I was late to the express train that is Harry Potter and JK Rowling and the entire universe of wizards and Hogwarts.

I had my reasons.  (One of which was that in 1997, when the first novel was released, I was a newlywed working for a newspaper writing sports articles (can you even imagine?) and helping to put my husband through college and I was volunteering at a local theatre and anyway, I just didn’t even pay any attention to the books.

By the time Riley joined our home and her cousins were all about the Harry Potter books I was neck deep in teaching high school English and theatre at a small private school and there was a strong wave of evangelical fear wrapped up in the idea of the books and I just had no interest combined with no time.  I was also birthing babies and adopting babies and, you know, that kept me sort of busy for like a decade or something.

At any rate, here I am, a whole lotta years later and my girls found themselves with friends who adored the series and they wanted to know who this Potter boy was.  I read the first book to try to keep ahead of the learning curve and found it just fine – although not as endearing as the universe seemed to.  I trusted a few close friends and framily who were bigger fans and had read further into the series and I allowed the girls to read the books at paces I chose.  (Also, about this time, a dear friend gifted London the entire series sent from London itself, across the pond.  Which – made them all the cooler, naturally.)

Eventually I began to join in, more because I wanted to share in the conversations the kids were having.  Admittedly, I have only just completed book four, but I have every intention of finishing the series.  London, Mosely and Bergen have finished the series and Piper has read only the first two books.  I definitely see the appeal and have begun to enjoy the adventures of the trio, Hermione being my favorite.  As for the fear swirling around the series a decade or more ago, I think it’s pretty unfounded.  The real world our children live in is plenty more frightening and Dumbledore certainly promotes bravery and courage and loyalty and kindness over all the dark powers that be.  Harry is kind and heroic, generous and thoughtful, and a true friend.  (At least he still is all those things at the completion of book four.  No need to spoil it for me just yet guys.)

Perhaps because my children are homeschooled or perhaps because of who knows what, it was about a year or so ago when one of the kids, after reading a particularly fun part of the novel series, said out loud something like this — “Don’t you wish someone would create a place that looks like Hogwarts?  Where you can eat the same foods Harry eats and see what Harry sees.”

It was a satisfying little parenting moment when I could say, “Well, you know what.  There’s this place called Universal Studios – and that is sort of exactly what they’ve done.”

We all perused the Universal Studios website for a while and dreamed of going and then we checked out the prices and then we stopped dreaming, as we are all mostly a family of realists.  (Except Piper perhaps – remember her wish for a unicorn?  Now she’s saving up for a golf cart, but the point is – she dreams big.)

I tried what I could.  Making my pitch to Universal.  It was a long shot, for sure.  And it fell short of my goal of free tickets.  I buried the idea of a Universal trip because that was a goal definitely too lofty for our current lives.

And then.  A miracle.  A framily member alerts me via text that her sister in fact is employed at Universal Studios.

And.

That she would be willing to give us her comp passes for one day.

All six of us.

To Universal Studios.  (Or Harry Potter World as I kept calling it, much to my fourteen year old’s embarrassment.)

Do you know what is a hard secret to keep from your favorite people?

But I didn’t tell them or give any hints and I waited until Christmas morning.  (It’s a tradition that every kid gets a card in their stocking with a gift of a date or an experience for the following year.)  This trip was going to be a one for all, all for one deal and would be everyone’s gift.

 

 

Last week we ventured south (maybe for the first time I was actually grateful for Florida’s warmer weather) and we embraced our adventure as muggles in a wizarding world.

 

 

We drank butter beer (it’s better served warm) and pumpkin juice (like intense apple cider) and walked more than eight miles according to Otto’s watch.  We walked through the wall of the train station and boarded the train at nine and three quarters and everywhere we looked adults and children alike were dressed in robes.  The village looked as if a fresh snow had just fallen and Diagon Alley was so authentic I expected to run straight into Hagrid at every turn.

 

 

We had a good time.  We shared a train compartment with two brothers on holiday from Australia and while waiting on our shuttle bus we chatted with a couple visiting from Dublin, Ireland.  We never got tired of hearing the staff refer to us as muggles and our 3D adventure riding broomsticks was pretty exhilarating, with only a five minute wait because apparently mid week in January is prime time to visit the park.  The kids had their own spending money they had saved and Otto came home with Neville Longbottom’s stuffed frog Trevor, London purchased a Ravenclaw pin for her bag and kept herself supplied with icees and a chocolate frog.  Bergen chose a quaffle ball and Mosely also procured a chocolate frog.  Piper kept it simple with a magic quill pen that was both edible and able to write.

 

 

I’m not an amusement park kind of girl.  We’re not even really an amusement park sort of family.  No one cares for roller coasters and crowds make us tired.  But we had so much fun wandering the alleys and streets of Hogsmeade and looking at robes and wands and people and rides and the remarkably well done architecture.

If there were any people in this world that I’d want to kick around a made up world straight from an author’s imagination, it’s this rowdy gang of five.

 

 

And, speaking of made up worlds, that’s pretty incredible all by itself, isn’t it?  That there was a time when no one had heard of a boy with spectacles and a lightning scar on his forehead.  And then one day a women in need of a miracle herself set down and put pen to paper and created magic.  The sort of magic that grew beyond her pages and charmed not just her own country, but lots of other countries besides.

That’s a good story, guys.

And, for one solitary day, my story and the story of five of my children, bumped right into her story and the stories of a quite extensive and incredibly diverse bunch of other people.  

The power of books.  (That’s where the real magic is.)

 

 

 

_________________________________