"Oh, I can finally watch Harry Potter in a London cinema! Honestly, I've waited so many, many, many years for this day! The wait has lasted throughout my entire secondary-school life!"
November 17, 2007.
At a busy street corner in central London.
A curvaceous girl with tanned skin and curly blonde hair was cheering excitedly at the cinema before her.
Her words made the people around her glance over repeatedly and nod with knowing smiles.
Her friend beside her began rubbing her hands together in the air.
She looked like someone gripping a handheld firework during Chinese New Year and preparing to set it off.
Or perhaps she looked more like someone holding up a microphone and testing its volume.
In any case, after pointing her wrist toward her friend, the young woman smiled and asked, "So, Yara, how do you feel right now? Don't say thrilled, happy, or excited. Those emotions are far too ordinary."
"Oh, if you insist on asking the question like that, then I'd say I feel explosive," the girl named Yara replied with a pout.
"Explosive?"
Her friend did not understand what she meant and looked at her curiously.
"Yeah. Explosive."
Yara nodded vigorously.
When she saw her friend's bewildered expression, she immediately smiled and explained, "Harry Potter films were always released around Christmas in previous years, so I assumed this year would be the same. That's why I told my mother in advance that I wouldn't be coming home for Christmas.
"Because I was going to stay in London to watch Harry Potter.
"But I obviously couldn't tell my mother directly that I was staying in London to watch Harry Potter, could I?
"She would have beaten me to death.
"So I told her,
"'Dearest Mother, your adorable daughter has found an incredibly handsome boyfriend in London. He desperately wants your adorable daughter to spend Christmas at his home, so I won't be coming home for Christmas this year.'"
"Oh my God, Yara! Just so you could stay in London for Christmas, oh no, so you could stay in London and watch Harry Potter, you actually told your mother that you had a boyfriend? And that you were going to spend the holidays at his house?"
Before Yara had even finished speaking, her friend's eyes had widened!
At that moment, she even began wondering whether she had misheard her!
What Yara had said was simply too shocking!
Her friend's astonishment made Yara nod solemnly. "Yeah, of course.
"Why else would I say that I feel like I'm about to explode?
"If I'd known earlier that Harry Potter would be released at the end of November, during the Americans' Thanksgiving holiday, I wouldn't have needed to tell my mother all that. We Irish don't celebrate Thanksgiving.
"Of course, neither do you British.
"So I could have watched Harry Potter peacefully in London and then gone home for Christmas.
"But now,
"this Christmas may be the day I die.
"Once I return home, my parents will definitely ask me what happened. And then I'll burst across the sky like a firework!"
Thanksgiving was a uniquely American holiday.
After all, Native Americans were the original inhabitants of the Americas.
If the Native Americans had not willingly and sincerely offered their scalps to the Americans, why would Americans have created a holiday commemorating the Native Americans' great spirit of sacrifice in surrendering their land, resources, and homes?
Right?
So when people outside the United States had never benefited from the Native Americans' kindness, why would they celebrate Thanksgiving? Surely no one would claim that without the Native Americans' sacrifice, humanity would never have gained its shining beacon of democracy and freedom?
Hehe.
Perhaps Yara's casual attitude was simply too shocking?
From the way she spoke, lying and deceiving her parents seemed like trivial matters!
Or perhaps Yara's reasoning was enough to make anyone's head explode?
No normal person would joke with their family about something as important as their romantic future, right?
Therefore, after watching Yara nod repeatedly and confirm everything she had supposedly done,
the friend standing beside her, who had initially only wanted to conduct a playful interview, was completely stunned!
And just as she was about to explode—
"Hahahahaha!"
Yara burst out laughing!
She swayed from side to side, bumping against her friend as she shouted, "Darling, look at your face!
"You didn't actually think everything I said was true, did you?
"My God!
"When did we meet?
"Wasn't it on my very first day studying in London?
"And since then, haven't we done practically everything together?
"We attend the same university, study the same subject, belong to the same class, share the same dormitory, and often even sleep in the same bed, how could you possibly not know what I said while speaking to my mother on the phone?"
"..."
The question, which practically challenged her intelligence, left the young woman speechless.
After staring at Yara for a moment, her face gradually turned as red as a crab sitting inside a steamer.
A moment later,
Yara's exaggerated wink and silly expression made the girl roar furiously.
"Yara Carson!
"You're disgusting!
"Is deceiving people really that entertaining?"
As she shouted, the girl raised her hand and struck her friend hard on the arm.
"Hahahahaha!"
Yara Carson laughed loudly while dodging her blows.
That was right.
The girl teasing her friend outside the London cinema was Yara Carson.
The same Yara Carson who had written Isabella a letter six years earlier, when she was twelve, and had received a reply.
Back then, her greatest dream had been to meet Isabella in person.
And now?
Although that wish was no longer as intense as it had once been, since she had grown older, her deep affection for Isabella had still led her to apply to universities in London.
That was why, after supporting Isabella's career throughout the years and suddenly learning that The Order of the Phoenix: Part One was finally being released, she, still a devoted Harry Potter fan, decided to do what she always did and rush into the cinema to watch it.
