How Harry Potter Taught Me Strength

I never know what to write my college essay about...

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, screenplay by Steven Kloves.

People may see me walking around in my Gryffindor sweater. They may hear me talking about how I’m reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the ninth time. They may even hear me humming Hedwig’s Theme occasionally. I will be written-off immediately as a Harry Potter geek and, truly, I am. I love Harry Potter and it has been a large part of my life ever since I was seven and my mom and I took turns reading pages of SS (geek lingo for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone). I am now writing my college essay, the “Big One” about Harry Potter. To some, this may seem to be taking a Harry Potter obsession an inch too far. I assure you, it is, but I am doing this with perfectly good reason.

I have lived all seventeen years of my life in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have lived through all of the disasters my city attracts. The most horrific to date is Hurricane Katrina. People always have that one memory of it, it may be the memory of finding out their home was destroyed or saved, it may be the memory of watching everything unfold on CNN or reconnecting with loved ones. My 'big memory' is reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on the shore of Lake Chicot in Arkansas, where we evacuated to. The movie was to come out in November, so packing for the regular “three-day” evacuation, I figured I would re-read it. That ragged little book, separating from its binding in chunks, turned out to be a life saver.

Little kids need to be able to have someone to look up to, particularly during disasters. They need to have somebody say “It’ll all be alright.” During Katrina, I did not have that person. I had two parents who feared for their jobs and their home. I had a grandpa who had the news about the catastrophe blaring in my ears 24/7 while he slept. Nobody believed anything would be alright. With fears that my family who hadn't evacuated were dead and that my home was gone, I read my book to fill the time. I found something in Harry Potter that I could not find in anyone else: strength. Harry’s life was definitely not “alright.” He had disaster upon disaster happen to him. Not a single person told him things would be alright, that Voldemort would die on his own or his dead loved ones would come back and help him, yet he still charged on, he still kept his hope and he kept strong.

I reread the series twice in the months following the storm and I am nothing but glad that I did, because though I love Harry and all he has done for me, I don’t need him anymore. I have my own strength to count on. In light of disasters, such as the oil spill ravaging the Gulf Coast right now, I find myself in a much happier disposition than those around me. I find myself with more hope, with more knowledge that things will turn out. It might not be the way we want, but in a way with which we can accept.

So I wrote my college essay about Harry Potter but in actuality, I owe it much more than I could ever repay.