2026.07.31¶
Ten years ago, a figure stood facing a room full of curious eyes, and beamed.
"Good for you to watch this," she said.
The woman carried neither textbook nor slides; her unnaturally bright grin betrayed a hint that it was not going to be a perfectly normal, owl-free lesson.
She double-clicked the mouse, unfolding the spectacular view of Privet Drive, sowing a seed in the heart of a 10-year-old boy which has sprouted, stretched and spread over the ten years since, and has remained, renewed and reinforced a decade on.
I'll always appreciate that science class.
Eventually completing the fourth read-through, a four-and-a-half-year expedition. Still pleasantly drinking in the familiar foreshadowings and echoes, still with previously undiscovered details surprisingly unearthed, still skipping sentences and paragraphs in eagerness for what's coming next, leaving more of those surprises unpicked and buried in the pages.
Thought about fulfilling my 2022 promise to set a Harry Potter exam, which with AI agents could possibly be profoundly simplified, yet still I detest the dominance of large language models for the particular task, for the same reason I insist upon writing this word by word, for the same reason that "only that day dawns to which we are awake". Besides, coming up with quality questions itself demands thorough mastery of the whole series which I undoubtedly lack, let alone convincing reference answers, so consider this, for now, merely another indefinite preview.
Q1 ※※ 1) Describe the setting of this conversation (time and place) and 2) use as many examples as possible to explain why Ginny said "you are so like Ron".
"Our Teddy! Teddy Lupin! Snogging our Victoire! Our cousin! And I asked Teddy what he was doing --" "You interrupted them?" said Ginny. "You are so like Ron --"
Q2 ※※※ 1) Describe the setting of the quoted sentence (time and place) and 2) explain the reason for the bold part and 3) clarify what Dumbledore had foreseen about Wormtail.
Deeper and deeper Harry sank into the grave, and he knew where Voldemort had been tonight, and whom he had killed in the topmost cell of Nurmengard, and why.... And he thought of Wormtail, dead because of one small unconscious impulse of mercy... Dumbledore had foreseen that.... How much more had he known? Harry lost track of time. He knew only that the darkness had lightened a few degrees when he was joined by Ron and Dean. "How's Hermione?" "Better," said Ron. "Fleur's looking after her."
Sometimes rather unwilling to present my entanglement with the series with a highly condensed tag. A great Harry Potter fan, the way to swiftly sweep past the ten years in a 20-second self-introduction. Sometimes even that can be omitted. New acquaintances recognize the tag simply via a profile photo.
Tags are inescapable though, tags and titles. No doubt they're occupying a ever-larger terrain in my life, and generally doing more good than harm. Again, delineating the boundary between tags and what might be referred to as entanglement, love, enthusiasm, passion or faith is itself an unrealistic objective.
Still, I've got something tied to my backpack, from a boy with a lightning scar to a cute, fluffy snowy owl.
Still, I had a taste of Dove's butterbeer-flavoured chocolate, though suspicious of the actual amount of peppermint in an actual butterbeer.
Still, I'm keeping a Year 5 account in Hogwarts Mystery, re-entering every few months in memory of those many hours attempting installation and those times of craving, yet failing.
Still, I'm willing to spend 180￥ annually for the SVIP privilege of BaiduTieba and sign in every day to accumulate experience points, in the hope that I may rank first in years or maybe decades, and that an act which has lasted 2109 days can carry a fragment of a child's perseverance and wish down the track of time.
Still, on July 31 st, I gaze back at the ten magical years, first borrowing books from a friend, then buying them, then neatly copying down character names and spells in a notebook, wearing a wizard robe, a wand hidden inside the pocket, yelling Expelliarmus with classmates at school breaks, hanging posters on doors and bookshelves, drawing a Marauder's Map, faking WeChat chat records, being sorted on Pottermore, organizing the books' versions in a slide deck, first using Ginny as computer wallpaper, then Luna, Hermione, Dumbledore's Army, collecting wands, badges, quills, galleons, sickles and knuts, wizard chess, glasses, scarf and tie, Time-Turner, the Philosopher's Stone, the Golden Snitch, tickets for the Hogwarts Express, and many many more, mimicking movie lines, playing Professor Umbridge on computer keys, making a resolution to pick up playing the piano, fulfilling it after the College Entrance Exam, reciting half of chapter one of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, listening to the audiobooks, playing background music in the movies and recognizing where they appear, obsessed with fan fiction recommended by a friend, spending hour after hour in bed conceiving a wizarding world with me, dreaming of it nights before sleep, even to this age, writing the usual long sentences, suspecting that a former me could have done better, perhaps loads better, and what's at the core, reading those books, watching those movies.
Still, happy birthday.
2026.07.31
