Potter fans wistfully celebrate 'the end' as final film arrives

Spoiler alert! If you haven't read the Harry Potter series of books all the way to end, be aware that this story spills many of the beans.

There’s nothing like high school cafeteria food to make a teenager yearn for something greater — like a sumptuous feast in a grand dining hall, surrounded by a cluster of loyal and magically gifted friends.

Anyone who has worn a high school uniform or sat for hours under fluorescent lighting might understand the appeal of the magical Harry Potter world, where underclassmen don robes and wander around their enchanted boarding-school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.

The wizard teens in J.K. Rowling’s cultish seven-book series get to break the monotony of adolescence with spell casting. Instead of algebra, they take Ancient Runes. Instead of a run-of-the-mill gym class, they take Defense Against the Dark Arts, which prepares them to defeat dark magic.

Nearly every summer from 1997 to 2007, a new Harry Potter book was released, transporting fans — parents reading to their children, young and older adults — into a wildly addictive alternate reality.

In 2007, part of the magic died when the last Harry Potter book installment, “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows,” was released. For a while, fans had the Harry Potter movies to cling to, and could relive some of their favorite Harry-moments on the big screen.

BELOW: See a list of theaters and showing times

For fans like 14-year-old Isabel Dufford of Manitou Springs, the July 15 release of the second part of the final movie, “The Deathly Hallows,” will be an end of an end.

Isabel was about six-years old when her mother read to her the first Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone.” Like many fans between the ages of 14 and 24, Isabel says she grew up with the series. The books and films follow Harry from age 11 to age 17, and as Harry got a year older, so did Isabel.

This year Isabel and her friend, Phoenix Davis, 15, are concocting a special treat for their friends to celebrate the release of the final film, which took two installments to encompass the seventh and final book. The two high school freshmen created a “Horcrux Scavenger Hunt,” which emulates a quest taken by Harry and his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in their final and seventh year at Hogwarts.

Read reviews of the movie Thursday at coloradosprings.com, and in Friday's Go!

It’s a complicated story, but Harry bore the burden of being the only wizard who could defeat Lord Voldemort, the villan of the magical world. Lord Voldemort is soulless, literally. He wants to live forever, so he “cuts” his soul into seven pieces, and keeps each alive by having it inhabit a treasured object.

To kill Voldemort, Harry must destroy the seven scattered souls, known as horcruxes.
Isabel’s mom, Deb Dufford, owner of La Henna Boheme shop in Manitou Springs, will hide the horcruxes, and is preparing a surprise for the last one. (Thanks to a powerful spell, the last horcrux was stored in Harry Potter’s own body.)

Isabel bought some of her horcruxes from a Dollar Store — a plastic snake, a sword, a locket, a goblet, a tiara — and will add her own official Harry Potter wand to the mix.

Phoenix adopted the role of wand maker, painting some sticks with Mod Podge for their friends to use while they scavenge. The teens will hunt for horcruxes in pairs, and if they meet an opposing team, are allowed to “curse” them with their wands.

“If you’re hit by a ‘stunning spell,’ you have to freeze for 15 seconds,” Isabel explained. “If you’re hit by a killing spell, then you have to play dead for 15 seconds.”

“Hopefully everyone plays along. It’s sort of an honor system,” Isabel said.

The hunt is only part of the fun. Phoenix and Isabel have their tickets for the midnight showing of “The Deathly Hallows” at the Cinemark Tinseltown movie theater.

Tinseltown has sold out four of the 10 theaters that will show Harry Potter, and the manager, Brad Gange, expects to sell out completely come opening night.

“It’s going to be crazy,” Phoenix said. “It’s going to be bigger than Woodstock.”

Harry Potter book and film parties are notorious. Opening nights at cinemas and release-nights at bookstores were thronged by “wizards” — fans dressed as their favorite characters, wielding wands and swishing around in robes.

Teenagers and young adults aren’t the only diehard Potter fans.

Fifty-year-old Ann Alderman, a librarian at Briargate Library, might have surpassed Isabel when it comes to devotion to J.K. Rowling’s wizards.

Alderman has dedicated the basement of her house to Potter paraphernalia. Posters of the first three books hang on her walls, and miniature owls (the wizard pet-of-choice) sit on shelves. A few years ago, Alderman, her sister and her nephews visited the Harry Potter exhibit at The Warner Bros. Museum in Burbank, Calif, which houses props used in films. The group immediately stood out.

“Everyone else ran to the Batman car, and my sister and I and my nephews ran to the Weasley car,” Alderman said, referring to magical flying car belonging to the family of Harry’s best friend, Ron Weasley.

