish I had a real Olivander's wand to do these sorts of things), I began my journey back through the Harry Potter series. Something that I have been planning to do again for some time, but something life put on hold as usual. By the end of the first chapter, inspiration struck, and has evolved in the past half hour into a little project I can keep up with for the next few weeks as I read through the books at a good speed to finish before LeakyCon. I will have to be a bit decisive about which chapters I choose to post about, but I can do it and I have enough faith in myself. Enough of that…

Who would have done it besides J.K.R. herself, to have me awash with wonder and inspiration by the end of a single chapter, and the very first at that. Of course being the first chapter of a series that would take over the world (and we are still rooting for that new world order), it would have to be poignant wouldn't it? As I read, I kind of delighted in starting over again after the past few years. Seeing the wizards act completely out of the norm in the muggle world, really seeing the strange newness of each moment from the eyes of a muggle much like many others as Mr. Dursley sees emerald and violet robed strangers, a menagerie of owls flitting here and there, and not least a square-eyed tabby cat with a stern look unlike any other. But truly even as I read about a sentimental giant, an astute and alert witch, and a wizard who would be many things including the master of death, I couldn't help but really be stuck on the last paragraph. A paragraph that says much about the series, about Harry Himself and the other characters, and certainly something about ourselves.

It begins like most other bits of story in the series, unassuming but obvious: a prim garden hedge, light ruffling breeze, and an inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry himself, still a baby, wrapped in a bundle, warm and sleeping, still unaware of the world around him. Even in the simplest starts we find our own beginnings don't we? Yes, Harry was already been born once, but he hasn't truly begun the journey of his life as told by our author. He is on a cusp like we often find ourselves, the place where we are unassuming of the changes about to occur, that often change our lives beyond our own imaginations. Harry's little hand clings to a note, clinging to the foundation of his life up to this point, and holding hopelessly I may add to his hopes for a future he will never fully see in the way that was intended. Still he sleeps on…

It is in the very next words that we being to see our lives unfold, and the future of the little Potter hinted at in a way that needs no more explanation to really thrill us. He sleeps on…not knowing he is special, not knowing he is famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley. And there it is isn't it? Thats all of us, completely lost in our own dreams, unaware of when change will strike and we will meet our antagonist, naively unaware of all the challenges that life has to throw at us each day, knowing somewhere in our minds that it could happen, but ignoring it as much as a muggle ignores untimely shooting stars in the night sky. Here it almost seems sad, but after having already read the series, there is so much more hope in this statement than was ever really intended I think. It seems hopeless, but inside ourselves we know it isn't, even when we don't know the story, we can still feel that we are on the edge of something great before us, blind as we are of what it could be. Maybe the hushed voices are celebrating the lives we've lived, even if that isn't very much at all, but it is in their ignorance we can delight in the knowledge that there is much more left for us each to do, great and terrible things.

Well enough of my ramblings for the night, I suppose all I've said is that we are special even when we don't know it, but there you have it, took me a long enough paragraph to get that out haha. Well good night, and good reading, happy dreams and better futures.