As for that—
"Don't be angry anymore. Come on, have some popcorn."
After entering the auditorium and taking their seats, Yara Carson noticed that her friend still appeared to be angry.
So she grabbed a handful of popcorn and offered it to her.
Unfortunately, rather than accepting it, her friend snorted coldly and turned her head sharply away.
This made the corner of Yara Carson's mouth twitch. She realized that her joke had gone a little too far.
Therefore,
determined to make amends, her eyes suddenly shifted!
She leaned sideways, moved her head closer, and whispered into her friend's ear, "Forgive me? If you forgive me, then for the next week, no, until Christmas, you can be the pillow princess. How does that sound?"
"?"
The sudden transaction—
No, the sudden display of submission!
Made her friend's eyes light up!
The reaction made Yara Carson smile.
She picked up a piece of popcorn and brought it to her friend's lips. "And you can judge my cooking however you like. If you think I'm a terrible cook and my dishes are awful, you can say 'No good' as often as you want.
"Just like the Hell Chef from The God of Cookery?"
Slurp!
The moment Yara Carson finished speaking,
her friend sucked the popcorn directly from between her fingertips!
This made Yara Carson purse her lips and release a laugh resembling the clucking of an old hen!
Her friend struck her again and rewarded her with an enormous eye roll.
Then she lifted her chin toward the screen. "All right! Stop talking nonsense! The film is starting!"
While the two of them fooled around, and amid the expectations of countless Harry Potter fans, the lights inside the cinema dimmed.
The Warner logo and the Harry Potter logo appeared one after the other. The gray clouds surrounding them seemed to warn the audience that the film's narrative might be somewhat oppressive. Then, when the screen formally lit up,
the familiar formula and familiar flavor appeared:
The first thing to appear was still everyone's old friend, Privet Drive:
the same Dursley house that had remained unchanged since the first film;
the same skinny, black-haired Harry with glasses;
but unlike the previous films, Harry did not make his first appearance in his bedroom this time. Instead, he was lying in the flower bed beside the house.
His hands were behind his head.
He stared up at the sky.
"Oh, Harry's grown again! He looks different from the previous films!"
"Yeah, he's grown again! But why do I feel like he's becoming less adorable as he gets older?"
"Hiss, why don't you just say he's getting uglier?"
"My God! I didn't say that! You did!"
"Hahahaha! Everyone already knows that! Throughout the entire Harry Potter series, only Hermione Granger's looks have remained consistent! Everyone else, Draco is going bald, while Harry and Ron have both grown awkward."
"Exactly! So many of them keep getting less attractive!"
"..."
"..."
Although the Harry Potter film series could be considered one of the greatest in cinematic history,
it still had many flaws.
In Isabella's previous life, its increasingly poor plots had been one of the most common criticisms.
In this life, although Isabella had resolved many of the plot-related problems by splitting the films into multiple parts to preserve the original stories, the deterioration in the actors' appearances was something no one could fix.
After all, not everyone could be like Isabella, Heaven's chosen child, who merely had to wag her tail for someone to come along and dress her in another layer.
Still, the declining looks of the main cast were a minor problem for a long-running film series. Nostalgia was the most powerful filter in the world.
Therefore, although everyone was making rather cruel remarks, they continued staring attentively at the screen while joking, eager to see what Chris Columbus had done with The Order of the Phoenix: Part One.
As for that, the opening of the original Order of the Phoenix was actually quite complicated.
Since Voldemort had returned in The Goblet of Fire, Harry, knowing the world might soon descend into chaos, had been closely following developments outside. His formerly peaceful summer holidays were gone, and he now watched the news every day.
Unfortunately, his efforts produced no reward. The world remained completely silent, putting him in a foul mood.
The main reason for his foul mood, though, came from Ron and Hermione ignoring him. In previous years, they had always kept in contact through letters during the holidays; this year, after Voldemort's return, Harry wanted to do the same. The idea was perfectly reasonable. But reality was harsh: Ron and Hermione were still writing, but no longer sharing everything with him as they used to. They never discussed the noseless guy with him at all.
If that had been the only issue, Harry wouldn't have minded much, he could assume they thought it unsafe to discuss the noseless guy by letter, since the man had no decency and was perfectly willing to intercept other people's mail. But when Harry learned that Hermione was spending her summer at the Burrow, Ron's home, he felt utterly betrayed.
The logic was easy to understand, right? To put it another way: imagine a group of friends who'd grown up together for over twenty years, only for one of them to discover his male and female childhood friends were secretly dating. How the fuck could anyone tolerate that?
Honestly, J. K. Rowling's portrayal of Harry in the books was excellent, she vividly captured the thoughts and emotions of an adolescent child. But a story told largely through internal monologue is hard to bring to the screen, so cuts were inevitable. Under Chris Columbus's revisions, all of Harry's internal monologue was removed.
