Seven years ago we were all tearing through our copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But the experience of waiting for the book was an equally exciting moment.

To celebrate this magical anniversary, we asked Hypable’s writers to recall the midnight party they attended the night of July 20, 2007.

“I had an amazing opportunity to visit a family friend and spend a week in the sunshine on Myrtle Beach during the summer. Instead of immediately accepting and celebrating my good luck, I made sure my host knew that we had to get to a book store at midnight on July 21. My brother and I forwent a full day at the beach and instead raced each other to get to the end of the book. He won.” – Alec Bojald

“I was in San Antonio, Texas with the site owners of The Werewolf Registry (the HP site that I used to hang out on). We were supposed to get our books from the Borders, but it was total chaos because they wouldn’t let anyone pay ahead of time or get wristbands. We ended up going down the road to Walmart and had our books within one minute of midnight. We read until 3:00 a.m. or so, fell asleep, got up the next morning and started again. We all read at about the same pace and all started crying together when Dobby died. And again when Remus Lupin died and didn’t have a really heroic death scene.” – Laura Byrne-Cristiano

“Seven years ago, I donned my pull over sweater, complete with handmade Gryffindor emblem, and headed to the Atlantic Highlands Public Library to begin set up for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. As an employee of the library, I spent the last week holding the box containing the last installment of the series for as long as they would let me before my job duties demanded my attention. After several trivia games and helping little witches and wizards reach the golden snitch I hid just a tad too high, it was 11:58. The crowd counted down and I was given the honor of cutting open the box as my contract with Scholastic, promising to keep it sealed, expired. Even though I wanted to hold the first copy forever, I handed it off to be catalogued until we reached my personal copy. I left to huddle in a corner reading until sunrise.” – Brittany Lovely

“I was in my hometown of Cumberland, Maryland. I stood in line at a local Waldenbooks with my friend Rachel for the midnight release. They had a giant sheet cake with the logo which everyone was freaking out about. I was so nervous that people were going to purchase the book and start reading the end chapters and blurting out plot points. Sure enough, moments after purchasing my copy I hear a mother yell back to her daughter, ‘WAIT A MINUTE HE DIED!?’ as they left the store. As soon as I completed my purchase I was running as fast as I could out the door humming ‘lalalalala’ to avoid any more serious audible spoilers!” – John Thrasher

“I went all out for the midnight release of Deathly Hallows. I got together with a handful of friends from a Harry Potter forum that I used to frequent, and went to my local-ish Waterstones — I lived in a tiny village in the back-end of nowhere, so local-ish was about an hour out for me. They were holding all sorts of events and games, including a costume contest and trivia quiz about the previous books. I’d donned a handmade Luna Lovegood costume for the occasion, which meant I was stopped by countless kids wanting to take pictures with me, and it was probably the most fun that I’d had at a book launch. Because I have an uncanny knack for retaining all sorts of ridiculous information, I won the quiz and had the honour of receiving the first copy out of the box, along with some other Harry Potter themed goodies. I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of tears at that point. As soon as I had the book in my hands, I practically devoured it, and three hours later I was a sobbing mess sitting in the middle of my bedroom — which is how my parents found me at 6 a.m., on my second read through.” – Donya Abramo

“Seven years ago, my family and I attended the midnight festivities at our local Barnes and Noble in Clearwater, FL. I worked there part-time but fortunately didn’t have to work this particular day. I was dressed as Professor Trelawney with my youngest sister dressed as Myrtle. I helped with a trivia game for the attendees and later sat with my sisters and mother in a corner reading Half-Blood Prince until a quarter to midnight where we had to start lining up. We were in the ‘Dumbledore group’ and received our books around 12:20. I read until the wee hours of the morning savoring the last moments of my childhood.” – Brandi Delhagen

“I was in Bozeman, Montana, and I was also about three weeks post-knee surgery. I donned my bulky knee brace and a Harry Potter t-shirt and joined my best friend at our local Borders. We found a few friends there and grouped together while the younger kids dominated costume and trivia contests. (I spent a lot of time sitting in the cafe with my aching knee.) We all lined up shortly before midnight, and when the clock struck 12:00, the entire shop burst into cheers. The moment I got my book, I turned to the last page to see if the last word of the book was actually ‘scar’ after all, thus spoiling myself on Harry’s fate before even leaving the store.” – Caitlin Kelly

“Several MuggleCasters were in London for the midnight release at Waterstones’ flagship store. We hosted a podcast and led a countdown with fans who had been waiting in line all day for the special moment. Jamie probably won’t like me saying this, but he cried at the party we were at right after we received the book because he was so overwhelmed by the night. After the party we all crammed into a hotel room together and read. We set up a camera in our room and live-streamed our faces staring into our copies of the book for hours on end (I just looked to see if I could find the video but I’m not sure where it went). We all finished at different times and then recorded our post-read episode which went on to become our most listened to episode ever with over 500,000 downloads.” – Andrew Sims

Where were you for the ‘Deathly Hallows’ midnight release? Share your story in the comments!