Harry Potter: The Boy Who Will Continue On Living

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 will be leaving the theaters in a few weeks. By then, all billboards, posters and advertisements will be taken down and replaced with scantily clad models trying to sell bikinis in this monsoon season. Worse comes to worst, they will be replaced with Edward Cullen's bloodless face sparkling in the sunlight. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Kill me already.

So is this really it? Is the epic journey over? Is our generation of quality literature and commendable role-model characters left orphaned by the conclusion of the film franchise? Will hormone induced sex-crazed supernatural teenagers take over the theaters, bookstore and Internet fandoms?

I don't think so.

I am a Harry Potter fan from the very beginning but I'm not one who fawns over movie premieres and merchandise. Offer me a genuine "wand" direct from the Hogwarts set and I won't know what to do with it. Gift me a shirt with Daniel Radcliffe's face on it and I probably won't wear it outside the house. But write me a superb, addicting and exceptionally-written story about any character in any place inside JK Rowling's magical world and I'll remember it forever.

Movie or no movie, it's the characters that I'm in love with together with the Wizarding World we have all lived in. It's the taste of Butterbeer in the coldness of winter, it's the unpredictability of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, the mystery in the secret rooms of Hogwarts, the childish pleasures of doing magic in the corridors and the comfort and warmth of snuggling by the fireplace in the Gryffindor Common Room.

It's the world in my head that makes Harry Potter special, not these million dollar productions. And it can and will survive without them.

See, the movie may have rolled its final credits, but Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is still very much alive in the hearts of many. As long as there is imagination, creativity, love and appreciation for the enthralling world we have lived in for more than a decade, Harry will continue on living in the childhood of this generation, and in the hearts of millions to come.

And in the future, decades after this day, if ever a grandchild catches me excitedly watching one of the eight movies or lovingly perusing with misty eyes a Harry Potter book, and asks me, "After all this time?"

To quote the Boy Who Loved, Severus Snape, my answer would be: "Always."