What To Do If You’re Falling Out of Love with “Harry Potter”

Go to the busiest part of town, alone, preferably in the early evening. Walk around. If you’re from a big city like me, go into that corner store (you know the one), and get yourself a cup of that always consistent, brewed-by-a-machine-but-still-amazing coffee. You’ll make the $2 back, promise. Listen to the tires circling past you on the pavement. Listen to the “See you tomorrow”s and the foul mouths of teenagers and the “So how was school today, honey?”s. Roam the streets you’ve walked for years, and see if you can remember what they were like, back then. What you were like. Are you feeling cold? I like this scarf and these gloves and this beanie.

Don’t go to the big fancy bookstores. Whenever I was falling out of love with Harry Potter, places like Barnes & Noble made it worse somehow. Sitting on the always green, always plain carpet with everything perfectly labeled and looked after just made me feel unimaginative. That and it took what felt like years off my life to restrain my urge to scream at every teenybopper in there giggling over whatever 50 Shades of Grey or “Twighlight-esque” book they happened to grab from the perfectly-stocked shelves. Luckily there are other, more stimulating book-havens out there with the wooden floors that I crave and books whose spines have seen more of life than mine and big windows that let lots of natural light in; go to those.

Get more involved. You know that friend-of-a-friend who interns for MuggleNet and transcribes for Hogwarts Radio? The one who dressed up in full Gryffindor garb for the movies and can quote the books like nobody’s business? They’ve got the right idea. Spend more time with them. Spend more time on the Internet, too. Google everything to do with anything Harry Potter. Learn why and why not. Read fan fictions and maybe even write a few yourself. Just steer clear of the corners of the Internet that upset you. You know exactly where they are.

If you have nieces and nephews or children of your own, celebrate turning eleven. Write the letters, buy the merchandise (after all, what 25 eleven-year-old wouldn’t want a wand?) and Hogwarts-ify your house. Don’t forget to bake; these are my favorite. If you don’t have nieces or nephews or children, do it anyway.

Watch the movies. Watch them over, and over ,and over again. Watch them out of order—they’re better that way anyway. Same goes for the books. Wizarding World of Harry Potter? Get there. It doesn’t matter how, and it doesn’t matter when. Just get there.

Avoid the following: “9 to 5″s, people who make you feel self-conscious about your interests, brainless television programming, anyone who says you can’t, math class, negative articles, and people who tell you you’re far too old to fall back in love with Harry Potter. Be willing to talk to anyone who will spare you their opinions on how terrible Harry Potter is, how awfully written it was, how Warner Bros. cut the books to smithereens, how there are no good fandom websites, and how the story has been dead since 2011.

If none of that works, take a break. Just be prepared to miss it more than ever. Eventually, anyway. Harry Potter will always be the same as it was when you left it, and you can learn to love it again – if you want to.