March 30, 2007
Over Winter Break, I neglected my brand new colossal copy of John Updike’s stories to follow the exploits of Harry, Ron, and Hermione once again. I think I excused the choice by calling it preparation for the upcoming movie and seventh book, but honestly, I wanted to pretend I went to Hogwarts – because who doesn’t want to be a wizard, with an owl and a wand and all sorts of adventures? Once, though, I actually was a wizard.
I went through a dark phase during high school that was essentially centered on the works of J.K. Rowling – I spent a good year of my life writing fanfiction and re-reading the four books that were available at the time. When I came to Hamilton, I immediately volunteered to participate in Hogwarts at Hamilton, solely for the name. Even though my fanfiction days were far behind me at that point, I was still ridiculously excited to actually be a Hufflepuff, if only for a weekend. Every year around Halloween,
Students and community members (and veritable hordes of small children) come through for tours of “Hogwarts,” while the “students” perform skits based on their assigned classes. I was Hannah Abbott (which was my own idea and therefore solidifies my secret identity as a dork), and was a student in Care of Magical Creatures, along with Neville Longbottom and Madame Pomfrey. Hagrid was also there, of course, enacted by a rugby player who now lives in the suite above mine. Snape, coincidentally, lives next door. Two other students volunteered to be mermaids, which involved a lot of cadaverous-like makeup and fake seaweed, while I stuck my hair in pigtails and talked like a
There are plenty of volunteer opportunities at
I still have the cloak in my closet – I’m pretty tempted to break it out and revisit my former, more magical days.
