Film | Cinema | Harry Potter
A Magical Serendipity: How I Bought My First Harry Potter Book
Reminiscing about how I bought my first Harry Potter book. Join me on a walk down the memory lane.
Admittedly, I was very late to the Harry Potter fandom. When the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, came out in 1997, I was 7 years old. In 2001, when the film adaptation of the book was released, I was not yet aware of American pop culture or films. I was still watching Disney shows such as Aladdin and Duck Tales on TV.
Fast forward to 2004, I was introduced to the magical world of Harry Potter by one of my cousins. He recently had read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and couldn’t stop raving about how entertaining the books were. That year, I watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — at least twenty times on home video. Why? Well, that’s a story for another day.
By 2005, I had already become a Harry Potter fanboy. The films had completely engrossed me and transported me to the magical world. Due to my incessant references to Harry Potter, my family had begun to see me as somewhat of a fanatic. In the same year, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was going to hit the cinemas. I was desperate to read the book before the film premiered as the books were more thorough and complete. I wanted to know about the characters and the subplots since the film adaptations presented the story in a condensed form. However, a new copy of the book was expensive and the only concept of pocket money in my life was when I literally ‘found’ some coins in my pocket left after running errands.
My eyes kept scanning the book collections of the roadside thrift booksellers for a book cover with the top half in red, a dragon blowing fire with HARRY POTTER written all over it. I kept asking them if they had a second-hand copy of the book, and to my dismay, most of them didn’t have it. My school was a 15-minute walk from my home. One of the book vendors, on the way to my school, had a copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. My hopes went up. “All I have is this,” he replied when I enquired about the Goblet of Fire book. Irritably, I went back home.
Weeks went by, and finally, one day, on my way back home from school, I froze at the sight of one battered copy of the book gleaming in red, in all its glory. I rushed to the bookseller. “two hundred and forty (rupees),” the vendor replied when I asked him for the price of the book. It was horrifying; how in the world would I ever get two hundred and forty rupees when I barely ever had forty bucks with me?
Under no condition could I ask my family for money, and that too for a children’s book. I decided to save some money and buy the book myself. I knew it would be difficult and would take a lot of time, but I had a strategy. I planned to save some cash from the money I got for snacks whenever I did. “If I skip eating out for a month, I will have enough”, I reassured myself.
During this time, the promotion of the movie had begun. I remember perusing through the newspaper for advertisements for the film. A poster of Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, along with a few other new characters, was released. This pumped me up!
Weeks went by, and I could barely collect a hundred bucks. This was a disaster. Now, I was afraid I would not even be able to buy the book before it was sold. I longingly kept looking at the book at the bookstore while going back from school. I could barely save anything significant in the coming weeks. It was a long way for me. I slowly started to get discouraged and stopped looking at the bookstall.
One morning, while walking to my school, carefree and humming a tune, on the street, right in front of me, I saw a note of a hundred rupees! I picked it up. It was a crisp note, fresh, and seemingly it had never exchanged hands. But it wasn’t all, there was something different about it. It was a bit thicker than I expected. I squinted and rubbed my right thumb over it with my index finger underneath. It was almost magical when a second note of 100 rupees slid from underneath the note. I gaped at it in disbelief. You know those times when you wait for something for a long time and then you get it, you have an involuntary smile on your face; you don’t realize you are smiling until it starts to hurt; it was that moment for me. The first thing that came to my mind was I was going to buy the book today!
I safely kept the money in my pocket and rushed to the school. I couldn’t wait for the day to end. In the afternoon, while coming back from school, or I should rather say while running back from school, I stopped at the book vendor’s stall. I scanned the collection of books and couldn’t see the book. “Something is wrong. Where’s the book!” I exclaimed to myself.
The bookseller informed me that he had sold the book when I asked him about the whereabouts of the same. “Can you bring me another one? I want one”, I implored.
I kept checking back with him every day if he had got it. He hadn’t. One day, I tried to look for it, and still, it wasn’t there among his books. Gloomily, I walked up to him and asked him again if he’d got the book. “Yes, I will get it. Wait.” A blankness filled my mind until a stream of questions took over it. “Did he mean I should wait for another day? or a week? Or did he mean I should wait here, and he’s going to bring it now?”
There was a dilapidated building nearby, and I saw him unlock one of the rooms. He disappeared into the darkness of the room. I kept staring at the door for a few minutes, which felt like hours. I saw a couple of huge bundles of books floating out of the room into the light and then noticed a pair of hands underneath them. He kept the bundles among the other books at his stall and went back into his storage room. I was quickly scanning through the spines of the books when I saw him bringing another copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He handed the book to me, and I handed him back the two hundred and forty rupees. I stared at the cover for a bit and turned it over. And then thumbed through the book and turned it around and read.
“The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can’t wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,….”
Thank you for reading my simple yet very personal experience. If you have enjoyed it please let me know. If you like to read more Harry Potter or film-related content, please follow. Have you read the Harry Potter books? What are your thoughts about it? Leave your experiences in the comments section.
