Still under the spell of a boy wizard

As one of the Potter generation HAYLEY MURDEN has grown up with the books and the films. Now almost 30 she explains how the boy wizard has followed her into adulthood

When Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone was first published on 26 June 1997, just before my tenth birthday, I was less than impressed. At the time I had an aversion to reading books with male protagonists, probably due to the ‘ew, boys!’ type of thinking most little girls go through. I was an avid reader and already immersed in Philip Pullman’s female-driven Dark Materials series, but the picture on the cover of Philosopher’s Stone – a nerdy looking boy with a worried expression – did little to entice me. 

So, despite being a gift from my parents, it sat for an unfortunately long time on my shelf, occasionally becoming useful as a table for my Barbies or as a prop to display other items. Then, on one boring day when I’d read everything else I owned and the library was closed, I finally opened and read Harry Potter for the first time. 

Now, as the book reaches its twentieth anniversary, and VisitScotland launches a new Harry Potter tourism itinerary in celebration, I am taking a moment to reflect on what the series has meant to me. 

Always the contrarian, my immediate favourite character in The Philosopher’s Stone was the Slytherin school bully, pale and pointed Draco Malfoy. Harry was tolerable, Hermione was too goody-goody and Ron never managed to gain my favour. I enjoyed the boarding school environment (I’d devoured stuff like Blyton’s Mallory Towers, so this was like that with magic sprinkled on top) and all the lesser characters were colourful and well-written enough to immerse me in this world. Still, it wasn’t until the Chamber Of Secrets, released in 1999, that I felt excited enough to stick with the series. 

My best friend and I created Harry Potter fan pages on our dial-up internet and we would talk for hours about how unfair it was that Gryffindor stole the house cup from Slytherin at the end of the first book.

We didn’t know how to pronounce Hermione; no one did until Rowling eventually spelled it out phonetically. We called her Her-mee-oh-nee for years. I’d like to add that from Ginny’s first appearance in Chamber Of Secrets, sticking her elbow in the butter and being generally awkward, I was fully in support of her eventually being Harry’s love interest. I remember fighting her corner against friends who were desperate for Harry and Hermione. 

The Prisoner of Azkaban was the third release and remains my favourite of the series to this day. I loved the back story introduced for Harry’s parents and their friends and relished the break from Lord Voldemort as the villain. By this time I had come to like Harry a lot as a character and maintain that he is one of the most interesting and well-written young adult protagonists. My fondness for him only grew despite my obsession with the Malfoys, Tom Riddle (as a separate being from Voldemort), and Sirius Black. 

The problem I had was one that in those days was shared by many. We liked these unexplored side characters and we wanted more of them. When Hagrid declared that there was never a witch or wizard in Slytherin who hadn’t gone bad, my reaction was indignation because I was sure that people couldn’t be only one thing. That there had to be more to these characters than just how the heroes perceived them. 

Fans took to the internet and solved this issue by writing stories and adventures where side-antagonists and background characters became fully fleshed out and well-rounded. It was this immersion in fan creations and culture that overall had the biggest impact on me. By participating in Rowling’s universe I realised that I wanted to create one of my own. It provided me with a rich playground to hone my skills before I began my own original endeavours.

In many ways Harry Potter  inspired me, from the hilariously terrible fan-fiction My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie which is simultaneously the worst and best thing ever published on the internet, to the amateur theatre/Youtube phenomenon A Very Potter Musical. These are what I love the most. 

Nowadays Harry Potter is everywhere to the point of over-saturation. It seems I can’t browse any of my social media feeds for more than five minutes before coming across someone comparing Trump to Voldemort or likening opposing political views to Death Eaters versus The Order Of The Phoenix.

I’m told that I, as a person of the Harry Potter generation, learned bravery from Harry, loyalty from Dobby, and that it is ‘okay to be clever’ from Hermione, as if nothing else had any effect on my psyche. People list their Hogwart’s House in their bios. You can take the test on Pottermore (I was crushed to discover I was a Gryffindor) and some fans are serious enough to celebrate different House pride days (yes, even Hufflepuff). 

 I often become frustrated with the kind of blind uncritical adoration that has come about since Harry Potter itself as a book and film franchise ended. It has become something too mythical, to only be worshipped and praised. I miss the days spent dissecting and either agreeing or disagreeing with Rowling’s choices. I miss being able to criticise Snape without having my head bitten off and “Always” whispered in my ear. But just when I think I’m done, that I say I don’t care anymore, I realise that I do. 

I love Harry Potter, magical plot-holes and all. I visited the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in London and I was just as excited to see everything as I would have been at ten years old. I still watch the movies and read the books and, while my opinions on things have grown and changed, I still roll my eyes when Dumbledore gives Neville points for standing up to Harry & co, thus ensuring Slytherin’s loss of the House cup. I wrote on the wall of the Elephant House cafe in Edinburgh – one of millions of scribbled messages and quotes – where Rowling wrote most of the first book. I have a Slytherin scarf and a time-turner keyring. I’m not a fanatic, but I am a fan. 

If you’ve grown up with Harry Potter and/or you want to share it with a whole new generation you can now follow Visit Scotland’s four day itinerary which starts in Edinburgh and ends in Glen Coe. See a multitude of the beautiful Scottish locations used in the films, such as Loch Shiel which was used as the Black Lake, and pay homage to the places in the capital where Rowling sat down and wrote her books.

Remember that Harry Potter, whatever it’s become, is at its core a phenomenally detailed, brilliant and imaginative story that has touched the hearts of children and adults all over the world. Happy Birthday, Harry. Hopefully, Hagrid hasn’t sat on your cake this time!