I was four years old when my mom came home one afternoon and set a book on the kitchen table. I remember climbing up on a chair to look at what it was, I couldn't read yet but I thought the boy on the front looked like Jack from The Magic Treehouse series, which was my favorite at the time. I got so excited because it was bigger than any Magic Treehouse book my mom and I had ever read together, but she told me it was something new called Harry Potter. Well I didn't care much for that, I wanted to read about Jack and Annie and their adventures through history. We started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that night, and I've been obsessed ever since.

I barely remember a time in my life before Harry Potter; I can't even remember if I saw the first movie in the theater or not. I listened to the audiobooks every night before falling to sleep, which helped me commit everything to memory. When I read the books now, I can still hear the exact way that Jim Dale, who narrated the books, would say certain lines in my head. When I saw the second movie, I remember seeing the part where Tom Riddle tells Harry that the basilisk can still hear him and thinking "the line is that it can still smell him." I have not stopped being that way, I think it's actually gotten worse. I came out of every new Harry Potter movie with a list of at least five things that they left out that I thought were crucially important. My whole life was this series, which is why I felt so gutted when the credits rolled on the eighth movie.

That was it, the last thing that I had left to look forward to. There was no more Harry Potter left. Sure, I had my Pottermore account, but that could never really be enough. I fell into a pattern that I still haven't fallen out of: reread the series again and again. I was content to develop more theories and make more connections between all of the books.

Then 2016 came and hit me with a double whammy. The Cursed Child and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them both came out, and there was renewed energy around Harry Potter. I went to the midnight release to pick up my reserved copy of The Cursed Child, which I never got to do with the series. I read it in four hours, in mild horror, but I was in tears by the end. I couldn't believe that I actually got to read another Harry Potter book, quality aside. I had a good time reading it; it was cute and I got to have some of the excitement of my childhood again. But oh boy did I lose my mind at Fantastic Beasts.

I was initially not as hyped up about it as I am now. I thought that it seemed like it was going to be a really fun movie, and I was excited about seeing another Harry Potter movie in the theaters. I felt significantly less excited about the casting of Grindelwald, which was a huge disappointment to me when I knew that having that character in these movies was going to be amazing. I didn't like the feeling of having to choose between financially supporting Johnny Depp, as it's come into light how he has abused Amber Heard, and my morality. So I walked into that movie with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, wondering if there really needed to be five of these in total, but still hopeful. I walked out just wanting to scream with joy and excitement. There were so many emotions inside me, this movie was the real deal again. Fantastic Beasts gave me what I've been wanting from JK Rowling but did not get from The Cursed Child: backstory. Grindelwald and the first big wizarding war were something that I've always wanted to know about, and now I get five movies telling me all about it. The best part is, there's nothing to be left out because she's writing the screenplays!

It means everything to me to have more Harry Potter in my life. It's been with me for what feels like my whole life. And now that there's new content for me to dig into, I'll be happily set for another seventeen years.