The Part Where You Already Know What Happens

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out three weeks ago and I have seen it once in the theater, which means I have been thinking about it every day since and doing nothing useful about it until yesterday afternoon, when I pulled my copy of the book off the shelf and started over from page one.

I don't know what I was expecting to find that I didn't already know. I've read it before. I know how it ends. I think that's actually the point, that the second time through anything, you're not reading for the plot anymore, you're reading to watch the characters not know what's coming. There's something almost unbearable about that in a good way. You can see Dumbledore being exactly who he is right up until the last page and you want to warn him and also you know it wouldn't matter and somehow that makes you love him more.

re-reading it immediately after the movie like a normal person

The movie did something right that I wasn't sure it could, which is that it kept the feeling of the book even when it changed the shape of it. I sat in that theater with my water and my probably-overpriced candy and by the end I was just staring at the screen during the credits thinking, okay. Okay. There are still two more. There's still more to go.

credits rolling. book already back in hand.

I think that's the thing about stories that are actually good, they make you feel like there's more coming even when you're sad. Even when something in them ends, you don't feel finished. You just feel like the next chapter hasn't started yet. I've been carrying that around for three weeks like a small quiet thing I didn't want to put down. Thought I'd write it here before it faded.