It was a harry potter weekend
in our family — and, judging by the number of copies of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that were sold beginning Friday at midnight, we weren’t the only family.

In Toronto, our 26-year-old daughter Kate and her friend Kelly, 28, got in the mood by being among the first in line to attend Movie No. 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a week earlier. In Calgary, our younger daughter, Rachel, 21, did likewise. The next evening, Kate and Rachel spent an interminable amount of time on the phone discussing the highs and lows of the movie.

Of course, to be truly ready for book No. 7 (the last in the series), Kate had to reread No. 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Then there was the Friday-night extravaganza.

In Toronto, Bay Street just south of Bloor, in front of the Indigo book store, was closed to vehicle traffic. Indigo had arranged for a carnival of sorts to entertain Harry Potter fans until Deathly Hallows actually went on sale at midnight. Indigo issued 1,500 wristbands, which allowed wearers to line up inside the store. Those without wristbands — including Kate and Kelly — had to line up outside the store.

In Calgary, it was Stephen Avenue in front of bookstore McNally Robinson that was transformed into Dragon Alley. With the promise of honey mead beer and quiddich demonstrations, Rachel and her friends worked diligently on Harry Potter costumes and, appropriately garbed, made their way downtown.

Our family has been a fan of Harry Potter since the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, appeared in 1997. I remember family vacations during which we read — and reread — Harry Potter — around the breakfast table at the ski resort or on the beach under the palm trees. The girls grew up with Harry and his friends as the forces of good battled evil. They had to be there for Harry’s final hurrah.

And they weren’t alone. Rachel reports shoulder-to-shoulder people in Calgary; although she doesn’t like crowds, she hung in there to buy her book. Kate and Kelly took a more pragmatic approach: they gave up standing in line and hit a bar instead. As midnight approached, they wandered down Yonge Street to Book City, where there was no lineup. Books tucked under their arms, they made for Fran’s, an all-night restaurant well known to Torontonians, and settled down with grilled cheese sandwiches to read their books. What delighted Kate was that they weren’t the only Potter fans in Fran’s reading their newly acquired books.

Of course, the difference in time zones gave Kate a two-hour advantage over Rachel. Kate was well into Deathly Hallows before Rachel even got her copy. When Kate let slip a twist in the plot in an e-mail to Rachel, my younger daughter was livid. She refused to take any phone calls or read any e-mails from Kate until she had finished the book. Fortunately, that meant cutting off communication with her sister for only a couple of days.

And Rachel got the ultimate revenge. We had an out-of-town visitor here in Toronto and, for a treat, several weeks ago we planned a wine tour of Niagara for Saturday. So, for what turned out to be an 11-hour day, Kate was Potter-less. Rachel, on the other hand, spent Saturday reading. She finished the book before Kate. And, true to sisterly love, as much as Kate begged for hints about what was going to happen, Rachel refused to divulge a single fact. And, unlike Kate and her dad, Rachel can keep a secret.

I have put off reading Harry until some future vacation, when I can savour the wonderful world and beings that have sprung from Rowling’s imagination. Maybe that is why Harry Potter is so popular: we travel with him while he battles evil and, for the time we are reading, live in the world of the imagination — a truly special place.

TESSA WILMOTT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF