What Will I Do Without Any Hermione In My Life?

I have been having some serious ennui over the end of the Harry Potter saga. I have told this story before so apologies to those of you who have heard it before. I can remember driving through the Canadian Rockies and being able to pick up only ONE radio station - CBC - which can be a little dry on a Wednesday afternoon. The show I listened to was about the next great summer books.

All of the panelists were raving about this little book out of England that was about a boy who went to a special school for wizards. The host couldn't believe that any kid would read a book with ten pages let alone almost a thousand and do that for all seven of the books that were mapped out by the author.

He was correct to assume this because there had never been anything like the 'Harry Potter' phenomena in publishing before. At a time when the attention of kids was devoted to video games and the Internet here was something new called 'a book' - and kids were more than happy to give up their free time to enjoy it. Unthinkable, right?

I stopped in Chapters when I got home and they had to 'special order' the book for me. It's insane when I think about that now. That fall I read the book to all the kids in my Junior High English classes and they were spellbound even though I kept mispronouncing 'Hermione'. In my defence have YOU ever know a kid with that name? I guarantee in the whole planet, at the time, there were like five kids with that name.

So it's all over. Technically it was over when the last book was published but it was too traumatic to REALLY have to let go when we have several movies not yet completed. I wonder how kids that grew up with 'Harry Potter' being the first book series they cared about will look back in fifty years and see how the stories affected the adults they became.

I have a pop cultural moment like that in my past. It arrived with none of the usual Hollywood hype machine that we are so used to these days but it took over the planet. I was twelve and the 'event' was 'Star Wars'. Great stuff like that only comes around ever so often so appreciate it when you have the chance.

All I can say about the end of 'Harry Potter' is, 'Thank You!'

"I got the role when I was so young. You know, it wasn’t something I was looking for; it found me. So there are times when I question, ‘Am I any good? Is this the thing I should be doing?’ Doing theatre at university has really helped: I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it, whether people would let me, whether I’d feel comfortable enough, and I totally do, which is the most wonderful feeling. And I do love Hermione. She’s still kept that bookish, goody two-shoes element, but she’s now much more aware. Being around boys has definitely changed her. She’s loosened up a bit. She’s a woman now, or she’s becoming a woman. - Emma Watson"