Growing up Harry

Growing up Harry When Candice Dobson was 9 years old, she was slightly worried that a face might start growing out of the back of her head. She had just read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K.

Rowling, and the possession plotline at the end of the book had her confused and a little frightened. Now 16 and a junior in high school, Dobson knows why a face -- Lord Voldemort's face, to be exact -- grew out of the back of a man's head. She knows, obviously, that it can't happen to her.

Dobson is "utterly addicted" to Harry Potter. She once was in a Harry Potter club. Her books are falling apart from carrying them around with her and re-reading them so often.

She's been on a waiting list for the seventh book for four months now, and hopes to attend a midnight-release party in full costume. For four years in a row, she dressed up as Harry Potter for Halloween. She's a frequent presence in the online HP community, and is working on her own piece of fan fiction called Ellie Potter and the Hall of Destiny.

("I decided Harry should have an older sister.") And, she can do a spot-on Hermione impression. Dobson, a Crest Hill resident, is just one member of the Potter generation.

These are the kids who wore middle school graduation robes as Gryffindor cloaks and carved wands out of sticks from their backyards. They cast makeshift spells and pretended to brew Polyjuice Potion after school. They "flew" on their moms' brooms and played Quidditch in their neighborhoods, using one person as a human snitch and two others as bludgers.

They've been there since the first book, before J.K. Rowling was a household name and before Harry Potter's image was on billboards and lunch boxes.

They've grown up with Harry, coming of age right alongside the boy wizard. So perhaps no one will suffer more than them when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in Rowling's best-selling series, is published July 21. "I've pretty much been looking forward to this book since I put down the last book," said Summer Ferrara, 18, of Joliet.

She remembers well the day she first found Harry Potter. She picked up the first book from a display in Sam's Club and was 20 pages into it by the time she reached the checkout line. "It was fate," she said.

"Me and Harry were meant to be." One day, she'll be able to tell her children she was part of the Harry Potter craze, that she went to all the midnight showings of the movies and the midnight-release parties of all the books. This time, she's even going in costume -- as Lavender Brown.

"I want to wear an 'I love Won-Won shirt.' " Laura Boland, 21, of Plainfield, is another Potter-phile. She's got the walls of her bedroom papered with posters and other Potter-abilia.

She and her sister are planning on attending a midnight-release party in full costume. She owns all the movies, the video games and two copies of each book, in hardback and paperback. "I got one of them signed by the Phelps twins (James and Oliver Phelps play Fred and George Weasley)," she said.

"And I just went to the reading in Naperville with Emerson Spartz (from Mugglenet.com). I've got the Mugglenet book, I've got a book on Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Potter on-screen), I've got every single magazine they've ever been in.

My whole family is fans." She started reading the books when she was in middle school and the first one came out. "All of a sudden I was hooked, and then it turned into a huge craze.

I pretty much grew up with Harry." Dobson said that the older she gets, the more she enjoys the more adult themes of the books. "You can connect to it more when you're older because there are more aspects you can draw to your own life," she said.

"In the newer books you can see him maturing more." Plus, there are themes everyone can relate to, from the bullying Harry suffers at the hand of his (far bigger) cousin, to government bumbling and red tape. "Everyone can relate to it on different levels," Miller said.

But in the end, Harry Potter is a classic story of good vs. evil, and, she notes, about redeeming love. "It is a classic hero's journey.

It's just very magical along the way." Dobson has a number of predictions about what will happen in Deathly Hallows. "I'm really mad at Snape.

I would really like to see Harry track down Snape and get revenge on him," she said. "(After Dumbledore's death) I chucked my book, crying. You know it's a good book when it really affects you.

It was so sad -- I could see Dumbledore in my mind's eye, pleading." She concedes it's a possibility that Snape only killed Dumbledore on the headmaster's orders, "but you never know with J.K.

She also has suspicions about Harry's aunt Petunia, his mother's sister. "I'm curious to see what is up with Petunia. (Rowling) says a character will do magic later in life and I'm curious to see if it's Petunia," she said.

I'm curious about what's so special about her." Since it's been reported that two major characters are going to die in book seven, Joe Kelly, 22, of Joliet thinks that Voldemort is more than likely one of them. As for second, "I'm guessing Ron or Hermione might die.

" Dobson, like most fans, agrees that the mysterious R.A.B.

mentioned at the end of Half-Blood Prince is likely Regulus Black, Sirius' brother, and she and Kelly are both waiting to see how Peter Pettigrew's life debt with Harry plays out. Plus, "we know that an important part of Deathly Hallows will be Harry having his mother's eyes." As for the big question -- whether Harry lives or dies -- fans are split.

"I wish I could have an opinion on it, but I didn't think Sirius or Dumbledore was going to die," Dobson said. always has a twist. I will be very upset.

I will probably chuck the book like I did when Dumbledore died. I'll be upset the rest of the day." But Boland is having none of the death talk.

"The first chapter of the first book is called 'The Boy Who Lived,' not 'The Boy Who Lived, Suffered and Then Died,'" she said. "She can't put him through all of the stuff he's been through and then kill him off." It's cliche, but all things must come to an end, and so it will be for the Harry Potter story.

"I'm still upset she's not going to continue on with the series," Kelly said. "It would be nice to have more than seven books. It would be nice to see Harry, Ron and Hermione having more adventures, growing up, getting married, having children .

.. seeing Harry become minister of magic.

"This series talks about what we need to see more of every day," he said. "We don't see enough bravery and love and courage and strength." Although upset the series is drawing to an end, Dobson has been inspired by Rowling's humble beginnings on a story that has gone on to captivate the world.

(Rowling was so poor at one time, she started the story on the backs of napkins.) "Because of J.K.

, I want to be a writer. That's my goal in life," she said. "To think about someone who doesn't have a lot of money but has a lot of ideas .

.. maybe I can do that.

Since I was 9 these books have been my life, and what will I do now? I'll write my own.