Fall is Obviously the Best Time to Reread Harry Potter, and Here are 6 Reasons Why

It’s the season Harry’s gotta get back to Hogwarts. We associate autumn with the Harry Potter books because it’s that magical time of year when budding witches and wizards barrel through a solid brick wall and hop aboard the Hogwarts Express to go get their magic learning on. Let’s face it: when Harry and Ron felt really weird about not being on the train when September 1 rolled around in Deathly Hallows, we all knew exactly what they were talking about. We felt weird about it, too.
It’s getting colder. Fall is a time for raking leaves, for having opinions about weirdly flavored lattés, and for cozying up with a good book. And what better book to cozy up with than Harry Potter—any one of them? There’s just something about wearing a giant sweater and reading your Potter by the fireside that makes life feel worth it.

The arrival of autumn kicks off nostalgia season. We remember childhood Halloween costumes and trick-or-treating, but we also remember the troll in the dungeon, Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party, and the resident Hogwarts drama queen Sirius Black bursting into the castle with a knife and a score to settle. We remember the gifts of Christmas mornings past, but we also remember the Yuletide Ball, Hagrid’s twelve Christmas trees, and that year Harry got a Firebolt-shaped package and had no clue what it could be. Fact: the best holidays take place in fall and winter, and Harry Potter celebrations are just as much a part of our past and present as real-life ones.
The movies are pretty much playing on a loop. ABC Family likes to throw in a Harry Potter Weekend approximately all the time, but fall is when they start getting serious about it. And whether you park yourself in front of the TV and cry for three days straight or not, the association in your brain is still being forged. Nothing says autumn quite like Harry Potter, and nothing says Harry Potter quite like crying yourself to sleep because Fred Weasley died laughing. (WHY, J.K. ROWLING? WHY?)

She may be a demon who wants us to suffer (see above), but J.K. Rowling has a way with words. The Hogwarts experience is immersive enough in January or June, but it’s even better when you’re reading about September being “crisp and golden as an apple,” or “October [extinguishing] itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain” when you’re really living it. This is the closest we’ll ever get to going to the wizarding world, probably. (Our Hogwarts letters could be stuck in post office hell, though. Let’s not rule it out.)
Autumn brings us full circle. It bookends the Harry Potter experience, if you will. Harry’s magical journey always began with fall—and in the epilogue, that’s also where it ended. So if you haven’t already cracked open the first book (possibly literally while reading this article), then don your homemade Weasley jumpers and get to it! Hogwarts is waiting to welcome you home.