My friend will tell you, I have no The many deficiencies. Can I be impatient? Sure. Will I get hungry? Definitely.

But my biggest problem? I never finished reading the Harry Potter series.

I know, I know. Now comes the gasps. The outrage. The shame. If you’re a millennial reading this, you may have stopped reading. If you’re Gen Z reading this, you’re probably ready to cancel me for even remotely mentioning the Harry Potter author.

To satisfy my new friend—and admittedly, to cross an item off my bucket list, as I’ve been a loyal fan of the films for decades—I decided to actually read the original seven-book series. And that’s exactly what I did from January to March of this year.

What did I discover when I finished? There is power in reliving childhood stories and indulging in a little magic. Don’t let anyone – not even one of the films’ stars, Miriam Margolyes, who recently told adult Potter fans that they “should get over it by now” – tell you that the stories are just for children. Like everything else, the joy of the Harry Potter books is anything but black and white.

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Why did I stop reading Harry Potter anyway?

When I was younger, I devoured the first four books in the series, like spending Thanksgiving in my room with our whole family there. Then, somewhere during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I became so bored that no magic could cure it. The movies were enough to satisfy me, and I was OK with not knowing the intricacies of the books versus the movies.

And when critics started calling JK Rowling transphobic—and I understood what they meant—I thought it was best to leave the books on their metaphorical shelf.

But every time Harry Potter came into conversation, something was missing. Someone would casually mention a scene that wasn’t in the movie. Someone would talk about staying up all night to finish the last book. I felt left out and there was only one way to change that. I decided to listen to audiobooks instead and the reading (listening?) journey began.

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What Harry Potter means to me as an adult

Once I started listening to the books, I couldn’t stop. The characters accompanied me on jogs, train rides, and while I cleaned my apartment. It was all-consuming. Magic flowed through my ears and into every part of me. I felt for the woman who documented her experience of reading the books for the first time on TikTok and who regularly entertains her followers with dramatic, stunned reactions to various twists of the screw.

I grew up at hyperspeed with all the characters who go through Hogwarts, dealing with early issues like school pranks and Quidditch matches to coming to terms with life, death and the unknown. I plunged into the Whomping Willow with Harry and Ron, heard about the plight of the house elves, and accompanied Dumbledore and Harry in and out of the Pensieve.

This time, I paid even more attention to the nuances. I felt compassion for everyone, sometimes even for You-Know-Who. I realized that we are all a product of our upbringing, the friends (and enemies) that surround us, and our teachers. While our innate kindness, ambition, wit, and courage can shine through, these qualities must also be nurtured. When ambition takes hold of a person, it can turn into greed and terror (Voldemort). Kindness can lead to your downfall (Cedric Diggory).

It’s not enough to be placed in Gryffindor and show blind courage – our heroes often had to learn that the hard way. It means working with the people around you and standing up for what’s right, even when it scares you.

Look, I understand what Professor Sprout – er, Miriam Margolyes – is saying. I don’t want my future wedding to be Harry Potter-themed. But that doesn’t mean I can’t smile when I think of Harry, Ron, and Hermione running around the Hogwarts grounds. I still get teary-eyed when I think of the sacrifices Snape made to keep Harry safe. I wonder where I would have ended up at Hogwarts (probably in Hufflepuff).

While I don’t understand Rowling’s logic on, um, many things, I can separate the art and the artist enough here to know that reading and watching Harry Potter has changed my life time and time again.

If my boyfriend just finishes watching “Grey’s Anatomy” then we’ll be even.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: I read the Harry Potter series as an adult. It’s not just for kids.