离《哈利·波特与死亡圣器》的出版已经过去7年时间，但作者JK罗琳的一言一行依旧引起粉丝的强烈关注。在最新一期的《Wonderland》杂志上，罗琳向采访她的艾玛·沃森Emma Watson透露(艾玛在哈利·波特电影中饰赫敏Hermione)，她把赫敏嫁给了罗恩也许是个错误，赫敏同哈利·波特可能是更加令人信服的一对。《哈利·波特》的粉丝世界立刻炸开了锅。

这条消息让我想起大约10年前史诗般的“哈利·波特Shipping 战争”，小宝曾经很深地卷入其中，不禁莞尔。这里Shipping不是航运的意思，“船”ship从relationship一词衍生而来，中文大约可以翻译成“配对”– 粉丝们讨论小说电影中的人物谁和谁应该成为一对。

哈利波特迷在专门的社交网上会相互询问，“你是开哪条船的？” (which ship do you sail)，回答的：H.M.S Orange Crush或者The good ship或者Harmony。外人听来如同黑道切口，铁杆粉丝们则完全知道他们在说什么。比如，哈利/赫敏支持者把他们的“船”称为Harmony (Harry + Hermione)，而支持罗恩/赫敏的则团聚在另一条“船”的周围 – Heron (Hermione + Ron)。年轻的粉丝们为此进行没完没了的辩论，有时甚至演化为大打出手。每一本新书出来都会让某些派别兴奋不已，而另一些黯然神伤。

小宝支持的是哈利和赫敏的“船”。她在世界上最大的哈利·波特网站MuggleNet上有自己的帐号，时常同人辩论，引经据典，有板有眼，后来更发展到写“粉丝小说”(fanfic) - 粉丝们自己写的哈利波特续集，那时她大约10岁。至于为什么会成为Harmony的“水手”(Shipper)，她的回答是：“赫敏这么棒，她应该得到最好的。” 的确是这样，赫敏虽然出生于麻瓜(非魔法)家庭，是个啥都知道的书虫女，但她天份和才智却是其他人难以望其项背的。

其实小宝也不是一点私心都没有的，我知道她在赫敏的身上看到了一点自己的影子。但是后来事情没有像她希望的那样发展，到了第七本书结束时谜底揭晓，哈利娶了桔红色头发的金妮，赫敏同好友罗恩结婚。对小宝来说，这是很让她失望的结局。

当然，罗恩是个好人，忠诚，勇敢，幽默，但不算很聪明。赫敏同罗恩的婚姻也算过得去，但以赫敏的聪明和才华，她能够满足于仅仅是过得去的婚姻？如果赫敏不开心，罗恩又如何能开心的起来？《哈利·波特》的作者承认，赫敏和罗恩有“根本性的不相容”，两人大概需要去见心理医生。

“女子无才便是德”是中国人的说法，但东西方文化都常常倾向于把最聪明的女儿“贱卖”了。如果儿子聪明，我们会对他说：“宝贝，你想做什么都可以做”；如果有个很聪明的女儿，我们会教训她：“女孩子太聪明了没好处”，或者“要含蓄点，你的锋芒把男孩们都吓坏了”，或者“你大概找不到自己深爱的。如果有男孩子真的对你好，你就嫁了吧”。

最让人伤心的是赫敏实际上是作者JK罗琳自己的翻版，她曾经说过“我最早并没有想把赫敏写的像我自己，但她的确是......她是我年轻时代的一个夸张版”。不光是普通做父母的，就连罗琳这样的才女也在这个问题上一再犯错，不但罗琳自己挑人错误导致第一次婚姻失败，而且把最喜欢的“女儿”赫敏也匆匆嫁出去了事。罗琳不经意之间发出信号是非常负面的 – 你可以很聪明，但你得不到自己想要的。

我非常高兴JK罗琳在7年后反思赫敏的婚姻。她迟到的回心转意或许帮不了赫敏，可对于其他“赫敏们”还是有意义的：真爱值得等待；不要满足于退而求其次；不要因为周围人说你该出嫁了就把自己胡乱嫁出去。我真心希望聪明女孩们能听进去。

