The Final Farewell

Yes, this is going to be a Harry Potter post! And yes, there will probably be some cheesy statements somewhere in the post! Oh, and there might be a couple of spoilers so if you haven't seen the movie yet and plan to, just skip over those parts!!

First I have to give a big THANK YOU to my awesome friend Danielle!! She and I have been going to see Harry Potter together forever so we had to go see this one together at midnight! There were times we skipped school to see HP! And there was a time we locked our keys in the car and had to hang out in Jordan Landing! We still remember the times before assigned seating when we'd have to show up to the theater hours early so that we could get good seats!! Man, that makes me feel kind of old! Danielle was AWESOME and knew exactly when tickets were going on sale and got us fantastic seats at Jordan Commons! She also had her camera {batteries fully charged, unlike my camera} that night and took so fantastic pictures!! Thanks for letting me steal them off your Facebook page Danielle!!

Jordon Commons had some really awesome stuff going on before the movie started! You could get your very own cup of butter beer or try on the Sorting Hat to see which house you belonged in! You could have your fortune told by the ladies with their tarot cards and you could even take pictures with some cute owls!

That cute little owl reminded us of Ron's owl Pig!!

Another cool thing they had was a group of people giving out marks!! Andrea, Danielle and Mallory all decided to get the Dark Mark!! I went with Mudblood!!

{Mallory's favorite character is Bellatrix! So we decided to recreate the scene where Bellatrix carves mudblood into Hermione's arm}

And there were of course TONS of people dressed up that you could take pictures with! Seriously, you name a Harry Potter character and there was probably someone there dressed that way! We saw the Hollyhead Harpies quidditch team! Professor Umbridge, girls from the Beauxbaton Academy, dementors, a snowy owl, a golden snitch and even a stag patronous!! Here are just a few of my favorites {more are posted on my Facebook page}

{I had a little bit of a crush on this Harry Potter!!}

They also had this fun wall where you could take pictures!! My first one didn't work out so well {my stupid flash didn't go off because the batteries were almost dead} but I made my friends Miranda and Stacy retake them with me when we saw it later that weekend!

I cant remember exactly who's idea this was, but I thought it was genius!!

Theater nine and three quarters!!

I had a lot of fun hanging out with these girls that night!! {Here is where it might get a little cheesy....} It really was kind of a bittersweet moment sitting in the theater waiting for the show to start! I was SO excited to finally, after 14 year of reading and watching, be seeing the final Harry Potter movie!! But it was also a little sad! It really was going to be all over after that night!! It was sad when the last book came out to think that there would be no more HP books and no more midnight bookstore runs, but at that point, there were still the movies to look forward too!! So knowing that after the movie ended the whole thing was completely over was kind of depressing!!

***Spoiler Alerts***

I decided that this movie is mostly fantastic!! First I have to say that I LOVED the movie!! I thought it was really well done and I'm glad they found a few places to add some humor in! I loved all the parts with Neville Longbottom, especially when he is on the bridge egging the death eaters on! I love that Ron finally kisses Hermione, even if that part was totally cheesy! I loved the part when Hermione is impersonating Bellatrix and seeing Helena Bonham Carter act so differently!! And I loved the flashback memories on Professor Snape!!

I cried..... I cried a lot! I cried when Fred, Lupid and Tonks died. I cried when Harry saw Professor Snapes memories and when Snape was rocking Lily back and forth. I cried when Harry brought his parents, Lupin and Sirius back when he goes into the forest. I cried when Harry, Ron and Hermione stood on the bridge together in front of a ruined Hogwarts. And I cried in the epilogue when they send their kids off to school!! I cried during the credits knowing that it was all officially over! 

 Man, that is a lot of crying!!

Okay... now on to the reasons I though it was mostly fantastic.

I wish it would have showed more of Percy realizing what an idiot he was for siding with the Ministry of Magic and how happy his family was to have him back. I wish it would have showed how upset Percy was when Fred died. I wish it would have showed more people dueling like Lupid and the death eaters and the people of Dumbledore's army fighting together. I wish it would have showed the house elves coming out to fight in the battle with Kreacher in the lead!! I wish the epilogue would have been longer and that Ron could have joked around with all of the kids!! I wish it would have showed Teddie Lupin!

I guess there is always the DVD and the extended and deleted scenes!! Crossing my fingers that some of that will be in there!!

So glad I got to see it at midnight one last time! And even though some of our pictures may be silly, I'm glad we got to take them and to be crazy Harry Potter fans one last time!!

And finally, you should really watch this video! It shows a few of the actors last days on set and it a little bit of a look back on Harry Potter. There is a little part when it shows the three kids together doing a screen test!! They all look so little!!

And yes, this video made me cry too!!!

Happy Birthday Harry Potter!!