Today, if you weren’t well aware, is September 1, 2017. Today, at precisely eleven o’clock, the Hogwarts Express departed from Platform 9 ¾ towards Hogsmeade station, and aboard that train we know to be Albus Severus Potter, who is on his way to begin his first day at Hogwarts.
Yep, today is that day described in the epilogue of The Deathly Hallows–today is 19-years later.
All Was Well
What we now know as the Wizarding World began in 1990 on a delayed train that was travelling from Manchester to King’s Cross. It was over the next five years that J.K. Rowling began to map out what would be seven books detailing Harry Potter’s magical world.
It is crazy to think just how far that first idea has come in 27-years!
The final epilogue is wonderful. Yes, Albus has a legitimately awful name, but at least it’s not as horrid as Renesmee. And yes, Ginny’s hair looks like mom hair in all the wrong ways in the film. But to have known all these characters since their pre-teen years, to have seen them grow up, fight a war, and see it out to the other side–that’s incredible.
All the fear-laden stress that followed Harry–which took a gigantic portion of his youth–all of that is laid to rest in the final sentences of the book: “The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.”
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Just, ah, sums it all very nicely, doesn’t it? Hope you have a great first day at Hogwarts, Albus! (To say that we’re jealous would be the biggest understatement of the year.)
What’s your favorite quote from the series?