A bunch of us from the office made it down to Powell’s block party for the Harry Potter book release on Friday. It was crazy! There were tons of Harry Potters, a couple of Hagrids on stilts, deatheaters, some great Muggle costumes, one woman ballsily dressed up as the eeeeevil Dolores Umbridge, a few uncomfortably jail bait-y Hermiones, an entire Quidditch team, whole families dressed up, some of the cutest, most excited children you’ve ever seen in your life, and an amazing Dumbledore and McGonagall who rolled up in a horse-drawn carriage to open the doors to Powell’s at the stroke of midnight.

There was some heckling of the line, as predicted, all of which was hilariously idiotic (“Yeahhh! Harry Potter is cool!” “Everybody dies!” “Snape kills Hermione, retards! Read the Mercury!”). The line itself moved pretty quickly—we got there around 11, and were out by 1:30.

It was really nerdy, of course, and also really fun—the kind of event that makes me remember why I like living in this city so much. It also felt like a fitting send off to the HP experience. I finished the book on Saturday and all I’m going to say is that it lived up to the hype. And that it’s a relief to be able to surf the internet with impunity again, without worrying that a spoiler is going to pop up.

A whole bunch of blurry pictures of the Powell’ s party after the jump. (I really should not have been in charge of the camera. I’m a writer, dammit)