The Harry Potter Weekend of Much Rejoicing

[jumperkid]

So Friday came and was indeed as previously mentioned the longest day in human memory. But lo, eventually 5:00 came and I was able to leave work. I collected Coworker D, who foolishly decided that she too wanted to experience some hardcore HP fandom. We donned our totally kickass shirts and hopped on the Metro to go meet up withbookwench31 and lunamystic.  At this point, I took over the car because we don't generally let Patty drive. This ended up not totally helping much because while I can handle the traffic, my navigation-fu tends to come and go. After a scenic but pointless trip on the Rock Creek Pkwy, we eventually figured out where the hell we were and managed to make it to Silver Springs. We even managed to get there basically on time. We joined about 46,782 of our closest friends at "The Leaky Cauldron" It was totally awesome. There were some very cool people that I hadn't met yet. There were also these hilarious little kids with cloaks and wands dueling in the open are in front of the stage. I could never quite tell who was winning, but that probably wasn't really the point. After some really excellent Frog Toes and Very Important Doctor Who discussion with longtimegone, we headed out into the street to see some sights. There were some really fantastic outfits and a Dumbledore and McGonagall that might actually have been the real people from the book. And SO MANY PEOPLE! But everyone was really happy and excited to be there so it didn't matter that it was crowded. But we still had a couple hours until the line would start forming, so we headed over to the "field" across the street for some relaxing and more discussion. I'm sorry guys, there were quite a few new faces and I don't remember everyone's name, but they were all very cool. And I will be stalking them all accordingly.  Finally, Line TIme arrived. And lo. It was good. "Flourish and Blotts" managed to be very well organized and the line moved quite quickly. At long last, we had The Book in our very own hands. We ran home s00per fast in order to get reading. Except it had been kinda a long day, and I'm not really a srping chicken, so I sorta passed out after only about an hour and a half of reading. Sorry Harry! But when I awoke again, rested and refreshed, there was nothing that owuld stand in the way of finishing The Book! Oh, well. Except for my friends who were only in town for the weekend, so I did have to stop to go have lunch with them. After lunch,  bookwench31 and I headed over to lunamystic's to finish out there. And now, nothing would come between me and Harrry!! But, then, we got kinda hungry. So we stopped for dinner. At last, at long last. I finished the book.  And it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It ended well, and explained pretty much everything I wanted explained.  So, well played Rowling!

On Sunday, the lovely  wordplay hosted a Discussion Brunch. Again, there lots of fab people who's names I don't know but who were very fun and witty. We all talked about what we liked or didn't like and we figured out some of the parts that maybe didn't make the most sense. I think Kreacher/Winky may have come up at one point, but I've tried to Obliviate that particular portion of the day. The HP Weekend if Much Rejoicing ended rather too quickyl, but that's ok. I've already started my re-read and it's been loads of fun reading everyone's reaction posts. I am ready however, for some Neville's Adventures in Violent Protest fic.