The Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Book Release Is Happening This Weekend, and Barnes & Noble Is Making a Day Of It!

July 27, 2016July 28, 2016 by Elodie

We’re just days away from the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and I am so excited I want to fling my entire self into the sun. How many days, I hear you ask? Allow me to plonk a giant countdown clock below, that we may all keep track of the seconds until our souls are once again sucked from our bodies by the imagination/marketing juggernaut that is JK Rowling.

Maybe you’ve heard about this whole thing. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’re recovering from a fugue state or returning from exile, in which case hey! Welcome back! Everything’s pretty much the same, except Pokemon is cool again, everyone’s eating kale, and there’s a new Harry Potter book coming out to restore in us a long-dormant nostalgia that we have heretofore only experienced at the midnight releases of yore.

Remember those days? Because I sure do. I won a trivia contest when I was eleven at the midnight release for Order of the Phoenix, and I’ve been bringing it up on first dates and during job interviews ever since.

Look, I’m a regular person. I had plans for Saturday night. Plans that involved eating far too many popsicles and then languishing in front of an industrial two-speed fan because I don’t have central air and there is never a moment where I am not sweaty. These are plans that I had locked in many moons ago. But do you know where I’m going to be instead?

Kicking down the double doors of my nearest air-conditioned Barnes & Noble is where.

It’s entirely possible that they’ll just let me in.

I know there are some of you out there who don’t care for Cursed Child and its departure from the original canon. That’s perfectly okay! We as a people do not agree on everything, nor should we. Example: I have a friend who to this day pronounces “Sirius” as “Sye-REE-us,” and she has the same rights to life as you and I.

Also of note: I have not read any spoilers. This is quite frankly unprecedented, because I am obsessed with spoilers. Not openly, mind you. I complain about how they “cheapen the experience,” but if there is a brand-new thing that everybody is talking about, just know that I have already swallowed my scruples and Googled everything about it. But not now. This is too important. I want my mind to be blown.

Here’s my point: at the end of the day, whatever your level of interest—whether you’re not into it at all, or you’re actually so into it that you’ve spoiled yourself silly—Barnes & Noble is hosting an assembly of the wizarding faithful, one that harkens back to the Good Old Days. There will be contests. Giveaways. Possibly a Firenze cosplay, but probably not. Trivia! You could win a trivia competition, and then proceed to brag about it for the next thirteen years!

Basically, be there. The party starts at 8 PM on Saturday the 30th and goes until midnight, at Barnes & Nobles near and far. There is like a 1/900 chance you will see me. A slim chance, it’s true, but a chance nonetheless.