I have preferred books to people since before I can remember. As a little girl, it was my most important goal to learn how to read, and I never looked back once I could. There is something about getting lost in the pages of someone else's imagination that exhilarates me in a way that nothing else can. No book has ever done this quite as well as the "Harry Potter" series.

At 27-years-old, it's probably curious to some people that I own enough "Harry Potter" merchandise to decorate a full house, but not to me. I display my fandom with the utmost confidence, and I have made many a friendship with people who do the same. My roommate and I spend our free time at Universal Studios, where we are both annual pass holders, and absorb ourselves in the magic that never lets us down. It's home.

The millennial generation is lucky, for it is the only one to get the true "Harry Potter" experience. I got my first book when I was 11, just like the characters, and the last one when I was 19. My dad took me to midnight premieres, where people would line up in crazy costumes in anticipation of the next installation being released. I went through the same phases of puberty as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and flocked to the theater with wide eyes as page was translated to screen. I was altered in irrevocable ways as I watched beloved characters evolve, and wept as some of them faced untimely ends. They became my friends and my family, and I love them still to this day.

The thing that makes "Harry Potter" such a special fandom is that it's all inclusive. People who would never have been friends due to social standing are brought together by Rowling's words, and kept there forever. There is nothing quite like finding the magic in someone else's eyes and knowing that they understand. My best friends are Ravenclaws, but there are a few Slytherin exceptions. My boyfriend is a Hufflepuff. My neighbor is a Gryffindor, but I don't know anything else about him. Some strangers last week high-fived me for wearing my Ravenclaw sweatshirt, and there was a camaraderie between us, despite knowing we would never see each other again. These are my people, and they're everywhere.

Hogwarts is my home. Sure, it's a fictional place adapted from the mind of an author in a different country. But it's part of my history, my timeline, and my life. Each year, I take the time to reread those books. It reminds me of the young, hopeful girl I used to be, and takes me back to a time when magic was all around me. At times, I still get to be that girl, innocent and truly immersed in a world unlike my own. And that is the greatest gift I could've been given.