When I was younger, my dad and I read it every night, but we never got passed more than a page before I complained of boredom. A few years later, I tried again. The same copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone sat on my bedside table gathering dust. Once again, I just couldn’t do it.

I finally read the first two books this year, and they were fine. OK? Fine. 17-year-old me was not amused by Harry Potter’s world. It was childlike and fluffy. I had seen all the movies and reading the books didn’t leave me with any feelings I didn’t already have.

But don’t hate me! Give me a minute to explain myself.

Because not many people do! I hardly open my mouth before people look at me like I’m foreign. I’ve been yelled at, personally offended, and outcast (however jokingly) for my opinion. I only read the first two books because of peer pressure anyway (which didn’t make them any more enjoyable I might add). I continue to be surprised at how this fun fact about me sends the most mild-mannered people into a fit of uncontrollable rage. For most, Harry Potter was a fundamental part of their childhood, and imagining a life without it is completely….unimaginable. What many people do not consider, however, is that Harry Potter is just as large of a part of my life, but in a different way.

I am well aware that I missed the window of wonder and magic that infected the typical ten-year-old. The same fluff that clogged my pores as a young adult would have stuffed the pillows that propped me up as a kid, angling my eyes to fit perfectly between the pages of J.K. Rowling’s classic.

I don’t know where I was for the Harry Potter outbreak, but I didn’t miss the epidemic entirely. I watched it from the outside, in. I attended Hogwarts-themed parties, bought maroon and gold scarves for my friends, and took Pottermore quizzes online (I’m a Gryffindor, I’m sure you’ll be sour to know). Yes, I missed that critical window of my life where Harry Potter’s wizarding world would have sparked my interest, but that does not mean I cease to be amazed by the story that came to life off the pages I once so easily dismissed.

I enjoy Harry Potter from a different angle. There is something unmistakably admirable about a story so infectious that it literally comes to life. As an author, one of the greatest gifts would be to walk through the world I built in my head, and I can’t imagine how Rowling must feel to have that power.

I haven’t read Harry Potter (and I won’t), but not because I hate it, rather I don’t want to tarnish the story by reading it with a critical mind. Harry Potter’s world requires a kind of naivety that flew out that window of opportunity I so sorely missed. I prefer to love Harry Potter from a distance, admiring the thing it has become rather than the thing it was.

Don’t hate me for that.