I wanted to be at the last one. This may never happen in my lifetime again. I just had to see it once. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, the final Harry  Potter Book was to be released at  midnight, for sale on July 21, 2007, and I was at the international party observed at the local Barnes and Noble bookstore.

My wife , daughter and I arrived around ten thirty and the party was well underway. There were scavenger hunts, face painting, coloring books and hundreds and hundreds of people standing, talking , reading books and sitting in the aisles. In addition to the Muggles, there were many properly dressed members of the Hogwarts school and wizards of all ages in attendance. The members of the Harry Potter fraternity were evenly divided between boys and girls.

Bookstores the world over have never seen anything like the Harry Potter new book releases. The Deadly Hallows had just become the most preordered book on Amazon.com with a record two million copies set to be sold at time of the book’s release. The books’ initial print run in the United States alone was twelve million copies. Security has been of the highest priority since the book was shipped to stores and libraries. Millions of dollars were spent by the book’s publishers to cloak the secrets of the final book prior to its release and legal agreements preventing content release prior to July 21 are said to extend pages in length.

As I looked over the hundreds of people in the store, I thought the unique scene looked to be a New Years Eve party with the feel of a rock concert or sporting event within the confines of a conservative book store.

As the midnight hour approached, children of all ages sat in the aisles reading books of all types as they waited patiently to begin their final journey through the pages of J.K Rowlings blockbuster literary franchise.

At one minute to midnight, the entire store was involved in the sixty second countdown and I briefly thought that I was in Times Square on New Years Eve.

At the stroke of midnight, the sealed boxes of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows books were opened for sale. The store manager could be seen standing on the counter and shouting instructions to the customers in order for the long lines of eager book buyers to proceed as quickly as possible. The lucky people who had preordered the book were served first while the walk-ins patiently waited for their books well into the early morning hours. With the release of the final book , the Harry Potter story had become one for the ages.

Of course, the real magic that occurred at midnight in worldwide bookstores was not the wizardry in the final book. It was once again the evidence of the interest in reading that the Harry Potter books have generated. The seven books written by J.K. Rowling have introduced a new generation to reading hard cover books over the last ten years. This is far more potent magic than anything ever taught at the Hogwarts School.

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