It’s ours! Are you ready to READ?!

Or: Party! Like! You’re EVIL!

Here we are at 1:30 am on 21 July 2007 with our brand new Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This photo encapsulates 12 hours of waiting, goofing around, people watching, rocking out, and general wicked awesomeness. We look exhausted, but very happy, yes? So happy, though JeT does have the crazy eyes thing going on.

Harvard Square became Hogwarts Square for the occasion. Susan and I got to Cambridge around noon and Kristen met up with us a couple of hours later. While I was waiting for people, I cased the joint, er, went into the bookstore to see if I could glimpse any hint of what was supposed to happen later on in the evening. I decided it would be a good idea to buy a book, so I wouldn’t look too obvious. I bought King Dork, by Frank Portman. (I highly recommend it. It rules.) We also scoped out Harvard Yard, where the concert was to take place. We decided the best strategy would be to get in line for our wristbands (for reserved books), get dinner, and score a nice spot on the grass for the concert.

This bit went pretty smoothly. JeT met up with us after he got out of work, and got his wristband with us. We got tasty food at Veggie Planet and settled in to watch the sound checks for the show. I walked around the Yard a bit to see if I could find where Potter Puppet Pals were, but I could not find them. Alas. (Speaking of the Pals, I tried to get a little sing-along going, but no one besides JeT responded to my “Snape. Snape. Severus Snape.” It was a bummer.) I took photos during the sound check because our crap camera doesn’t take good photos in dim light.

The concert ruled! Draco and the Malfoys are super awesome. We need their CDs. I totally want to rock out to them. Our favorite song was “My dad is rich and your dad is dead.” Oh, you Malfoys. So cruel. So funny! The Hungarian Horntails went on before the Malfoys. They were adorable and horrible. They’re probably eight years old, the three kids who make up the band. They sang songs about Hermione’s hair (and how she needs to brush it) and how awesome it is to be a dragon (ROAR!) Not to mention about how the Minister of Magic is a butt head.

Harry and the Potters aren’t as good musically as Draco and the Malfoys, but they put on one helluva show. They really get the crowd going and are super fun. They are the They Might Be Giants of the wizard rock movement. Linell-Harry plays the keyboard and saxophone, and Flansburg-Harry plays guitar. Both have Flansberg-like personalities, though. H and the Ps began a huge wizard rock phenomenon and there’s even a documentary in progress about their brand of wrock. Anyway, the concert was super fun.

We got in line for the books while H and the Ps were playing their last tune (and shouting out molecular biology terms for the audience to shout back, which I think had to do with summoning up all the energy we could to fight Voldemort, even on a cellular level I suppose). Our wristbands were pretty much useless. We thought that since we got our bands so early, we’d be able to be one of the first in line to get the book. Sadly the order in which we got our bands had nothing to do with the order in which we lined up for the book. When we got to the line, it was already going around the block. Oh, well.

We had a great time amusing ourselves in line. The bookshop printed out pages of an activity book for us, but they ran out of them long before they even got to our point in line. The people in front of us managed to scavenge one, and we had fun shouting out answers to trivia questions. I forgot to take a photo of our line buddies, though. One of them, who looked like a young Sirius (though a bit intoxicated) was having a great time trying to start the wave and running up and down the line like a madman. He was highly entertaining.

At midnight, the line began to move. Slowly. We got our books an hour and a half later. Our band of HP fans broke up as Kristen delivered us to our cars. We got to Quincy Center T station to find it quite deserted. There was only one door unlocked, and when we went inside, we found that the door to the stairs that led to the garage, was chained shut. After a brief moment of panic, we found a T employee, who unlocked the chains so we could get to our car. We got home around 3 am, thoroughly exhausted.

I tried to read a few pages, but didn’t get very far before I had to pass out. We spent the next day cleaning the house and then at the housewarming party of some friends. I didn’t start reading until 2 am on the 22nd. I finished around half past midnight on the 23rd. It was awesome. I’ll refrain from posting about the book here. I’ll save that for another post, as well as my comments on the latest movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Click through to see more HP photos: people, costumes, Hogwarts Square, etc.