As you probably know by now, I have a Thing for Harry Potter. Reading the books as an adult was the most liberating experience of my life, and I credit them with helping me to come out also to pursue my dreams of becoming a writer. Autostraddle dot com Headmistress Riese Bernard had never read Harry Potter at all, not even a little bit, hadn’t even heard any spoilers (including the one about Snape!) until a few months ago. It was a real treat watching her learn to love the series too, and so when she was all finished, I called her up on the phone and talked to her about her magical journey. Here are the things that she said.
*Oh first: SPOILER ALERT. This interview contains spoilers for every major and important thing that happens in the entire series.*
So you’ve only just now read Harry Potter for the first time in your life! What took you so long?
Well, I tend to choose books based on what I think will make me a better writer, rather than because I’m drawn to the story. Especially during the time when Harry Potter was so popular, I was only able to read things I sought out specifically to help me with my voice for a story I was writing or books from popular queer or feminist women whose voices I wanted to learn from, or just whose voices I wanted in my head. I’ve also just never really been into fantasy.
I actually did read Sorcerer’s Stone, though! I read it in 2005 when I was working at a literary agency because we were getting all these rip-off Harry Potter submissions and I needed to know what was going on. I liked it! Hogwarts reminded me of Interlochen, where I went to high school. But I had a million other things I had to read for work, too, so I didn’t read any additional Harry Potter books.
Why’d you cave and read the rest of the books?
Because you guys talk about it all the time! You reference Harry Potter at least five times a day.
I know. I have a problem.
No, it’s not even just you! So does everyone else. [My girlfriend] Abby loves these books too. I know so many people who are still obsessed with them. Finally I was just like, “Okay, I don’t understand these references. I have got to know what everyone is talking about.”
When you first started reading them, you were like, “Eh, whatever.”
Yeah.
But I was with you the day after you finished Goblet of Fire, and I could tell they had your heart at that point. You plowed through those last three books, and they’re the big ones.
I finished Deathly Hallows in two days.
What changed?
I think, obviously, the books just get better. And I was reading them on my Kindle on my phone, but once we picked up Abby’s physical books from her house in Indiana over Christmas and I started reading those instead of Kindle versions, the story got a lot more real to me. In Goblet of Fire, things get a lot darker, and fast. And the characters get more complicated and interesting. But I also think — and I know this isn’t some kind of revelation; people have been telling me this about Harry Potter forever — that I was going through a complicated time in my own life and the harder things got for me, personally, the more I found myself turning to Hogwarts. Part of it is definitely escapism, but I think part of it is watching them navigate this magical world that really doesn’t seem too distant from what we experience in our own lives.
This is maybe weird to say, but the more people who died in the books, the more I related to the characters who lived.
Mmm hmm. People who write off Harry Potter as simple escapism really have to ignore a whole lot of horrific darkness these kids go through. It’s interesting that you talk about finding a kind of comfort in them. JK Rowling talked a lot about how writing these books was an exercise in helping her cope with the loss of her mother. And you’re also a person who has lost a parent.
I was really sad. It was very hard for me to read that. Two books end with surrogate fathers dying. I was mad at you. I was mad at Abby. When Sirius died, I was like, “What the fuck?” And then when Dumbledore died? I was like, “You motherfuckers, I hate all of you.” I cried when Sirius died. I know a lot of people criticized the books for getting darker, but it made me appreciate them so much more. Life is full of darkness and a never-ending cycle of grief, and just when you think one more thing can’t get pulled from your heart, there it goes! This is maybe weird to say, but the more people who died in the books, the more I related to the characters who lived.
Who did you relate to the most?
Dumbledore — but I think it bears mentioning that when I told you and Abby that I related to Dumbledore the most, but a less perfect version, you both agreed with me and told me I’d identify with him even more after I finished Half-Blood Prince. But you know what happened at the end of Half-Blood Prince? HE DIED, you assholes!
For real, though. I get to lead a group of magical people every day. I am always on the lookout for people who are truly magical to add to my “school,” and I want to help these people become better wizards. And I struggle with the amount of emotion I can invest in these magical people without setting up false expectations, so I end up holding back a lot with how deep I can make my relationships. I have to withhold so many things that I would really like to talk about. And I’ve seen a lot. I’ve been around Hogwarts 120 times.
To be fair, Abby and I did say you’d have to make it all the way to the end before you truly understood Dumbledore.
Right! In Deathly Hallows, when the mythology of Dumbledore started breaking down and Harry started learning hard things about him, and even some shitty things about him, that’s when I started relating to him the most. Even the phase of his life with Grindelwald, it reminded me of a time when I was dating a super-genius during a manic phase, and she saw in me something special that she said was also super-genius. She said we were special, we should be set apart, she told me I was better than these other people in my life. That is not a way I usually think about myself, at all! Which is why it was so intoxicating for me to hear her say it. When there aren’t a lot of people who share your ambition, and you meet somebody who does, and who can match you intellectually, I can see how it would be easy for Dumbledore to get caught up in someone else’s power-hungry fever-dream for a second. It’s not power we were hungry for, but I can understand getting there.
Also, man, Dumbledore makes mistakes! He made some major mistakes! And while I am so proud of everything I’ve accomplished at Autostraddle, I have fucked up in some huge ways. I’ve hurt people. I’ve let people down. I’ve let people slip through the cracks that I shouldn’t have. When Rita Skeeter’s book about Dumbledore came out and Harry was like, “Wow, is this really true?” I was like… “If people read the book about me, I think they’d feel the same way.”
