Midnight Madness for 'Harry Potter'
Midnight release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" brings costumed fans.
NEW YORK, July 21, 2007 — -- A sea of wizard hats and purple-and-gold-striped ties lined the sidewalks, beginning at the entrance to the Times Square Toys R Us and wrapping around the corner and as far as the eye could see.
Fans lucky enough to be inside the building, those first in line and those chosen for having the best costumes, could literally feel the building shake as seemingly everyone in Times Square counted down the seconds to midnight.
When the roaring crowd finally reached zero, all it took was a wave of the magic wand by Victoria Lombardi, the first customer in line, and poof, the final installment of the J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" was released to American audiences.
"I've been reading them [Harry Potter books] since I was 14 so I'm very psyched," said a flustered Lombardi immediately after purchasing the book. "I don't even know if I want to read it. I just want to hold it and not let go."
Soon purchasing lines turned into a blur of rounded glasses and capes as more and more fans hurried into the store. Any fears of a sell-out were assuaged by Toys R Us staff who said they had "enough" while motioning to several crates of books -- their share of the 12 million copies printed so far in the United States.
Lombardi, along with a handful of friends from Valley Stream on New York's Long Island dressed in homemade Hogwarts uniforms, were the first to arrive at the Toys R Us in Times Square at 2:00 yesterday afternoon, 10 hours before the book's release.
To help the time go by, the group played board games like "Guess Who," debated which of them was the biggest Harry Potter fan and, according to Jeana Fucello, one of Lombardi's friends, threatened to beat up anyone that tried to spoil the new book for them.
While the book has already been released overseas, controversy struck in the states when several American newspapers ran reviews of the book they had obtained ahead of publication. According to Fucello, however, it shouldn't matter.
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