The Witching Hour ϟ wizard rock radio

Mehera
“It’s a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.”

Sara
This statement rings incredibly true for us as Mehera and I sit in the studio for the last time. It also rang pretty true for Harry Potter, when he was facing an imminent battle with a dragon in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

M
Believe it or not… we have always loved the Harry Potter series. As a kid I would wait eagerly for the hefty, hard-cover books, excited to tear through the story in one six-hour sitting, and read nothing else for the few days afterwards. I felt a sense of belonging when I read them, and in the books I felt I had a community with which I could identify.

S
For the uninitiated, J.K. Rowling’s seven-part story follows the coming of age of boy wizard Harry Potter as he navigates classes, friendships, awkward dates, and evil wizards at his school, Hogwarts. It was, without a doubt, a literary and cultural phenomenon. It sold almost 500 million copies, won numerous awards and inspired children and adults around the world to pick up a book and read.

M
We felt the sensation of time speeding up to a dreaded moment when the final Harry Potter book released in 2007. We felt it again last summer with the eighth film. And we’ve been feeling it for the last few months when thinking about the end of our time here at KWCW.

S
As some of you know, Mehera and I have had the pleasure of hosting a weekly radio show on K-Dub about Harry Potter for the past two and a half years. Over five seasons with The Witching Hour, we’ve come to realize that for us, Whitman has become a sort of Hogwarts. Whitman is a community that helped us pursue whatever dream we wanted, be it in politics, BBMB, visual arts or wizard studies.

M
(We’re kidding about the last one.) But really, Whitman has been about so much more than academics. Through our friendships, through experiential and social learning and the other ten million activities we juggle, we learned to make choices. We learned to challenge our mentors, peers, and ourselves. We learned to question ideas presented to us, and to trust in our own skills, capabilities and convictions. We learned that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. Whitman has taught us that a strong community, like Harry’s, can be a force for positive change in the world.

S
When we were young, we looked up to characters like Harry, Hermione and Ron. They were our role models for standing up to inequality, even when it wasn’t popular or easy. They taught us the power of choice, and that we are defined not by our abilities, but our actions. And now Whitman has given us the opportunities to become those people ourselves, both on campus and in the future. Because, in your first year, the possibilities seemed endless. You think, man, four years is FOREVER—

M
(It seems like so recently we were being dragged all over campus for Pinging.)

S
—but time passes quickly. Suddenly you’ve reached the end, and you don’t always know what’s coming next.

M
As we also learned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, “[There’s] no point worrying yet, [Harry] told himself … what would come, would come… and he would have to meet it when it did.”

S
We might stress and worry about leaving the comfort of Whitman and confronting new challenges—

M
Like dragons.

S
But now that our experiences here have shaped us into capable and thoughtful people,  we firmly trust that if we live in the present, and enjoy every day fully, the dragons won’t seem so dragon-ish and, well, we’ll face them when they come.

M
We have faith that each and every one of you will meet whatever is to come with knowledge, respect, and courage. We know all of us will continue to support each other in the years to come just as we have in the past four. And we really look forward to hearing about what the future has in store for each of you.

S
At the end of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, we felt a sense of closure with the epilogue, in which we learned everyone is more or less living happily ever after. Even though the series has ended, we can always return to the books and find comfort in them.    

M
We are years away from our own epilogues. We teeter on the edge of the chapter, both excited and nervous to turn the page and continue our own stories. We’re unsure of what future battles we will face, whether they be dragons or debt.

S
Although in all fairness, the two are pretty similar.

M
Truth. But we worry about where we’ll be in the next five, ten, or fifteen years. From this point, the next chapter seems too great an unknown.

S
Fortunately, like Hogwarts was for Harry, Whitman will always be here as our home. We can always look back on our years here, and remember the immense strength and support of this community. We can always look back fondly on fantastic student performances at Coffeehouse—

M
—on warm days spent sitting in the birdbath near Hunter— 

S
—cheering our friends on in IM Flag Football games—

M
—and attending what, to us, will always be known as  “Core” class.

S
We can go into the future knowing we can always come back to this place.

M
When we were young, we thought we needed some of Harry’s magic to overcome our own evil wizards. But as it turns out, magic isn’t real.

S
That was a tough one for us to learn!

M
But really, in the wise words of JK Rowling: “We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.”