Why didn't my Aidan want to do the same thing? Why was he partying in Garlands instead of queueing here with the rest of us? What was wrong with his childhood that he didn't want to re-live it?Back home, there were plenty of people reading My eight-year-old has never read the Potters before He's speed-reading the first five so he can start the sixth My wife missed HP5 and is reading that Only my daughters refuse to put down their Eva Ibbotsons. When George Lucas tried to do the same with Star Wars, he produced something that made you want to get in touch with your own inner child and put him into care.So I was envious of Veronica's return ticket to remembered enchantment, but also troubled. Part of the power of the Potter series for Veronica and Aidan's generation is that, every few years, the door re-opens and they are readmitted to the magic of their own childhood. It's a measure of Rowling's mastery that she can pull this off. She had spent the last few weeks logging onto the Leaky Cauldron website, tuning into rumours and speculation "When the next one comes out, that'll be the last one I'll be doing finals. I'll have no choice but to grow out of it then." Tonight she will go home, cosy on down and let Harry take her forward into adventure, but also back into the comforting atmosphere of year four and that first touch of Harry in the night.One of the harshest moments in all literature is when C S Lewis's Aslan tells Susan that she is never coming back to Narnia (because she's wearing lipstick). For them, the night's events are not so much a hype as a vindication.
And now here she is: a young woman about to apply to university Hadn't she grown out of it?Not really. It also struck me that the original Potter generation has grown up. Of course, adults have always read the books, but now the original readers are on the brink of adulthood themselves. Veronica was in the same class at primary school as my son, Aidan. They both read the first Potter book when it came out in hardback They were in Year 4. Veronica wrote to JK and JK wrote back! She said Veronica had made her day.Years later, Veronica wrote to Warner Brothers, telling them - quite rightly - that she would make the perfect Hermione They knew Harry before he was a phenomenon.
On any other night, Veronica and her friends would not be welcome and would not want to be welcomed, but tonight they have taken control of the top right-hand corner. It's Geek Alamo. It struck me how like the core Potter story this little scene was: a group of sensitive children, marginalised by bullies and bores, finding glory and each other in the land of reading. After nine, it belongs entirely to girls with orange skin and boys with no chance. Manager Andrew Stilwell hopes the venture will please bibliophiles who find the trend for chain-store "exclusives" a turn-off.. Anxious about how little time I'd have to write, I took my children to Pritchard's (proudly) independent bookshop in Crosby on Merseyside at 11.30pm on Potterday, assuming that this would put me at the front of the queue for the midnight opening. In fact, Veronica Bennet (year 12) and her friends had been there with their deckchairs since 3pm.