Accio

I was working an event today with a bunch of awesome kids and their grownups, and there was a lull at one point which found the kids all chortling easily with each other in a corner while we older folk discussed recent movies. Since all the other grownzedup were of the parental variety, most of them had spent the last couple of days going to premieres of the latest Harry Potter.

So we started a serious discussion of the themes and issues explored in the HP series, and what we thought was scarier to kids, the portrayals of death or the embodiments of evil, and also which actors we liked in them. I particularly and enthusiastically ADORE Alan Rickman, and am therefore convinced that Snape is actually NOT a deatheater, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

It was at about this point in the conversation that the cluster of kids sort of started to edge closer to hear what we were talking about, having no doubt heard the magic word "Hogwarts" issue from our lips. I was still propounding my theories of Snape's double-double-agentness, referring to chapter and verse of events in the books. Another woman my age chimed in with a few theories of her own, and I was intrigued, but then saw the flaw, and interjected:

But you see that can't be true, because Harry's birthday is July 30 and that means...

...it was then that I noticed the kids had their jaws agape at my all-surpassing nerdiness and I had to fake a fit of coughing and try to cover by muttering something about Themes and Motifs like a goddamned Lit Major or something.

Imagine if they knew I had this bookmarked.