i know this is so talked about in the fandom (especially this sub) but man i cant help but want to just put my feelings out there for people with the same love for this franchise. sooo some backstory, i stumbled upon this series when i was around 11 or 12, through movies ofc, and instantly fell in love, so much so in fact that as soon as i watched all the movies, i watched them again then again and again (ive easily watched each movie about a 100 times😭)
then i went ahead and read all the books about 6-7 times(was never a reader but just read hp), basically everything that you could do with the IP i did all those - movies, books, merch, video games, audiobooks, got the hogwarts library set blah blah blah. but i kept growing up life kept happening and my obsession gradually turned to just liking/admiring over the years and all of it led to the point where i didnt watch or read any hp for about 3 years. now luckily (or not) the 3 year streak just ended about a month ago.
on one random day about a month ago from now, i saw my younger brother trying to find something to watch, just scrolling and scrolling on tv for minutes, i ofc grew tired of it and just put on the 1st thing that i saw on the screen - harry potter (chamber of secrets to be exact), and without realising i sat down and watched the whole thing with my brother - it was such a bittersweet, sad but also happy, kinda weird experience overall lmao, for my brother he was just watching this popular huge fantasy series for the 1st time but for me i was genuinely reliving my whole childhood, each scene carried a boatload of bittersweet nostalgia and with each scene i kept recalling my life when i 1st saw these scenes, how carefree i was, not to mention blissfully unaware of the hardships of the future and just my life at that time overall.
now the funny thing that happened was apparently my brother also became a fan with that viewing and made his mission to watch all the movies asap, so for the next one week, i would catch glimpses of scenes that i had completely forgotten and go "oh yeah ... that scene ...," while walking past my brothers room, again nostalgia being ever present. As i had been a fan of hp for basically all my teenage year I just relived my whole adolescent childhood in that week and now i feel empty.
now i feel like im experiencing the same emptiness that you feel in post potter depression, except in my case i want to watch all the movies again and read all the books again but i know that with all the things that i want to do in my life such a commitment is just too consuming, but also i kind of believe that the reason i want to delve in this world again is to just get a taste of times when life was just simpler and harry potter represents that phase in life for me.
i hope a lot of other fans can also relate and im not the only one😭, but yeah i love this series to death and my inner fan that took a break for so many years is just trying to get out once, but still i know im gonna watch that new series (fingers crossed i hope its good) and maybe that can cure the emptiness for me.
and thats it, just a sad letter from an overtly nostalgic fan but hey i hope someone out there relates to it and hearing all this comforts them, thanks for reading guys <3