Goodbye Harry.

I received my copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in the mail at approximately 1330 Saturday afternoon and by 2010 hrs Sunday night I had completed it. I was a relative late-comer to the Harry Potter saga as I didn't get interested in the books until the first movie and the fourth book came out in late 2001. My world, at the time, was a little uncertain as I had just gotten engaged, I was in my last year of college at SIUC, I was still in the Air National Guard, and September 11th had just occurred.

Harry's world grabbed hold of me like nothing had since I read "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" in junior high and the first few books of the Dark Tower series by Steven King in high school. Things were a little simpler in Harry's world but as the books progressed things got darker and scarier just like the world I was in when I first met The Boy Who Lived.

After I caught up to book four: "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", I eagerly awaited each new installment of Harry, Ron and Hermione's adventures, even going so far as to attending the midnight release party for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Although I didn't dress up and my wife and I got pulled over at a roadside sobriety check. I think they almost hauled us in because we hadn't been out drinking and we were CLEARLY in our mid-twenties and holding a Harry Potter book at 0130 on a Saturday morning.

I approached Book Seven with some trepidation as I knew that all the questions I had were going to be answered: Who was going to die? Was it Harry? Is Snape a bad man or a good guy? Everything turned out about the way I expected it to and Ms. Rowling did a good job, like always, of keeping the book honest in that people have secrets, people are afraid and people die but life inevitably goes on.

I can continue with my life, waiting for the next great story to come along and pull me into the lives being lived therein, and I will put Harry on my book case with other old friends whose stories have ended: Bilbo, Frodo and Sam. Roland Deschain and his ka-tet of Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy. Horatio Hornblower and William Bush. Corwin of Amber and Merlin of the Courts of Chaos. Lazarus Long. Kilgore Trout. Paul Atreides who became Muad'Dib. John Perry and Jane Sagan. And last, but not least, Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Tricia McMillan, and Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione will have some good company.

I'm sure Honor Harrington, Harry Dresden, Tavi of Calderon, Drizzt Do'Urden and John Taylor of the Nightside will be along soon.