OotP Anniversary

author_by_night pointed out that today is a HP fandom milestone: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published, and asked where we were that day.

I was at work. At the time I was a page at the local public library, and I worked every Saturday from 9am-1pm. All morning I watched people come in to pick up their reserved copies of the book, but I had to wait until my shift ended to go home and read. I had placed a copy on reserve for myself back in January, the very first day the title was entered into the library catalog, so I had a number in the mid-300s. I knew it would come in the first day, but by around noon I was starting to worry that it might not get checked in before I went home. (Delivery boxes aren't unloaded in any specific order, after all.)

As for fandom, I started reading HP shortly after the US publication of Prisoner of Azkaban, I got my library copy of Goblet of Fire on the release day, and discovered online fandom sometime thereafter. By June 21, 2003 I was a regular poster at FA and had just decided to give up lurking and start posting at the Sugar Quill. Wasn't the final chapter of After the End posted the night before? I had been following it for some time, so reading the ending gave me something fun to do while I waited for the book!

As an Harry/Ginny shipper I was in a very unpopular minority. Fandom at large seemed to prefer Harry/Hermione and Ginny/Draco. (Although earlier in the series I thought Harry/Hermione was plausible, I didn't actively ship them. And then there was Goblet of Fire with it's Ron/Hermione goodness. At this point, my non-HP friends think I'm totally cracked.) Anyway, I remember one of my biggest hopes for the book was that Ginny would feature more prominently, and JKR definitely delivered! I can't really remember any other specific expectations, though I'm sure I had some.

Just for the lulz, I found my reaction to OotP from the Quill forums. ( Eighteen year old me says... )

Ah, nostalgia. Harry Potter fandom was just too much fun! :D