I don't think i can say the same about my childhood, however. Those books never really did leave an imprint on me until the time when i finally learned how to read, and was finally allowed to read it. My childhood was made up of things like waking up superbly, and ridiculously early for Saturday morning cartoons, when naps were the equivalent of horror movies with clowns that feasts on children, when i paraded around in dresses i own practically everyday because it made me feel like a real princess, and when things were much, much simpler then. That, generally, was my childhood. I wasn't an avid bookworm, in fact i avoided it as if it were plague, and i'd much rather ride my bicycle and roller blade around the neighbourhood with the other kids then hole up in some nook and bury my nose within volumes and volumes of books. Because honestly, words scared me back then, but i'll leave that story till another day.
Those seven books still influenced me though, not by defining a period of my life, but more through how it aided in shaping and expanding my imagination, how it presented to me a totally different world fabricated out of mere words, and how those words helped in forming and molding places i've yearn to visit, characters i've come to know, love and root for, situations and scenarios which made my heart race in the face of danger or plummet to the very tips of my toes in sadness. It has taken me along for adventure after adventures, as if i was with them every single step of the way while they fought off Death Eaters or ate in the Great Hall, i was with the famous trio, all the way.
I was fully immersed in this fantasy world and i never wanted this experience to end. That feeling as if your entire being was uprooted and transported into a totally different realm, and you lose your sense of timing, sense of even being in reality, of being snuggled up in your room with a thick, fat book and turning pages after pages into the wee hours at night. That experience, i wanted it to go on forever.
Because it felt so good to get away from it all, from nasty teachers that seemed to have the time of the day just by yelling at you and giving massive amount of homework, from the people that you've thought are your friends, but then somewhere along the way you got degraded to the status of 'acquantance' and nothing more. From math lessons which seem to go on like it would never end, from how everything gets a little muddled and confusing as your try to register your surroundings that seem to pass you by in a blur.
To be able to sit and let everything in reality take the back seat for a while, for it to become a fuzzy haze at the back of your mind as you speed away with the characters in Harry Potter, as your mind is occupied with things outside from the world you live in, it's just- glorious. So enrichingly glorious.
That's what it is like to have your imagination take you on a whirlwind of fancy, where you construct your own world with words alone as your instructions, your guidebook to support you as you go about laying foundations and cornerstones to the majestic castle you're going to build single-handedly seemingly out of thin air. But it isn't thin air, because our imagination is as solid as anything we grasp here, in the real world, our imagination would take us to heights we can't fathom simply by the fact that we believe in it, and that set things into motion, that prompts us into action to bring forth the image we hold dearly in our minds into reality. Imagination helps in making the world a little brighter, the colours on each petal of a flower a little more vibrant, it gives commonplace scenes like a father carrying his toddler, a group of friends laughing over iced tea, a boy with a frown upon his forehead as he bent over his textbook, concerntration written all over his face, it gives a tinge of sweetness to everyday things we witness but never really sit back to ponder about.
It's a gift, that's what imagination is, and unfortunately as we grow older, supposedly wiser, we lose a little of this gift as time passes. Therefore, i'm wholly grateful for an author like Rowling, because of what she contributed in the form of her books and the protagonist everyone grew to love, that i could be a part of their adventures and the many lessons along the way, that all this would ultimately help me in fashioning my own world, where everything is slowly, steadily growing, building, brick by brick as my mind absorbs everything and churns out more stories with fire-breathing dragons, with battles and wars to be fought and victories to be won, with elves and evil, bloodthirsty creatures, with comradeship forged amongst the most unlikely of beings and relationships to be explored.
This is what the seven books of Harry Potter had brought to me, and for that i'm thankful that i picked it up in my school library and began reading it out of curiousity. Because of how it has been an influencing factor on how my imagination took flight and soared.
Thank you for the wonderfully magical, experience :')
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