Books

People Are Leaving Notes In 'Harry Potter' Books

The only thing sweeter than experiencing the magic of Harry Potter for the first time is watching somebody else experience it for the first time, and nothing quite sums up that fountain of feelings like these people who are leaving notes in old Harry Potter books for the next readers to find. After the Potter hub Mugglenet.com started the movement, people started sneaking them into library books, donated books, and pretty much any book in the Potter variety they can get their hands on to hide notes in them, and then share them on social media using the hashtag #PotterItForward. And if you thought you were already emotionally compromised by J.K. Rowling, you're pretty much going to be decimated by the contents of these letters.

The notes range from quick and encouraging to entirely raw and honest accounts of the reader's own experiences. Some are sneaking it into the first chapters of books; others had the forethought to save theirs for the very last chapter of the very last book. You can see scrolling through the hashtag that the trend has taken off so widely that people are sharing their Harry Potter -inspired notes with readers who speak different languages all over the world — which makes sense, considering it has been translated into at least 68 different languages.

Here are a few of the notes that people have been leaving in books for the next generation of readers to find (and hopefully leave notes in their own):

WELP, time to go figure out how I can possibly fit 15+ years of my Harry Potter feels into a single post-it note. This would be an excellent time for someone to give me the post-it version of Hermione's enchanted rucksack, and also infinity tissues.

Image: Courtesy of Kari Miller of Simply Bella Hair Studio