I know exactly where I was the last Harry Potter release--Banff, Canada. I was newly pregnant, just a week short of making it public knowledge. John and I had gone to a math conference and left Rose with my mom, sort of a pre-baby vacation. (We actually took so many pre-baby vacations that summer that after the last one Rose announced, “I don’t love you any more.”) Banf is a small tourist town with a lovely bookstore which had a window full of Harry Potter. Which I couldn’t buy. My in-laws had promised it to me as a birthday gift. I stared at the cover. I read the fly-leaf. I stared at the British cover. I bought a pink cowboy hat instead.

One Harry Potter came out when I was heavily pregnant with Rose. John hid it until my last month. We had heard that at that point insomnia sets in. Harry Potter was going to be my middle of the night book. I reread them all.

This time I’m not pregnant. I’m just me, still excited, eager, ready to disappear into that world.