白露为霜注：以下是小宝刚进高中时写的一篇文章，纪念《哈利·波特》系列的结束。

哈利波特：影响了一代人的魔法书

小宝，写于2007年

1995年的一天，奈杰尔-牛顿(Nigel Newton)，英国的一家小出版商Bloomsbury的董事长，给了他8岁的女儿爱丽丝读一章手稿。他并没有为此屏住呼吸，因为手稿来自一位名不见经传的作者叫凯瑟琳-罗琳(Joanne Kathleen Rowling)，其他12家出版社已经拒绝了她。

“一小时后爱丽丝从房间里下来，满脸放光， ” 牛顿先生在2005年接受《独立报》采访时回忆道，“她说：‘爸爸，这本比其他的都好太多了。’”

十年和三亿本以后，这套差一点没有发表的幻想系列在今年夏天终于走到了尽头。我说的，当然是，无与伦比的《哈利·波特》系列。这套书造成了一个全球性的风暴，创造一种文化现象，并成为人类历史上，仅次于圣经，第二号最畅销的书。每个人都知道圣经是啥时代就开始的。

但可悲的是，粉丝们，你的王国(fandom)已经结束了。将不会有第八本《哈利·波特与中年危机》，唯一可以期待的最后两部电影的首演。当然生活还要继续下去。随着《哈利·波特》的结束，现在到了我们粉丝重新检讨自己生活的时候了 -  哈利·波特给我们带来些什么，以及如果没有这位“活下来的男孩”(the Boy Who Lived)我们会怎样？

我第一次接触到哈利·波特的时候我还在幼儿园。现在回过头来看，那时《魔法石》是有点超过我的阅读能力。当时它还没有很流行，这一情况直到第三本书，《阿兹卡班的囚徒》出版后才得以改变。在我的史诗般的第一次阅读《魔法石》之后，我依旧不知道故事主线是什么，也没弄清赫敏是不是个男孩。从那时起事情当然发生了很大变化。

直到第四本书，《火焰杯》，我才真正成为一名铁杆粉丝。这第四本书有一种令人难以置信的抓取力，让人放不开手。部分原因可能是它比前几本都要厚。在《火焰杯》我们也看到哈利长大了。而事实是，我们基本上也是随他一起长大。哈利被介绍给世界以经过去了10年时间，谁曾想到，一个小小的魔法师将会对麻瓜世界产生如此巨大的影响？

不过，我不相信哈利·波特在20年或30年后还会这么流行。这个“活下来的男孩”的很多魅力是基于一个事实，即我们，H世代（ H意思是哈利  或Harry ），从小同他一起长大。我们是那些在午夜排队等候《哈利·波特与混血王子》的到来的人；我们是那些对泄密(spoilers)产生既爱又恨的感情的人；我们是那些写了数以千计的“粉丝小说”和无休止地辩论到底谁才是哈利的女孩的人。我为结识哈利，罗恩，赫敏三人帮感到自豪和幸运。我很高兴成为他们忠实的粉丝，一直到最后的一刻。

但哈利·波特之后还有生活吗？对于那些生活由要么读哈利波特，要么等待下一本哈利波特组成的粉丝来说，这个问题是真实的。简短的回答：当然有的 。也许只有一个哈利·波特，但许多其他著作也同样值得一读。如果你是一个年轻的哈利波特迷，你可能想尝试菲利普·普尔曼的“黑暗物质三部曲” (His Dark Materials Trilogy)，该系列中的第一本书，《黄金罗盘》( The Golden Compass) 已被拍成电影。如果你有一个十几岁，还有JRR托尔金的《指环王》和Orson Scott Card 的《安德的游戏》(Ender’s Game)等很多书可以挑选。

