It's been long enough my memory of the plots are more driven by the movies at this point. That's a problem, since the books are almost 100% excellent, and the movies are insanely up and down. The goal here was to better understand the material, reading it not as a pre-teen then teen (in reality, pretty sure I read The Sorcerers Stone when I was 8 or something), but as an adult with a good mix of nostalgia and skepticism.
Anyway, I chose to not re-read the first two as I fully believe that was a more HP 1.0 type time period; the books were short, were far more geared towards kids, had fairly little actual connection to the rest of hte plot (you can argue everything up to the reveal of Sirius being good at the end of the 3rd book is fairly meaningless in teh large scheme). Maybe one day I'll go back and read these two as well.
Anyway, the first thing that jumps out is just how damn detailed the books are with interesting minutiae. Over the years, and again because of the movies, my view of Harry Potter is so heavily plot based with the big points leading up to the ultimate showdown. Because of that you forget how much of these books, particularly Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix are 'moment in time' for such long stretches. There's whole brilliant side-plots I completely forgot about, such as the various allusions to Fred & George testing out and ultimatley setting up their Joke Shop, Hermoine's long crusade for justice for House Elves (fit with great acronyms like S.P.E.W).
Also lost on / forgotten by me was how much incredible foreshadowing was there - the amount of hints towards Lupin being a werewolf, the allusions to Barty Crouch being the imposter Moody, the never-ending omnipresence of the Department of Mysteries. Maybe my biggest miss, and something I'm sure I just overlooked at the time as a likely half-interested 11 year old, was the whole running Crookshanks vs. Scabbers side-plot in Prisoner of Azkaban is a long foreshadow to how dog-form Sirius communicated with teh cat to bring him scabbers/Pettigrew. Just amazing stuff.
At the time I know I was annoyed by how long Goblet of Fire was and them some angsty combination of annoyed and impressed by the fact Order of the Phoenix was somehow even longer, but the reason they were is so much more clear to me now. This was a long mystery, thriller, but more than that is was the story of so much more. Of children growing up with pain, with anxiety, with successes and failures, with trauma. It was like watching the best high school show of all time, with one of the great fantasy mysteries layered on top.
The way she could make you feel Harry's isolation throughout Order of the Phoenix, the way she could make Umbridge so (admittedly comically) evil. The way she could make the Goblet of Fire into one big puberty story. Rowling had a knack of writing teenage dynamics, but doing it in a captivating enough way for me, the reader now double the age of the kids in the books.
Going back to what I missed the first time, there's really a litany of just incredible moments and subplots that were amazing. Anything to do with Rita Skeeter in book four. The few allusions to Ginny starting to be something new and different in Harry's eyes in book five. The dark tone that surrounded book three - something admirably recreated in the movie as well. The whole Ludo Bagman being a unabashed gambling addict flew hilairously over my head on my first reading. Even though book three was only 300 or so pages, even there the aspects to do with Buckbeak was so much richer in the text.
In a way, I'm somewhat worried about what is to come. I'm fairly sure I've skimmed through books 6-7 more recently, and while I'm sure there will be some great school angst throughout Half Blood Prince (which I'm pretty sure was my favorite book at the time), I also know we get closer to the plot taking over the story. Not always a bad thing, but to compare Harry Potter for some reason to Breaking Bad, that's my one tiny little issue (not really a criticism) with the last couple seasons. The endgame took over.
These middle three were not endgame. Hell, even in my enjoyment when rereading Order of the Phoenix, I got a bit impatient wading through page after entertaining page of school stories wanting them to get to the good stuff. But in this rereading I've changed my mind on what the good stuff is. In fact, Order is the perfect example. Seeing Rowling describe in words the great battle in the Department of Mysteries, frankly isn't as good as seeing the screen depiction. However seeing her write about the day to day happenings of Hogwarts in flux and taken over by the evil Dolores Umbridge is way better in print.
Overall, I'm glad I went back and did this. It was over a decade since I've read these books cover to cover, and even in 2011 probably not with the attention to detail as I have now - again the idea that Dog Sirius was communicating to Crookshanks was complete new to me! What this also taught me is how much better Harry Potter on screen would've been as a Game of Thrones type HBO show where each of these great little subplots got room to breath. Maybe someday in 2040 we decide to remake them as shows. Until then, I can just thank JK Rowling for making this world as rich and complex as it was.
