Attention all wizards and witches!
If the words "Hogwarts," "hippogriff," and "Death Eaters" mean anything to you, then you probably already know. The sixth installment of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series hit bookstores everywhere Saturday and Pottermania swept the nation.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince made its entry into the literary world with a spellbinding effect. Tempe's Changing Hands Bookstore hosted a midnight-madness party, complete with fire dancers, snow cones, and plenty of wizardry-related activities to entertain Potter fans as they waited to pick up their books at midnight.
Journalism junior Andrea Kuipurs had worked at the bookstore for a little more than three weeks before being bombarded with the long-awaited release.
"All the staff has warned me that it's absolutely crazy," she said. "Everybody loves Harry Potter."
Fans of Potter and the rest of the Gryffindor gang, dressed in long black robes, red and gold striped ties with the Gryffindor logo planted proudly on their chests, paced the store as early as 9 p.m. awaiting the book's arrival at midnight.
While the majority of the night's crowd consisted of elementary school-aged kids and their parents, a considerable portion was college-aged, and not afraid to admit it.
Mechanical engineering junior Mark Abel and graduate student Teresa Lassak stood outside in the summer heat to wait in line for snow cones, while a crowd of people gathered around a fire dancer balancing a stick of fire on his face. He proceeded to slowly insert it into his mouth.
Abel, who said he has read the previous five Potter books two to three times each, said he attended the midnight-madness event just to get the book and have fun hanging out with his friends.
Lassak agreed and said, "I'm not even getting my book tonight. I'm here because my friends are here. I'm getting mine tomorrow."
Glen Oltmanns, an interdisciplinary studies senior at ASU and founder of a Facebook group dedicated to Harry Potter, said he has read most of the Potter books four times. He said he read the first book, which he borrowed from his littler sister, while he was sick and at home.
"I got through it in like, five hours, and went over to the neighbor kid's house and borrowed the rest of the series," he said. "I finished the whole thing that week."
Although Oltmanns admitted that people make fun of him for being an adult Harry Potter fan, he doesn't care.
"I just laugh. Making fun of people isn't the same anymore like it was in elementary school, and I have big shoulders. I can take it," he said.
And while the stereotype persists that Potter is just for kids, adult fans will continue to read about Slytherins, dragons, and He-who-must-not-be-named.
"That stereotype is just by people who have never read it," Oltmanns said. "Don't hate it till you try it."
Reach the reporter at tara.brite@asu.edu.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was modified July 19. "Gryffindor" was misspelled.
