July 14, 2011, 11:59pm.
A thousand people stand in four lines, choking the penthouse-floor lobby of Regal Cinemas. The floor is covered with people sitting, people standing, people doing who-knows-what dressed as You Know Who. . . Some have nothing, others merely a lightning bolt drawn on the forehead; still others are fully decked out. There are Potters, Death Eaters, a Luna with a puffy blond wig, even a pair of identical twin girls with F & G shirts next to me in line. . . I have to literally shout over the din. Next to me, Kat and two other friends swill espresso, getting wilder and wilder, laughing louder and louder. And to be sure, this particular Snape is anything but dour and silent. As usual, my bag is stuffed with goodies – potions, Bertie Bott's beans – and I am way too hot in my Snape attire for comfort but totally don't care.
And I think, when next will I ever see anything quite like this?
How amusing it has been, how curiously enriching, to have gone from immature teen to mature adult during the years spanning the Age of Potter.
The line starts moving, and the butterflies in our stomachs grow. I, who so often shun popular fads, big events, or "the bandwagon", allow myself to be swept into the excitement, feeding on the adrenaline and emotions like a human version of a Dementor, relinguishing judgment. . . knowing if any modern trend has been worthy of appreciation, it is this one, which has opened the imaginations of so many – kid and adult alike.
Drinking in the scenes while sporting homage to The Bravest. Long live the grease! I was so relieved at the way they portrayed Snape's memories and remained fairly true to things, at least there. God, but they can botch things! This was beautiful and deeply moving.
Snapey hugs and kisses amid cinema chaos with Kat. In a situation like this, it's hard to pin "most annoying theatre viewer" labels on anyone, but we came damn close – squealing, shouting, giggling, technology usage, and bellowed mock-orders of "SILENCE!!!" being the order of the night. Soon as the curtain opened, we busted out the potions and snacks and partied like the pair of Slytherins we are!
An evil grimace from a Snape holding nothing back! The "sugar daddy" shirt (didn't have a Hawaiian print one) suggests the angel/devil complex and being free of those restrictive roles, plus, nothing – nothing is sexier than Redemption. (Sorry, James.) If not laughing all the way to sainthood, Severus can at least sigh in relief. At any rate, the angel wings were too much in the way in the cinema, had to leave those off.
Kat plays with a little Muggle magic. "Put your laptop away before we get thrown out," her friend ordered – turned out he didn't actually have a ticket, and was worried. Pth.
Snapes were few and far between, but this specimen was sighted in our cinema. For those not naturally blessed with abundantly greasy black hair, there's always the stringy black mop wig.
We were the last out of the cinema, and howled at the poor projector man when he tried to short the credits early. The credits promptly came back on. After much howling, laughing and gabbing, we tottered out of there about 3:00 am.
And so the odyssey ends. . . but the brewing doesn't. Harry Potter didn't invent potions, cloaks, or anything else in traditional witchdom – it just made it okay for us to come out of the broom closet . . . and keep on coming out. Anyone who has ever played dress-up, who has ever dreamed, who has ever brewed potions in a sink, or who is a true Witch or magic enthusiast. . . we've benefited in so many sundry little ways, even if we're still not taken seriously. That, sadly, will take a lot more time. Stereotypes, and religion, cast a long shadow. And that is why we must dream on, dance on, write on. . . brew on.
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