Alderman, who has been a librarian for 22 years, got the first book in 1999, and read it in one night. When she read the seventh and final book, in which it was rumored that Voldemort would kill Harry, the suspense was almost too much.

“I kept setting the book down because I was like, ‘No, in the next chapter Harry could be dead,’” she recalled. Like her younger counterparts, Alderman faced the fact that the world of Harry Potter was over. Even if Harry survived, there would be no eighth book.

“I knew I could re-read them, but this is it. It was sad to know that they were done,” Alderman said.

But Alderman has not let her devotion ebb with the books and movie series. For every new film, she knits a new pair of socks — this year, they are red and yellow, the equivalent of team colors of the dormitory that Harry and his friends live in. She even has her own set of robes, adorned with a Hogwarts’ crest, and her own wand.

For Alderman, loving the Harry Potter world is about more than escapism. Reading the books and watching the movies is an educational experience for people of all ages.

“The spells are in Latin. She’s (J.K. Rowling) got kids running around using Latin!” Alderman exclaimed.

Alderman has read all the books multiple times, and she now helps a new generation discover the Harry Potter world.

“It’s really fun working at the library, and seeing kids come in who want to read Harry Potter who’ve never read it before,” she said. “I try real hard not to tell them, ‘You’re gonna love this!’ I try to be objective when I hand them the book.”

Alderman as been accused of being “too old” for Harry Potter, but she doesn’t care, she said. She converted her late mother and her husband to Harry Potter fandom.

As the series ends, Alderman will not retire her Hogwarts uniform, nor will she put away her wand, both of which she plans to bring to the theater this week.

And after the film release, her robes won’t be in the closet for long.

“Man, I have a Halloween outfit forever,” Alderman said.

Read more about Isabel Dufford’s Horcrux Scavenger Hunt here.

THE BOOKS

Haven’t read the books, or seen the movies? Or maybe you need to refreshen your memory? Check out all seven books and movies:

• Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone, Book 1
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Book 2
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Book 3
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Book 4
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Book 5
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Book 6
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Book 7

MOVIE TICKETS
As of Sunday evening, here is the ticket availability for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” for showings Friday, July 15:

Cinemark Tinseltown USA, 1545 E. Cheyenne Mountain Blvd., 576-5082
2D showing
12:02 a.m. sold out
12:05 a.m. sold out
12:06 a.m. tickets available
12:07 a.m. tickets available

3D showing
12:03 a.m. tickets available
12:04 a.m. tickets available
12:08 a.m. tickets available
12:09 a.m. tickets available
12:10 a.m. tickets available

Parts 1 and 2 double-feature (Part 1 begins Thursday, July 14; Part 2 begins after midnight):
9 p.m. sold out
9:01 p.m. tickets available
9:02 p.m. tickets available

Cinemark Carefree Circle and IMAX, 3305 Cinema Point, 596-2173
IMAX 3D showing
12:01 a.m. sold out
3 a.m. tickets available

2D showing
12:02 a.m. sold out
12:03 a.m. sold out
12:05 a.m. sold out
12:09 a.m. sold out
12:10 a.m. sold out
12:11 a.m. sold out
12:15 a.m. sold out
12:20 a.m. sold out
12:25 a.m. sold out
12:30 a.m. sold out
3:06  a.m. tickets available

Regular screen, 3D showing
12:01 a.m. sold out
12:06 a.m. sold out
12:07 a.m. tickets available
12:14 a.m. tickets available
3:05 a.m. tickets available

Parts 1 and 2 double-feature (Part 1 begins Thursday, July 14; Part 2 begins after midnight):
9 p.m. sold out

Carmike Chapel Hills 15, 1710 Briargate Blvd., 531-5142
2D showing
12:01 a.m. sold out
12:02 a.m. sold out
12:03 a.m. tickets available
12:04 a.m. tickets available

3D showing
12:01 a.m. tickets available

Hollywood Theaters, Interquest Stadium 14, 11250 Rampart Hill View, 434-3848

2D showing
12:15 a.m. sold out
12:20 a.m. sold out
12:25 a.m. sold out
12:30 a.m. sold out
12:35 a.m. sold out

3D showing
12:01 a.m. sold out
12:05 a.m. tickets available

Carmike 10, 1550 Pulsar Drive, 573-0256
2D showing
10:30 a.m. tickets available
1:30 p.m. tickets available
4:30 p.m. tickets available
7:30 p.m. tickets available
10:30 p.m. tickets available

3D showing
11:30 a.m. tickets available
2:45 p.m. tickets available
6 p.m. tickets available
9:15 p.m. tickets available