For the past two days since leaving LeakyCon 2011, the Harry Potter conference in Orlando, FL, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about everything that happened. This was the kind of conference where every day was the best day of my life so far and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did. Every day miraculously topped the next and I have no idea how that was even possible.

We ended up deciding to try and make it to Orlando a day early and drove overnight after our show in Decatur, GA. As a result, I got to spend Tuesday in Universal Studios with my dad, stepmom, little sister Alyssa, and her friend Bryanna! We went on the Simpsons ride and the big red coaster that lets you choose your own background music, then met up with Justin and Matt at the Hard Rock Cafe where we found them happily drinking in the bar. Unfortunately, we had to drive back to Tavares where we were staying at Justin’s parents’ house, so we headed back to our car in the Royal Pacific parking lot. Of course, this turned into a lap around the hotel to see if any of our friends were there yet and we collected our first round of HP fandom hugs before leaving.

The conference actually started on Wednesday and we checked into our room and waited in line for our registrations. I got my tickets to Open at the Close, LeakyCon’s exclusive HP park after hours event. The ticket included admission to the park at 2pm so I sent out a quick text to my friends asking if anyone would want to go with me. Last year at Infinitus, I spent the whole day in Final Battle rehearsals so I still hadn’t seen the park in the daytime. I set off for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter with Kristina and Eia; our only goal to take as many pictures as possible. We had an absolute blast, bought pygmy puffs, posed with everything we could find, had some delicious frozen butterbeer, and even ended up skipping the line for Forbidden Journey because a fan who worked there, Kaleb, spotted us and brought us up to the front!

We got back in time for the opening ceremony, which was presented as our video yearbook at graduation. It featured a combination of videos about the fandom and live performances from Hank Green, Harry and the Potters, and A Very Potter Musical. After that, we all ran back to the park for Open at the Close; starving but so excited to have free reign of the park as it was closed to muggles and open only to all of us.

My favorite part of the night was when Hank Green, Kayley, Rosi, The Katherine, and a bunch more of us ended up in Ollivander’s together for the wand experience. I’d seen it a year earlier, but wished that someone I knew had been chosen for the interactive show. We went in there determined to look so excited and happy that Ollivander would JUST HAVE TO pick one of us. Right away, he walked straight over to me and asked me for my name. HE PICKED ME!! I was shaking, I was so excited. I went over to the desk with him and he walked me through the process of having a wand choose you. I turned around to face my friends while I waited for him to choose the first wand with the biggest freaking smile on my face. I attempted to Wingardium Leviosa a wand from the very top of the room and several shelves fell down. “Not the wand for you,” he said. I attempted to ring a bell above my head and like a million of them started ringing. Whoops. “You’re doing a wonderful job,” he told me. “Oh, thank you!” I exclaimed.

Then it happened. A dusty red box caught his eye. He paused for a moment, not sure why this little wand called to him as it did. Hedwig’s theme began to play. “The music knows too!” I whispered. Everyone laughed. When he handed me this wand, a whoosh of air blew my hair back and a light came down from the ceiling. Finally, a wand that did not bring destruction or loud noises at my hand! It had chosen me. And it was awesome.

I decided not to buy that wand as I liked Ginny’s better. For the rest of the night, I was so freaking happy. When a security guard asked us what our favorite part of the night was on our way out of the park, Hank jumped like a foot in the air and yelled “WHEN SHE GOT PICKED FOR THE THING!!” which I’m sure nobody else but us could understand but it was so awesome.

Thursday was the day I was most nervous for because I was playing the wizard rock show that night. I usually don’t get nervous before shows but this would be the most people I’ve ever played live in front of before (between 2000 and 2500 people). I was also the only band to not have either electronic backing tracks or a full band with a drumset behind me. I had planned, with the encouragement of my tourmates, to just sing sad Lily and Snape songs by myself with my acoustic guitar. The other thing that made me nervous was that LeakyCon chose to bill me as The Moaning Myrtles even though Nina couldn’t make it and I would maybe only be playing one Myrtles song. I didn’t want people to be disappointed that they wouldn’t be hearing the band they were expecting.

And then I remembered that we would be seeing Deathly Hallows Part 2 that day and I kind of forgot about all of that stuff. We had advance screening tickets for 6pm and I couldn’t wait to see the final film. I really had no worries about this except that I hoped they wouldn’t screw up The Prince’s Tale, and went into it knowing it didn’t mean the end of the Harry Potter fandom because come on, guys. Since when did the movies dictate anything?

