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March 28, 2024

Fans line up for midnight debut of final Harry Potter movie

Harry Potter Movie Finale

Steve Marcus

Harry Potter fans Kayla-Jo Rosoff, center, and Shell Stacey, both 22, wait in line to see “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” at the Rave Theater in Town Square Thursday July 14, 2011.

Harry Potter Movie Finale

Marag Logan, dressed as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry teacher, shows off buttons on her hat as she waits to see Launch slideshow »

Harry Potter

KSNV coverage of the final film series of the Harry Potter saga. July 14, 2011.

Hundreds of Harry Potter fans, many dressed in character, lined up outside the movie theater at Town Square on Thursday, anxiously awaiting the final installment in the series — “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”

While theaters have their own ways of organizing the midnight rush of Harry Potter fanatics, Town Square sold reserved, assigned seats.

“I think it’s a really good thing. This way you know you’re going to get in and be able to sit next to your friend,” said moviegoer Kayla-Jo Rosoff, 22.

In a matter of minutes, the witching hour would take hold, bringing an end to the action-packed saga that has gripped fans for more than 15 years since J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel was released in 1997.

“I’m pretty excited. I just want to see what are the differences, what they are changing from the books to the movies, but so far it’s been pretty good,” said Nancy Cardoza, 22.

The first of the Harry Potter movies, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone," opened in 2001. Since then, the series has made more than $2 billion at the box office and has gained nine Oscar nominations.

“This is like the end of our childhood. I’ve been going to midnight showings since the third movie; that was my first one. Since I was 11 or 12, I’ve been into it, and now I’m 22,” Rosoff said. “I’m so sad this is the last one. I don’t know what we’re going to do with ourselves now.”

Sitting in line with Rosoff, Shell Stacey, 22, who bought her ticket in June, confidently predicted that the final movie will not be the end of the Harry Potter craze.

“This series is going to be a classic from now on, like how ‘Star Wars’ got into popular culture. It’s going to be fantasy instead of sci-fi now,” Stacey said. “It’s literature; it’s not just a fun kid book. It’s literature with real meaningful values and themes.”

Since Part 1 hit screens in late 2010, fans have anxiously waited for Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter and Emma Watson and Rupert Grint as his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to take the big screen for Part 2 of Rowling’s seventh monumental best-selling novel.

“I just rewatched the previous movie last night, so I’m ready to finish the whole thing and ready to get it done,” said Harry Potter fan Kip Zahedi, 22.

Less than an hour before the screening, muggles disguised their identities, dressing as wizards and witches, sheltering their mortal guise with robes, scarves and foreheads symbolically imprinted with lightning-shaped scars.

Among those in full costume was 21-year-old Val Cawley, dressed as Lily Evans, Harry Potter’s mother.

“Saying we’re fans is a big understatement right there. I’m a big dork when it comes to this. I’ve actually dressed up for every movie, from the first all the way to the last. Since I was 9 years old, I’ve read all the books,” Cawley said.

Desiree Wickham, 26, said she brough tissues to the theater, “because I’m going to be crying through it, I know it. I kinda hope I don’t break down crying at the same parts as I did in the book, because that’s gonna get a little bit embarrassing.”

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