The Girl Under the Stairs

Harry Potter saved my life when I was 10 years old. I am sure I do not speak for only myself when I state that Harry Potter was a huge part of my childhood growing up. I remember dressing up in my Hermione costume to stand outside the bookstore at midnight to get the next book, I remember how my friends would dress up with me to wait in line at the theater for the next movie. I still remember the excitement radiating through my body. My generation grew up with Harry, side by side. We learned with him, we rooted for him, we cried with him. I am the Harry Potter Generation, and this is why I believe this fandom is the best, and I Always will.

I was in 4th or 5th grade the first time I picked up a Harry Potter book. I had never watched the movies, never read any of the books, but one day I wanted to challenge myself. I randomly picked out the biggest book in the children’s library that I could find. That book happened to be Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I still remember the librarian looking at me and saying, “That’s the biggest book in the house! I have faith in you.”

Of course, I soon found out that the Order of the Phoenix was not the first novel in the series, so I had to go back and get the first one. At the time, the Order of the Phoenix was the most current published novel in the series. I was sucked in, the world unfolding in my mind like a movie. I felt the magic on every page. Now, to the part about Harry saving my life.

I lived in a small town without so much as a gas station. There were three other kids around my age in town, and they were nice enough but it didn’t matter. I was almost always grounded or in trouble, unable to come out and play. The summer in question I spent hidden away in my room feeling much like the girl in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry and I had that in common, feeling unwanted by the people obligated to care for us. I had a lot of time to read, and I drank in every book I could that summer. When Christmas came, my mom bought me the first three movies. That was the beginning of my obsession with the series. Every birthday, holiday, and graduation was Harry Potter themed.

When I reached middle school, Harry Potter had grown in popularity and I found a friend group at school to share my enthusiasm with. That was how I met my very best friend. She is a Slytherin, I am a Ravenclaw. Now, tell me how many people you know that don’t know their Hogwarts house. In a time with growing social media and describing yourself online in bios with limited characters on sites like MySpace and Facebook, a simple explanation of your Hogwarts house was enough to tell people everything they needed to know about your personality right off the bat. Whether you were a fan of Harry Potter or not, most Millennials I have met still know their house. No matter your opinion on the series and the franchise (or the transphobic author), it had a lasting effect on all of us.

Now let’s look at some facts about the effects of the Harry Potter series on the Millennial Generation. According to a study from Johns Hopkins, “the evidence indicates that Harry Potter fans are more open to diversity and are more politically tolerant than nonfans; fans are also less authoritarian, less likely to support the use of deadly force or torture, more politically active, and more likely to have had a negative view of the Bush administration. Furthermore, these differences do not disappear when controlling for other important predictors of these perspectives, lending support to the argument that the series indeed had an independent effect on its audience.” Harry Potter raised a generation of people who refuse to sit back and do nothing while nazis/death eaters run around causing pain. Fans of the series learned the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, and right versus easy during very formative years of life.

I followed Harry until the very end, I grieved with him when he lost his friends and family, and I grieved for myself when the series was over. No more midnight premieres, no more lines outside the bookstore for the release of the next book. An entire generation worth of events and joy now over. To this day, I have not found another series that had me as invested, as in love, as in pain, as excited for the next piece as Harry Potter. Harry Potter was not just a fantasy series, it was an immersive experience. To me and so many others, Harry was a symbol of hope, of growing up, of doing what is right even when it would be easier to just give in, of the power of a mother’s love and how strong friendships can be.

Harry Potter saved my life when I was ten years old by giving me something to hold onto, something to look forward to, and something I could completely immerse myself in to escape the reality I was living. I would not be the person I am today had I not picked up that book in the library that day.

** Gierzynski, Anthony with Eddy, Kathryn. “Harry Potter and the Millenials, Research Methods and the Politics of the Muggle Generation” Johns Hopkins University Press. 15 August 2013

https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/harry-potter-and-millennials