There are so many reasons why I love Harry Potter, and that is probably why I don't really know where to start. 

I got my first copy of Harry Potter when I was about ten years old. It was Christmas and I had put Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on my wish list, but "just this one, in case I don't like it". My mother, always eager to make me happy, always the overenthusiastic person and always the avid reader, bought me the Philosopher's Stone... And also the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire, which had just been released.

Needless to say I devoured it.

When I was about ten, I had that phase when I wanted to be a witch. Some children want to be astronauts, football players, fairies, pop stars, I wanted to be a witch. I would watch Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, The Worst Witch and Charmed all the time, and I dreamed about being Sabrina Spellman, Mildred Hubble or the Halliwell sisters. Other kids at school used to make fun of me for it. "Oh, you've picked another book about wizardry", one told me as I had borrowed Roald Dahl's The Witches at the school library. I think that's why Harry Potter appealed to me - yes, another book about witches and wizards, yes please!

And it's not why it stuck around so much.

Well, it is. I think J.K Rowling is one of the most clever and imaginative writers of our time. I mean, she made up an entire fictional universe, invented places, invented spells, invented names, invented everything. She came up with a school of wizardry and witchcraft, she came up with the full story behind why Voldemort has become who he is, she came up with the history of an entire fictional world, she came up with dozens of characters and their own personal stories. And I think that's amazing, and that's one of the main reasons why I love Harry Potter so much. It's an entire universe coming out of one single mind, and I think that's pretty badass. And inspiring.

One thing I absolutely adore about the Harry Potter universe is how relatable it is. I know, I know, none of us have ever received their Hogwarts acceptance letter (sad times) and we're all just muggles trying to make it in this world. But when you think about it, it is relatable. Because none of us experienced witchcraft, but all of us have experienced heartbreak, all of us have lost someone, all of us have had trouble with our friends, all of us have had a hard time dealing with something. So many of us have been bullied at school. So many of us have had financial issues. Racism is still very much a thing. And there is comfort for all of these things, in Harry Potter. And that's why I said J.K Rowling nailed it. Because even in a world so magical that all of us have wished to experience, human beings are just humans. They love, they lose, their hearts break, they're ecstatic. J.K Rowling has showed us how universal feelings were and how we were never alone.

And I think it's what it means when she said Hogwarts would always be there to be our home.

Another thing I love about Harry Potter is how three dimensional the characters are. It's also why it is so damn relatable. There are authors who always write boys as socially awkward and girls as quirky and their conversations always sound like a popular tumblr blog. J.K Rowling has never done any of that. Every character is different in their own way and all of them has substance and something you can find in yourself. They are all flawed. They are all human. They are not just one thing. They are many different things because as humans, we are not just quirky or socially awkward or creative. We can be all of these things or none of them. 

Harry Potter was also a thing I shared with my mum - she loved it too. She read some of the books, she came to the cinema with me to see the films even if she didn't really like the cinema. 

It was also one of the main reasons why I picked up a pen and started to write. J.K Rowling is one of my favourite authors and I think she's so incredibly brave in her writing, so clever and creative. She is an inspiration. 

I love the quirky elements in the story, like the Lovegoods or the fact that two of Dumbledore's middle names are Brian and Wulfric. It's the kind of elements I love including in my own writing. There might be a reason why.

I love the descriptions of everything, they're so detailed and vivid. I remember being ten and absolutely adoring the way the dresses in the Yule Ball chapter were written about. I remember how I could see Luna's painting of her friends in my head.

Some of the characters (a whole lot of them, actually), are some of the greatest fictional characters ever created. I wanted to be Hermione when I was a kid, for example.

J.K Rowling broke my heart multiple times. I remember going out of the cinema after seeing the Goblet of Fire and still being in tears over Cedric Diggory dying half an hour later - I was a mess. And in the end, despite all the tears, I adore how she was never scared of killing characters. I think it's a good example why the books are so relatable and realistic. You don't always get a deus ex-machina to save the day. Not everyone is going to make it out alive.

There are so many reasons why I adore Harry Potter and I think it's because all through my teenage years, it's given me a little place to escape to, it's given me something to look forward to and get excited about, it's inspired me. I'm probably going to love Harry Potter for the rest of my life, and I'll make damn sure my kids are going to read all of the books. I don't know. It's one of the works of art that has had the biggest influence on me, and I think, well, that's it, really.