Harry became a part of my life the moment I saw "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" sitting on the floor of my grandmother’s room. I was intrigued by the cover and knew that I wanted to read it. Harry grabbed my interest even tighter when I devoured that first book and began stealing it from my mother’s school bag while she was trying to read it first, knowing that the books get scarier as Harry matures throughout the series and knowing that I was young and impressionable. There was no going back after getting caught still awake in the wee hours of morning still turning those pages, reading by flashlight or the light in the hallway. Harry has been part of my life for years. He made me take reading seriously, taught me about friendship, gave me a taste of what it's like to feel brave... in a way, Harry is like the brother I never had.

J.K. Rowling published the last book in the seven part series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," in 2007 with the last of the movies being released in 2011. Then came Pottermore, where we were able to get another look into J.K. Rowling’s brain as she told us more about the characters or why she wrote certain things into her books. We as her captive audience have taken in everything that she's said and accepted it as truth… but should we?

Many literary theorists will say that the author is dead. No, this isn’t your big newsflash -- J.K. Rowling is alive and well. What they’re saying is that now that Harry Potter is written, published and shared with the rest of the world, it is up to the audience to think critically about Harry and see what kind of meaning we can draw from his story. "Dead" refers to the part of the theory that once an author releases their work into the world, their verbal addendums and thoughts about the characters don't have to influence the reader's thoughts and reading of that text. The reader can't be wrong because of something the author said because the reader is allowed to come up with their own truth based on their reading of the book and based on their life experiences.

We should get to think about Dumbledore and Grindelwald’s relationship -- but J.K. Rowling mentioned on her U.S. book tour in 2007 that Dumbledore is gay.

We should get to think about what Harry will be like with his children after experiencing trauma for most of his life -- now "The Cursed Child," the theatrical telling of the life of Harry's family and friends post-series, is in the works of being performed in London’s West End with a copy of the script being released as a book the next day.

The writer's freedom comes in writing down the story -- thinking of the plot, what the characters are like, how they interact, and maybe even how they will send a message that the writer really cares about conveying. For J.K. Rowling, that might mean spreading the message about the importance of friendship and reflecting back at us how we treat people of different races than our own. But once that final word is written on paper and shared with the rest of the world, the story becomes our own. If we have experienced discrimination on the basis of our race, we can make meaning of that in instances like when Hermione is extremely upset about Draco Malfoy calling her a Mudblood (referring to her status as a Muggle-born witch). We can think about our experiences of grief after reading the end of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" when he sees Cedric Diggory die. We can think about love when Harry goes on his first date with Cho Chang in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and when Ron starts going out with Lavender Brown later in the series. It doesn't matter what J.K. Rowling intended for her characters to think or feel after we have read the stories and thought about ourlives in terms of the messages that Harry has conveyed to us. It's okay to know the thoughts of the author, but her thoughts shouldn't be accepted as our own truth. As readers, we can supply the reflection and truths for ourselves.

The point is, we get to think about what each piece of the story (among other things) means in the context of the book and in the context of our lives. But so far, I don't think "Harry Potter" readers have been given enough space to do that. Harry is as much ours as he is J.K. Rowling’s. Many of us have grown up with him in our lives and the stories have been real enough to help shape our lives and how we view the world. We have grown as Harry has grown through each and every book

, and we can make meaning in our own lives from his experience. Authors like J.K. Rowling don't need to be completely silent after their stories are published, but room needs to be made in order for the story to grow bigger than herself, which can only happen when a lot of readers with a variety of ideas and experiences read the books and add to the conversations that exist around this story.