Voldemort can't stop the party

So my friends and I do these Harry Potter parties every month or so. The one we had Wednesday was a particularly important one - not only because the movie and the book are coming out in a matter of weeks, but also because I was to interview people (and David was to take pictures) for a cover story in CiN Weekly!

It's my first cover story, and I'm excited to write it, but I 'm even more excited that we're doing a cover story on Harry Potter. I want everything to go perfectly.

So when I hit the traffic on Kellogg Road from people packing into Riverbend to see Def Leppard, Foreigner and Styx, I got a little nervous. But I got through it.

When David called to tell me about the pileup that shut down the highway and left him stranded, I got a little more nervous. But I figured we'd work it out somehow. And eventually he made an illegal U-turn and was on his way again.

Driving down an unknown road in New Richmond, I got a bit concerned that I might be lost. But I soon saw the turn I needed to take, and I found Carrie's house without incident.

At the party, as the calls poured in from guests who were caught in either the concert traffic or the accident traffic, I got worried - not that people would give up on coming to the party, but that David would arrive to take pictures of only three people. But before too long, people started to show up, and it was party time!

David arrived, took some excellent photos, left. I started the interviews, pulling people away from Harry Potter Scene It one by one to tell me when they started reading the books and what they like about the parties. After talking to three of the nine guests, I checked my voice recorder and became positively fretful. The recorder was set to "high quality" instead of "long play," and I had three minutes of recording time left. Amazingly, Carrie had a spare recorder I can use.

And then the power went out. Which didn't affect me so much, but it did put a sudden end to the Scene It game.

At this point, I was quite certain I knew what was going on. Clearly, Lord Voldemort was doing his utmost to squash our spirits, ruin our fun, and make me print a sucky article so people won't like Harry Potter.

Well, it wasn't going to work. Voldemort can't stop the rock, and he couldn't stop our party either. Carrie lit some candles, the gang switched to playing solely with the Scene It trivia cards, and I continued my interviews with the borrowed recorder. The party raged on until 1 a.m.

Also, the candles made everything look pretty cool.


Suck on that, Riddle!