And then, there were seven....

After years of being Potter fans, our journey with Harry ended on Saturday morning at 12:01 AM. That's when the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released. We had to continue our tradition of dressing up and going to the midnight release party, so I spent quite a bit of time sewing this past week. First, I created two Gryffindor quidditch costumes for the kids. I TRIED to tell them that Oliver Wood and Ginny Weasley never played on the team together, but did they care?? I think not.

Here's our "Oliver" bracing to catch the quaffle he helped me make - felt, foam tape, and a styrofoam ball, with sharpie stitches. Let me tell you, that thing was HARD if you missed the catch. Of course, I should have realized I needed to make it play-able! You can't just have a prop when you're Nicky - you have to USE it!
Kai, as Ginny Weasley, also helped make her prop, the Golden Snitch. She got tons of compliments on it at the party - but whenever either of them wanted to do something (which was most of the time) guess who got to carry the balls??
After all that sewing, I had to be the wizarding dressmaker, Madame Malkin. Best of all, my costume was NO sewing required! (40% off all Slytherin Apparel!)
Scott's hilarious costume (which got him noticed for sure at the party!) was a Chudley Cannons fan. He dressed up a la Super Fan - with a quidditch twist. Too bad even the book mentioned how BAD the Cannons are!! But, Ron Weasley and Scott agree "Let's just cross our fingers and hope for the best."

The crowd at this year's party was unbelievable. We got there when there were just a few people wandering around.... but soon....And that's just a tiny fraction of the people there. We were in group 16 to line up for the book (and each group had about 20 people in it). BUT. We were there EARLY. There were at least 50 groups total - and that's just the people with wristbands - some people were there with friends or family who were buying the book (we had three wristbands and five people ourselves).

Still, we enjoyed the dancing with live music at Platform 3/4...

And Nicky made a replica of Hogwarts while the girls made wizard clocks.
We all played games, entered the costume contest (lost, but oh well), watched potions being created, and waited.... and waited.... and FINALLY got called to get in line and around 1:30AM....
Ka-ching! The girls faces when the books were finally on the counter say it all...

Now, I DID finish reading that night. And Scott finished on Sunday. But I won't give a detailed spoilery review here. Suffice to say:

It was absolutely everything it should be. The book felt like an old friend on the first reading - someone you already knew, but were just catching up with. Everything made perfect sense, and all the pieces fell into place. And while it's astronomically unlikely that she will ever see this, I just have to say it.

Thank you, Jo. It's been wonderful.