I can feel the numbness again; creeping from within me, taking over my being. The all too familiar numbness that engulfs you after the first reading of any of those seven books.

By the time I was acquainted with Harry Potter, the first four installments of the series had already been published. I remember devouring them at break neck speed; racing through them, and suddenly falling into a void, into nothingness, and waiting; waiting for Rowling to deliver yet again...

21st July 2003. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Raced through it like I had nothing else in life to do.
16th July 2005. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Thought it was her best work so far, and that’s saying something!

I remember all those hours of speculations and discussions, about how it’ll all end; what the 7th book will be like; what it will feel like after the last line is read; what it will feel like to not look forward to another Potter…

21st July 2007 finally dawned. I could feel the excitement on all the faces at the bookstore. It’s always nice to meet fellow potterfans, but this time it was different for me. I wanted to do it by myself. Just me and the book. Like meeting a lover. It’s too personal a moment to be shared with a whole bunch of people.

A part of me wanted to race through those 607 pages, I had been waiting for so long! And yet…yet another voice in my head cautioned, “Don’t hurry up! It’ll be over too soon.” And that’s exactly what happened. Before I knew it, it was all over. Inertia kept me rooted to the spot. I wanted time to stop. Wanted to be suspended in that world, forever. But reality was calling to me, had to go back to my own life. Lost in this state of transition, the numbness took over me again. Talking about it will help, I told myself. But no one I knew had finished reading it yet.

Writing. Yes, let me write. And hence, I write.

Ohh come off it yashada! It’s a mere book! It’s not real! Gawd how can you be so mad?

“Tell me one last thing”, said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
Dumbledore beamed at him…"of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”