Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (HP#3, re-read)

I can't say I had any new revelations while I was re-reading HP#3. Again, I noticed that I remember the series of events in the movie better than the book's, but I like (of course) the book better. I wish we'd seen more of Lupin's classes. Knowing what comes next, I have a few character qualms, but re-reading #4 might resolve those. And (SPOILER AHEAD!) I'm getting a bit misty whenever Hedwig gives Harry an affectionate nip. I really like Hedwig, and I hate knowing her fate. I try not to think about it, but going LA LA LA LA while I'm reading doesn't exactly help.

But thinking about Hedwig brings me to a bit of a tangent. Every year at Thanksgiving, to kick of the Christmas season, my hometown of Pemberville, Ohio, has a festival of trees, and every year the theme changes. About five years ago, the theme was books, and my mom and sister immediately claimed Harry Potter.

And it was a rockin' tree. They made a lot of the ornaments and they borrowed my snowy owl to put underneath it, along with a bunch of HP-related things like magical-looking books, a broomstick and potion bottles, and the whole series (however many had been published at the time).* And of course, people come in to see the trees and vote for favorites, and there was one kid who was super excited about the Harry Potter tree. He told me he was voting for it because he wanted to win it because of that snowy owl underneath the tree. He really wanted that owl. My owl. My Hedwig.

I explained to the kid that the trees people vote on don't go home with "winners"--the ornaments and everything underneath the trees belong to the people who designed them and they were just sharing with the town for a while. It didn't occur to me at the time that he didn't need to be disillusioned--he'd probably just have assumed later that he hadn't won--that it was kind of mean of me to wreck his hope.

But it probably doesn't matter. I don't think he believed me.

I asked my mom to keep an eye on my owl anyway, just in case.


*I'll post pictures if I can get Mom to send me a few.