从振兴昏昏欲睡的儿童出版业到宣扬巫术，哈利·波特在许多事情上被称赞或被指责。但是哈利波特做到了让孩子们阅读却是没有争议的。即使是几乎有800页的《死亡圣器》，我们可以在不到13个小时一气读完，这在粉丝里还不算读的快的。我对哈利·波特迷们的建议是：继续阅读。迪斯尼曾经说过，“书中的财富比金银岛上所有海盗的战利品还多”。哈利·波特为我们打开了门，现在我们应该在书的梦幻世界里继续寻宝。嘿，你也许会意外地成为了终身的读者。这将是JK罗琳所慷慨赠送的最好的礼物了。

赫敏、罗恩、哈利三人帮

哈利和张秋

哈利和金妮

哈利和赫敏

相关阅读：艾玛·沃森采访罗琳:

http://www.hypable.com/2014/02/07/jk-rowling-ron-hermione-interview/

The Books That Shaped a Generation

In 1995, Nigel Newton, the chairman of a small British publisher - Bloomsbury, gave his 8-year-old daughter Alice a chapter of a manuscript to read. He did not hold his breath because it was from an unknown author called Joanne Kathleen Rowling and twelve other publishing houses had already rejected it.

“She came down from her room an hour later glowing,” Newton recalled in 2005 interview with The Independent, “saying, ‘Dad, this is so much better than anything else.’”

Ten years and 325 million copies later, the fantasy series that almost didn’t make it finally came to an end this summer. I speak of, of course, the unparalleled Harry Potter series that took the globe by storm, creating a cultural phenomenon, and becoming the most popular book in the history of mankind, second to only the Bible. Everybody knows how much of a head start that one got.

But the sad truth is, fans, your fandom is over. There will be no eighth book entitled “Harry Potter and the Midlife Crisis,” only the premieres of the last two movies. Life must go on. But with the end of Harry Potter, it is time for us fans to re-exam our lives – what Harry Potter brought to them, and what they would have been like without the Boy Who Lived.

I was in kindergarten the first time I was exposed to Harry Potter. Looking back on it now, I see that the Sorcerer’s Stone was a little too much over my reading ability. At that time, Harry Potter had not yet gained very much publicity, nor would it until at least the release of the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban. At the end of my monumental first reading of Sorcerer’s Stone, I still had no idea of the story line, or indeed whether or not Hermione was a boy. Things have changed a lot since then.

It was sometime around the 4th book, Goblet of Fire, that I really started to become a hardcore fan. There is just something about that fourth book that is unbelievably gripping. Part of it may be that there is simply so much more to read. In GOF we also see Harry grow up. And the truth is that we basically grow up with him. It has been about 10 years since Harry was introduced to the world. Who would have guessed that one boy wizard would have such an impact on the Muggle world?

However, I don’t believe that Harry Potter is going to be this popular in 20 or 30 years. Much of the appeal of boy who lived (and conquered) has to do with the fact that we, Generation H (H is for Harry!), grew up with him. We were the ones that waited in line at midnight for Deathly Hallows. We were the ones who developed a love-hate relationship with spoilers. We were the ones who wrote thousands of fanfics and debated endlessly about who would be Harry’s girl. Knowing that I was one of those who grew up with Harry and the trio is something that I am proud of. And I am glad to be a fan who stuck through until the very end.

But is there a life after Harry Potter? For those whose life consists of either reading Harry Potter or waiting for the next Harry Potter book, the question is real. The short answer is, of course, “yes”. There may be only one Harry Potter, but many other great books are equally worth reading. If you are a younger HP fan, you may want to try “His Dark Materials Trilogy” by Philip Pullman; the first book in the series, “The Golden Compass”, is being made into a movie. If you are a teen, there are “The Lord of Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien and “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card.

From revitalizing the sleepy universe of children publishing to promoting witchcraft, the Harry Potter series was credited and blamed for many things. But there is no debate that Harry Potter got kids to read. Even with almost-800-page books like Deathly Hallows, we read it in less than 13 hours, which was not even considered fast in the fandom. My advice to my fellow HP fans: keep on reading. Walt Disney once said, “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.” Harry Potter opened the door for us, now we should continue the treasure hunt in the fantastic world of books. Hey, you may accidentally become a lifetime reader. And that would be the best gift of all given generously by JKR.