I ended up loving it. I started sobbing when McGonagall started the battle off with the Piertotum Locomotor spell and didn’t really stop until The Prince’s Tale when I became a little bummed out that they cut out so much of their young storyline. Benedict and Ellie (who were also at LeakyCon) did such a wonderful job as young Snape and Lily and I wanted to see them actually play out the whole thing. Neville was such a freaking badass and I was so excited that they put in a few moments hinting at a fling between him and Luna. Evanna Lynch was marvelous as Luna (as always). I was also pretty sad to miss Fred’s death scene but it wouldn’t have made as much sense without Percy’s storyline, which they’ve been cutting out all along.

When the movie finished, Matt and I bolted out of there so we could get back to setting up for the wizard rock show. We left the theater just in time to see Darren Criss tackle hugging Evanna Lynch, which was adorable and I was so happy to witness that. We ran back with our friends Monica and Steph, trying to remember all of the little bits and pieces that we had something to say about.

The show was incredible. I got to sing with House of Black, then immediately after jumping and dancing, it was my turn to play. My plan was to perform as many songs as I could from The Prince’s Tale without going over my 25 minute time limit. I introduced myself as Lauren Fairweather, said that I’ll be performing songs about the chapter the way I read it, and jumped right in with “Maybe”. All of the worries I had about the set immediately went away when I finished that first song because the room just kind of exploded and I knew that I was going to be okay. The amount of love in that room was insane and I had such an incredible time up there playing and singing my heart out. Right after, I got to sing backup for Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, which was a total blast as well!

Most of Friday was spent in the pool with my friends, which was another thing I missed out on at Infinitus because I stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel instead of the Royal Pacific last time. I was excited to enjoy the wizard rock concert without worrying about my performance since I had already played my set, and it ended up being so much more fun than I could’ve imagined.

Earlier in the night, while I was working at my merch table, Melissa brought Evanna Lynch and Scarlet Byrne (who plays Pansy Parkinson) over to us. I was not expecting to be able to meet and talk to them because so many people were around the whole time, so I was just so excited to actually be able to. I gave Evanna a copy of The Prince’s Tale and chatted with her for a little while about how talented this community is. It’s just so cool to see how many people were inspired to create art about these books. She also invited me to come back to the VIP section to dance with her during Matt’s set.

I hadn’t left my merch table except to perform until that point, so I was very excited to get to go dance at all… the fact that it was Evanna Lynch inviting me was just so freaking awesome. After making sure that our friends Emily and John were okay covering the table, I ran across the room to the little roped-off area where Evanna was. I easn’t confident in my ability to convince security to let me in, so I stood outside until I caught Evanna’s eye. She then waved, ran over, and pulled me past security. I couldn’t help thinking about all of the people who made fun of me when I was younger, and how badly they would wish this could happen to them. I felt so lucky to be able to experience all of this; dancing with Evanna and Scarlet, playing for 2000+ people, the whole conference, the advance screening, the after-hours park event where I got to do magic with Ollivander, the tour around it… none of this could’ve happened without all of you.

That night, some of the actors got pretty involved with the show which was awesome to watch. Draco and the Malfoys serenaded Scarlet during “Pansy”. Evanna danced on stage with The Whomping Willows as they played “I Believe in Nargles”, which was freaking awesome. Just when we thought the night couldn’t get any more incredible, Evanna got up and played bass for Harry and the Potters during “Smells Like Harry Potter”. I still don’t think I’ve recovered from all of the awesome.

Saturday was mostly spent at panels and meetups for This Star Won’t Go Out. I cried a lot and got a lot of hugs. Later that night, we got all dressed up and went to the ball. I got to dance in a big circle with some of the child actors from the new movie. At some point, Melissa pulled Matt and I up on stage with her and before I knew it, I was singing Bohemian Rhapsody with a bunch of my friends and some Starkids (including Lauren Lopez who I’d never seen out of her Draco costume before and she is so beautiful). Eventually, Evanna and Scarlet got up there and danced with us too. Hank tried to dance with me and I am really awkward so that was pretty hilarious. He did not drop me on the floor though, which I very much appreciated. I hope someone got video because it was so much fun!

That’s all I remember at the moment. It was amazing, guys.