That’s fascinating. That’s not why I said you remind me of Dumbledore at all. For me, Dumbledore is the world’s most powerful and talented wizard, and he did fuck up when he was figuring out who he was. But he’s a guy who saw the darkness in himself and the darkness in the world and didn’t give up. In fact, it only strengthened his resolve to find a way to bring light and whimsy and magic into the lives of countless magical people. If anyone had the right to give up hope, it was Dumbledore, but with his literal dying breath, he was believing the best in the kid who was trying to kill him. His mistakes led to a long life of perpetually redeeming other people.
Well, that’s a very kind interpretation of me.
I really believe it.
I guess — no, you’re right. In some ways, I do feel like I am doing penance and that I want to make sure other people never believe the stupid things I’ve been duped into believing by my own prejudice or ignorance. Like how Dumbledore really did think he was better than Muggles in the beginning… but he wasn’t! I feel like my answers are making me sound like an egotistical maniac!
No! Absolutely not! Acknowledging your own power does not making you an egotistical maniac! Knowing you are powerful and exercising that power with empathy is the very best of Dumbledore. Right, and Dumbledore knows he could be the Minister of Magic —
But he’d rather have his own website devoted to empowering queer women. He would never be satisfied as the Editor-in-Chief of Buzzfeed.
There’s no amount of Xanax in the world that could make me as chill and powerful as Minerva McGonagall.
That’s it, exactly. Who’s your favorite Hogwarts professor?
McGonagall.
Correct. How come?
Because she’s so strong and no-nonsense and reasoned and measured. There’s no amount of Xanax in the world that could make me as chill and powerful as Minerva McGonagall. Obviously I was also imagining her as Maggie Smith, so that helped.
You finished the movies last night, right? How do you think they compare to the books?
Well, I’m sure it will come as a HUGE surprise to everyone to hear I thought the books were waaaaay better than the movies! It’s weird how much stuff they cut out. I mean, I realize they had to for time, but so many of Harry and Dumbledore’s conversations — the things that make sense of entire chunks of the series’ mythology — are just left out completely. The action sequences were fun to watch because I don’t really pay much attention to them when I’m reading them, and I’m not very good at watching them. The movies were trying really hard to be authentic to the story, but they felt more like a highlights reel to me.
Okay, it’s time for some rapid-fire questions. Are you ready?
No, I already feel your judgement.
What’s your Patronus?
A monkey.
What would your Boggart be?
It would be everyone involved with Autostraddle and A-Camp deciding I’m a terrible person and they don’t want to work with me anymore.
What would you see in the Mirror of Erised.
I would see myself with my Dad.
Okay, I’m going to ask you to say the Harry Potter character that reminds you most of each of our senior editors. And you have to do their Patronus. Let’s do Laneia first.
Ginny Weasley. But book Ginny, not movie Ginny. Powerful, beautiful, beloved. Maybe her Patronus would be a fox.
Rachel.
Obviously Hermione. A panther patronus? A big cat, I think. Maybe a lion.
Yvonne.
McGonagall. Tungi as her Patronus.
Heather Hogan.
Neville Longbottom, with a little dash of Hagrid. Your Patronus would be something so nice that everyone would be like, “That’s too nice, I don’t even believe it’s real.” Two otters holding hands.
Perfect answer. So, you were being an elitist about Harry Potter, but now you’ve read it and loved it — but do you feel like it was worthy of your time, for real? Did it make you better?
It did. It gave me comfort but it also inspired me. It really made me miss fiction writing. The world building is so dense and the characterizations are so strong. I could not believe how much the mythology of the world kept growing with each book, and it’s obvious she imagined it all beforehand. I never felt like I was up against the edge of the world and I kept being like, “How did you think of yet this whole other new magical thing, JK Rowling?!” How big is her imagination? It’s unreal.
Some critics talk about how overly long the books get, but I vehemently disagree with that. People always point to Order of the Phoenix, but there isn’t one newly introduced thing in that book that doesn’t wrap back around on itself in a major way later in the story.
Order of the Phoenix was not too long. I heard someone say that. It absolutely isn’t. Maybe that’s why I started getting more into the books around Goblet of Fire. I’m not — okay, you know how many stupid TV shows we have to watch. We get so used to the dumbest bullshit happening for no reason, and so you start to distrust storytellers and their ability to make sense of anything. There’s no explanation for why anything happens, no authentic character motivation. As soon as I realized that I could trust that every scene in Harry Potter was there for a reason, every line of dialogue — I couldn’t stop reading it. You don’t expect that from any writer. You especially don’t expect it from a children’s book writer.
I feel the shade you are throwing at Pretty Little Liars.
Yes! And also shows like Lost. I want to ask the showrunners, “do you know what you’re doing? Or are you just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks?”
Now I feel you throwing shade at Glee.
I mean, yes. Queer women learn not to trust most writers. It’s shocking to be able to put trust into a writer, to really believe they have everything mapped out and know what they’re doing.
Ten years ago, I was working in this tiny little cube, my soul getting crushed more and more every day by a horrible job working with horrible people, and I was in the closet, and my church was just getting worse and worse every day. I found your blog and Harry Potter at the same time, and they were both so essential in empowering me to actually start living my life. The fact that I work for you now, and am casually chatting on the phone with you about Harry Potter is surreal to me. You are very much a Dumbledore in my life, and I really want you to know that.
You’re kind of like a Patronus, I think.
Nah, I’m way too scared to protect anyone from anything. Okay, final question: Who on our staff would win in an Ultimate Wizard’s Duel?
Yvonne. You’re right: McGonagall never would apologize for her power.
