At Last We Are Muggles

At last we are Muggles.

Well, I suppose we have been Muggles ever since J.K. Rowling came up with the term, but we just didn't know it.

And at Autism's Edges, it's just begun.

For years our girl had too much anxiety to watch the Harry Potter films.  What with their slithering snakes, creeping giant arachnids, and swirling Dementors, they were simply too terrifying. Imagine you have a photographic, or rather videographic, memory and you're never going to be able to erase that scene of the spiders marching off by the thousands into the cavern from the Chamber of Secrets. Or that you'd be haunted by the undead who emerge from the gray waters in Voldemort's cave in the Half-Blood Prince. It was too much.

Just to keep somewhat in step with popular culture, I'd wait for the DVDs to come out and watch at night when our girl was sleeping.

I'll admit that seeing our girl so out of sync sometimes made me sad. I wanted our girl to be in step with other kids, eager to see the films, read the books, and enjoy the fantasy adventure. With the arrival of each film, it was clear that we were not even normal Muggles.

But this year, everything is different. This year, as the final film of the series was released, our girl was ready to get started with it. We've been catching up, DVD by DVD. Last night we watched the Half-Blood Prince and our girl reminded me of her amazing memory, as well as her moral sensibility.

Why do you suppose he'd do that? she asked after Draco had knocked Harry unconscious.

I don't know, I said. What do you think?

Actually, she said, I blame his father.

Why do you blame his father?

Don't you remember?  His father worked for the darkkkk lorrrd, she said, modulating her voice to reflect the creepiness of Voldemort.

Actually I hadn't remembered.  I don't remember that much from movie to movie.  The details of the world of Hogwarts elude me as I focus on other things that require my finite neural networks. But I can relax, because our girl is keeping track with her rather magical memory.  I can carry on with my muggle mind because there's some kind of magic in hers.