Grand Hallows Ball

Originally I was planning on going to the Barnes and Noble Harry Potter party because that's where all my friends were going, but luckily the got some sense knocked into them and agreed to go to Borders (like we always do). As much I was wishing I had more time being an ignorant fan not knowing what's going to happen next, I went to the party because there was no way I was going to miss out on the fun.My buddy Robin drove. She looks a lot like Luna Lovegood if you ask me.

We got there early, but we still were some of the last to get the wrist bands that indicated the order of which people would be receiving the book. We were going to have to wait a while.

It was hard to believe in a few hours we'd be holding the book we've been waiting for for so many years. All of us reminisced about how when we read Sorcerers Stone, book seven seemed so far away.

There were lots of our friends there.

And the Borders staff gave us free glow sticks.


We met lots of fun characters from the books; this is Professor Trelawny...

and the Whomping Willow (does the Whomping Willow count as a character?)...

and a young Ron Weasley.

(Wanna know a secret? These release parties aren't really all that fun. We just go because we want to be able to get the book at midnight. We had to keep ourselves busy.) Mark worked on his summer reading.
Cassie tried to catch up on all the things she'd fogotten about in book six.

Ben and Corey discovered this... erm... interesting synopsis of the old testament.

We started to get pretty tired.

But soon enough, the sound of a drum echoed through the store. It was time.

The books were here!

Waiting in line got very boring so Robin and I decided to go pick up our copies at Wal Mart. We imagined the line would be much shorter there. We were right.

And then we got lost in the parking lot.