Drooling, Dozing, Disorientation: 'Potter' Was Worth It

July 21, 2007 — -- I had planned to read this book deliciously slowly -- going over page after page, knowing that it was the last time I would truly enter a world so clearly painted, one I might even feel a part of.

But after I elbowed my way to the front of the Borders line in New York's Columbus Circle, managing to buy the book by 12:07 a.m., get home by 12:33 and start reading around 12:57 a.m., I have not lifted my eyes from it until just now at about 2:46 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.

There were four hours or so I believe where my eyes did close, and I used the book as a pillow and my drool marked the where I left off reading -- at the top of page 437. But when I opened them again at about 8:15 a.m. or so, I picked up the book and started reading again like I had never stopped.

And now, 13 hours after I began, I have a few empty bottles of water and seltzer by me, and my left foot has fallen asleep, and I don't quite know where I am. I feel like if I turn and look out the window from the back of my eye, the outlines of Hogwarts would be seen, peaking through the trees and the dappled shade cast by their leaves.

I feel tingly and warm like I've bewitched, enchanted, or, as they say in the book, "confunded" by a twitch of a wand. Maybe I've been given some kind of love or happiness potion or maybe the book lying open on the sofa next to me emitted some magical enchantment that allows everything to seem right with the world.

Rowling's seventh novel, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," is a fast-paced thriller that leaves no stone unturned or question unanswered for those who have followed Harry from his first year at Hogwart until his last.

The action sequences often need rereading because it is finely detailed and rarely pauses. Readers dive back into Rowling's wizarding world with a lurching aerial battle that quickly plunges Harry and his best friends into the quest set for them at the end of the sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Rowling is often merciless with her characters, plowing ahead with the action and allowing readers to mourn as little as her main protagonists as old favorites become victim to Lord Voldemort and his servants, the Death Eaters.

Many of the saga's most beloved characters are saved -- without saying which ones -- but only after they go through the wringer, allowing us as readers to see them mature.

Rowling stays remarkably true to the message she began her novels with -- that love is the greatest magic of all.

When readers first met Harry in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," he was an 11-year-old boy wizard, who we learned was orphaned at the age of one because an evil wizard, Lord Voldemort, decided to kill him. But Harry's parents gave up their lives so their son could have his.

In that ultimate act of self-sacrifice, Rowling crafted a journey to adulthood for a plucky young man who had to confront the dark wizard, and who could not understand that greatness and power mean nothing in the face of life's most important and magical lessons -- that love, kindness, selflessness and remorse can conquer even the darkest enchantments.

The seventh novel is a realization of this theme. It is an act of of ultimate sacrifice made by Harry that allows him to have the strength to kill Lord Voldemort. And it is the magic of love that allows even some of his most bitter enemies to become some of his greatest helpers along the way.

I realize that my warm-and-fuzzy descriptions might make one think that Rowling has gone a bit soft in the head in her seventh book, or that maybe I'm just too sentimental.

But for a reporter who has loved the books and spent the last two weeks immersed in asking fans, publishers and editors just why Potter mania swept the world, I think the seventh book has finally given me an answer.

For me, I loved the Harry Potter books because the most magical thing about him is so human. He is motivated by his love and care for those around him, so much so that he is willing to sacrifice his own life for it – just as his parents once sacrificed their lives for him. And Rowling makes that the foundation for his ultimate victory, and by extensions gives us access to a magic that's within our reach.