At the start of the film, Harry was simply outside his uncle's house, secretly listening to news from the Muggle world, wanting to know whether Voldemort and the Death Eaters had caused any trouble. As for why he had to listen from outside, because his uncle was Vernon!
Amid his aunt and uncle's complaints, Harry confirmed Voldemort hadn't caused any trouble yet and breathed a sigh of relief. But the next second, he heard the sound of Apparition.
Harry's nerves instantly tightened; he assumed danger was approaching. He leapt up so fast that he smacked his head on the windowsill — and the noise gave him away instantly. Uncle Vernon threw open the window and found Harry sprawled in the flower bed, and immediately assumed he'd been up to some prank, snooping or eavesdropping again. He angrily scolded Harry, ordering him to get lost and stop his nonsense.
His uncle's outburst cost Harry the chance to investigate the sound, and sent him storming off in frustration. After an "escape" sequence somewhat like the opening of the Prisoner of Azkaban film, Harry arrived at the park where he'd first met Sirius and sat down on one of the swings, furious that he might have missed something important.
While he was still stewing over his uncle, his cousin Dudley suddenly appeared. The bastard had come looking for trouble.
Dudley was naturally malicious, the kind of person who had been born rotten; second, Vernon had just scolded Harry, making Dudley believe he could use his father's authority to bully Harry again.
During his provocation, Dudley also exposed something embarrassing about Harry. He said Harry talked in his sleep every night; almost every time, he mentioned "Cedric" and desperately begged, "Don't kill Cedric"; and since British men could fold themselves in half without even taking fentanyl,
Dudley asked whether Cedric had been Harry's boyfriend.
He repeatedly added that even if Cedric had been Harry's boyfriend, they could never have been together. Harry's parents were dead, so even if Harry wanted to walk into a church with Cedric, he would never receive his family's blessing.
Faced with such blatant humiliation, Harry immediately snapped!
He shot to his feet, drew his wand, and pressed it against Dudley's chest!
However, just as Harry was about to give Dudley a one-on-one Avada Kedavra, the sky around them suddenly darkened, and an icy chill instantly swept through their bodies!
The two of them raised their heads in confusion and stared at the sky.
The next second, a Dementor appeared with a whoosh!
It seized Harry by the throat, lifted him high into the air, and prepared to devour his soul!
That was right!
Voldemort had made his move!
And this time, Voldemort had even learned from Isabella Haywood and opened with his ultimate attack!
No, no, no.
Voldemort was merely trying to prevent the previous accident from happening again. At the end of The Goblet of Fire, if Voldemort had not insisted on proving to his servants that he did not fear Harry and had not tried to torture Harry personally to restore his authority, Harry would never have had the opportunity to use Infinite Love and instantly defeat him. Therefore, this time, Voldemort began with a surprise attack.
Unfortunately,
Harry Potter was the protagonist of Harry Potter!
No matter how powerful Voldemort was, he was still not lucky enough!
How could Voldemort expect to kill Harry Potter merely by sending a Dementor?
That was impossible!
So even though the Dementor fought dirty, all it managed was an apologetic long-distance French kiss with Harry.
Although the Dementor's ambush caught Harry completely off guard, he still managed to pull his wand from his crotch.
He then jabbed the Dementor in the head with it, physically stunning the creature.
After creating enough space between them, Harry gathered his magic and shouted at the Dementor, "Expecto Patronum!"
"Aaah!"
Taking the magical equivalent of a nuclear warhead directly to the face, the Dementor flew away like a basketball launched high into the air by LeBron James!
Harry's clean counterattack drew waves of cheers from the audience. "Oh, Harry may be ugly, but he's seriously cool!"
"Oh, shit! Have you consumed so much protein powder that your brain has been marinated in it? Why are you using the left side of your brain to attack the right side while talking? Harry is obviously ugly-hot!"
"Hahahahaha! Ugly-hot? That description is perfect!"
"Honestly, I think this scene was incredibly cool! Much cooler than the way it happened in the book!"
"Exactly! I feel the same way!"
"..."
"..."
In the original Order of the Phoenix, although Harry also drove the Dementors away with Expecto Patronum, the entire process was extremely lame. Rowling's Harry was completely suppressed by the Dementors and failed several times to cast the Patronus Charm.
If Harry had not suddenly remembered in his desperation that failing to resist the Dementors might mean never seeing Ron and Hermione again, he might have been devoured.
Yes.
In the original book, the main reason Harry resisted the Dementors was that he still wanted to settle things with his friends.
Ahem, ahem. All right.
Enough nonsense.
In the original story, Harry defeated the Dementors through the power of the friendship in his heart.
But because most of his reaction took place internally,
it was difficult to film.
Therefore, Chris Columbus optimized the sequence.
He had Harry defeat the Dementor cleanly and decisively, creating the proper image of the Chosen One.
Under Harry's explosive attack, the Dementor pursuing Dudley was also driven away.
However, just as Harry finally found peace and began breathing in relief,
the sudden sound of rapidly approaching footsteps rang out.
Looking toward the sound,
Harry saw his neighbor from the Muggle world, Mrs. Figg of Privet Drive.