Department of Mysteries

One of my most vivid memories of the Harry Potter series is reading the end of the fifth book at Nezabeth’s house with her and Anna, that scene in the Department of Mysteries. It was very early in the morning, because we’d been reading since the book came out at midnight, and I was shaking all over, partly from tiredness but mostly from tension, because damn, is that scene ever tense. Whenever I reread it now, I get that same shaky feeling, except now I know what’s coming, so I also burst into tears right around the time Neville tells Harry not to give it to her, and I keep on crying till the book finishes. And the same thing in the movie – during the Department of Mysteries scene, I was absolutely rigid with tension.

And then Dumbledore showed up.

I do not love Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. They should have cast Ian McKellan or, as my mother said, Bill Nighy – we feel like either of them could have conveyed the humor and presence of Dumbledore more better than Michael Gambon does. Despite that, when Dumbledore showed up in the film of Order of the Phoenix, every single muscle in my body relaxed. I hadn’t even realized how tense I was until he showed up and I completely relaxed, because everything was going to be okay, because Dumbledore was there.

That’s how I feel when I go to the eye doctor.

I can tell you this is true because I went to the eye doctor today, for the first time in a while, and I remembered how completely soothing my eye doctor is. I have been seeing her since I was a little, little girl of six or seven, and I find the eye tests so relaxing. My favorite one is the one where she clicks through the different lenses to see which one is better for my eyes, and she says, “One, or two?” and I say, Two, and she says, “Two, or three?” Oh so relaxing. It’s like when Dumbledore shows up. I just relax perfectly. How serene it is. And that nice test with the signs on the railroad tracks? Mmmmmmmm. I do not even mind that much when they puff air into my eyes or make me stare into black and white concentric circles in order to get a map of my eye. Because my eye doctor makes me feel so calm.

After giving this some thought, I’ve concluded that it’s because I spent a lot of time at the eye doctor in third and fourth grade, and third and fourth grade sucked really really hard. So I think that I view my eye doctor as my savior. It was so nice when, instead of having to go to school and get into fights with the younger version of Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls, I could go to the eye doctor and watch the entrancing display board that kept changing and changing. And then get my eyes tested, and I’d be out of school for a whole morning or a whole afternoon and it was GREAT. I think that’s why.