Much to my dismay, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 has not yet released in Shanghai. It has apparently been kept out of the theatres for the time being by a spate of propaganda films that are being shown to coincide with the 90th birthday celebrations of the Communist Party of China. Till those have had their run, Harry’s ultimate battle has been put on pause. It doesn’t get more Muggle-headed than that, if you ask me.

As my wait for closure stretches unbearably on, I have had little choice but to revisit the old films to whet the Potter-deprived palate. It helps me feel closer to the magic. Though surely I need no refresher; I remember it all as though it was just yesterday.

But it wasn’t yesterday. It was a decade ago that I first met Harry Potter. It was 2001 that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the movie, came out. I decided to watch it without any expectations. I had heard about the boy wonder before that, but I must confess that a book about a wizard sounded like kid’s stuff and didn’t overly appeal to a girl just out of college. The fourth book in the series, Goblet of Fire, had come out the year before to long lines across the globe, news of which had reached India, but I hadn’t even bothered to go out in search of a copy.

So imagine my surprise as I watched the bespectacled young boy with the lightening-bolt-shaped scar and I quickly fell under his spell. In retrospect, it could hardly be helped. Harry was ignorant of the world of magic till his 11th birthday, and his discovery was mine, too. As a fresh-faced Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry was being told what Hogwarts was, so was I. As the awestruck orphan was dragged along by Hagrid on that first trip to Diagon Alley, I too gaped. As this tragedy-tinged boy boarded the train on his way to so much joy and so much heartbreak, I was there sitting beside him the whole time.

I remember leaving the movie hall not wanting it to end, not wanting to go another second before returning to the magical, mysterious world. I crossed the road in front of Lighthouse cinema and bought the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, from a shop on the ground floor of Sreeram Arcade.

It wasn’t long before I finished the slim volume and went back for seconds, thirds and fourths: The Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire. By the time the next book was out, Order of the Phoenix, I was up to date and eager for more. And though I still regard the fifth instalment as the most disappointing of the books, I was so loyal to the cause by then that I was ready to enlist in Dumbledore’s Army. If only I could. This was no passing infatuation; it was love, no less.

My feeling of wonder was positively childlike. And it is a feeling to which I have remained true. So true in fact that even when I had, thanks to a professional twist of fate, a copy of The Deathly Hallows in my hands 12 hours before its official release, I didn’t do more than skim over the first few lines. To read more felt like a violation of the enchanted world of which I had become a part. I would wait a few hours more, along with countless others around the globe, and the wait would be rewarded when I had my very own, legitimate copy to devour.

When that happened, I read all day and all night till I finished in the early hours, terrified that the media and flop-mouthed friends would spill the juicy details before I learned them on my own. And also because at that time, there was real cause for apprehension about the safety of all my favourite characters. J.K. Rowling had already killed Sirius and Dumbledore in the preceding adventures, and there was no telling where she would stop. Ron, Hermione and even Harry were far from secure.

The wait is different now. The suspense is gone for I have long known how Harry’s journey ends. I know too that the movie will arrive soon enough, or that I will travel to it. When I do finally see it, it will be the end of an era. So perhaps these last few days of waiting are the best thing that could have happened to me and my romance with the Boy Who Lived. A way of keeping the magic alive — or at least on life support — till I am ready to say my last goodbye.