Saying Goodbye to Harry

As I'm finally getting around to sorting through all the pictures I took at the Harry Potter book release party at Borders, I thought I would share the whole experience here, even though it's rather late.

I thought the last Harry Potter book merited a bit of hoopla, so I made a considerable amount of effort preparing for the Big Event. Suzie, Bill, Chris, and I all attended and had a great time.

I'll start, today, with pre-party preparations. I went to the last two book release parties alone, and spent a fair amount of time sitting around and waiting. Not wanting that to happen again, my first idea was for something fun to bring to do while we were waiting. I looked online for a Harry Potter puzzle book, but couldn't find a good one. So, I decided I'd have to make a trip to Diagon Alley. Flourish and Blotts had this great book--Battling Boredom, by Q. Long-Si. It was full of crossword puzzles, anagrams, logic puzzles, word searches, riddles, poems, and even paper and instructions for making an origami Golden Snitch. A great find, I must say.

Flourish and Blotts was kind enough to throw in some great bookmarks, which came in handy later.

Of course, with all those puzzles, we would need something to write with. And what better to write with than a quill? Scrivenshaft's is the only place for quills, so I had to make a trip to Hogsmeade as well.

And, yes, the black one writes in red ink...

While I was in Hogsmeade, I couldn't resist a trip to Honeydukes, the best candy store in the world! I picked up a wide variety of treats, including Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Smoked Dragon Liver, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Exploding Bon-Bons, Licorice Wands, Acid Pops, Jelly Slugs, Sugar Quills, and, of course, Honeyduke's Best Chocolate.

I even got to see them making some fresh Cockroach Clusters. Mmmmm!

All in all, a very productive trip. I'll write more tomorrow about the wait for the book, and the actual Book Release Party itself.