Four weeks ago, I was at the first Wrock concert during LeakyCon.  I only knew my family and one girl I had talked to online for a year and a half prior to the Con.  It is hard to believe that it has been four weeks since LeakyCon started.

Now, four weeks later, I am making my last LeakyCon 2009 post.  The last day of LeakyCon involved breakfast and then check-out from the hotel.  We met our friends for breakfast and exchanged addresses.  We promised to keep in touch through all ways of communication and four weeks later, we have.  We talk on our webcams, keep each other updated about our lives on Facebook, and email each other.

It was sad to leave, but the breakfast was upbeat and chaotic like everything else about LeakyCon.  Melissa raffled off a container of bacon grease from the bacon Paul DeGeorge had cooked.  I have no idea what the girl who won it did with it. My dad said if one of us won it, he would’ve made us get rid of it.

There were multiple duels during breakfast, some of which may be on Youtube.  My sister started a huge hug that surrounded Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers, which was quite awesome to participate in.  I wish that I had gotten to meet Hank’s brother, John, who has written three awesome books.  But, he had to leave partway through the Con and I never met him.

We collected all of our Harry Potter stuff, loaded up the van, and checked out of the hotel shortly after check-out time was.  A few more goodbyes and we were on the road, back to Muggle life.  I was very sad for LeakyCon to end, but I’m sure the hotel people were happy when all the wizards checked out.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  LeakyCon was one of the best weekends of my life.  I met people there who actually understand my Harry Potter obsession and even though I only spent a few days with them, they are some of my best friends.  There really isn’t anything I can compare LeakyCon to.  One last thanks to the wonderful people who organized it- Melissa Anelli, MJ Harper, the wizard rockers, and the rest of the Leaky Staff.  You truly made it an unforgetable weekend.  I can’t wait utnil LeakyCon 2011, in Orlando, Florida.

How many Harry Potter fans can you fit in an elevator?  A lot.  We discovered that at LeakyCon.  At least once a day I found myself crammed into an elevator with at least ten other people.

One of the times that we did this, the elevator made a very strange noise and lurched.  Everyone ran off of it when the doors opened and used the stairs.  That elevator was avoided the rest of the weekend.

You never knew who you were going to wind up with on the elevator either.  I rode with a few members of the Ministry of Magic, John Noe (but he was on his phone), and a few others.  My brother rode with Alex Carpenter at one point.  My dad rode with the girl who won the Harry Potter books, while she was taking them back to her room.  That was pretty cool.

The best elevator trips were the ones where there were some LeakyCon people and some other people.  You see, the norms of facing forward and not talking in an elevator did not apply at LeakyCon.  We talked, squeed, and met people in the elevators.

On one particular trip I was with my brother, my sister,  and a few other fans.  There was also a lady who clearly was not part of the Con.  The elevator lurched (most likely because it was close to the weight limit) and my brother says, “It must be all the magic in the air.”  We all started laughing hysterically while the lady was looking around confusedly.  Right before the elevator stopped on our floor she said, “What magic?”

My brother and sister and I ran out of the elevator while stifling our laughter.  We burst out laughing as soon as the doors closed and laughed all the way back to our room.

On the last night of LeakyCon, there was a ball.  People wore a variety of clothing, from Prom dresses to Harry Potter costumes to Muggle wear.  My family was a good representation of the whole spectrum.  I wore my Professor Trelawney costume but didn’t frizz my hair out, so I was just a random witch and not Professor Trelawney.  My sister wore the dress she wore to my cousin’s wedding.  My brother wore a dress shirt, not tucked into his pants, and a too small tie tied losely around his neck.  The light saber just completed the outfit.  He then told my dad that that was what he wanted to wear to his graduation party.  That idea was shot down.  My dad wore what he had worn that day, regular Muggle clothes.

The Ball was DJ’d by a few of the Wizard Rockers including the DeGeorge brothers, Matt Maggiacomo (of the Whomping Willows), and Alex Carpenter.  I had only heard of a few of the songs due to the fact that I mostly listen to country music.  There was also a distinct lack of Wizard Rock, which I thought was odd.

My friends and I were the first on the dance floor.  We formed a huge circle and just started randomly dancing.  Soon others joined us, but we had started it.  One of my friends then dubbed us the Circle of Win, which was shortened to CoW and now we are the CoW.

The biggest excitement of the evening was when Melissa Anelli picked the winner of the complete set of autographed Harry Potter books.  A girl named Annette, who was dressed up as Bellatrix Lestrange, won.  Everyone started screaming and congratulating her, which really showed how awesome the Harry Potter fandom really is.  Instead of grumbling about how jealous we were (which we were), we were excited for her.  Melissa jokingly said she was a bit reluctant to hand the books over to Bellatrix, which was funny.

Throughout the evening, a good portion of the Wizard Rockers got drunk and started partying even harder.  Although I am happy to report that my friends and I partied just as hard without getting drunk.  I was able to dance with a lot of people including Paul DeGeorge, Alex Carpenter, Melissa Anelli, and Sue Upton.

While I was dancing with Melissa and Sue, my sister fulfilled a dare that one of her friends had given her before she left for LeakyCon.  This girl unfortunately could not come, but she dared my sister that she would not be able to steal Alex Carpenter’s hat.  Alex was wearing a white tux complete with top hat at the ball.  My sister told him about the dare and then she chased him around the room.  He took my brother’s lightsaber to defend himself, but it didn’t work.  When I went over to find them, my sister was wearing the hat and Alex was flipping her off.  It was epic.

We also got a picture of all three of us with the PotterCast quartet, along with two of our friends, which was really nice.

Other highlights of the evening included when Paul DeGeorge danced to the Combination Pizza Hut Taco Bell song in the middle of the CoW and I got the entire thing on video.

Then Melissa and Alex danced to Total Eclipse of the Heart, which I believe I got on video, but haven’t uploaded it to Youtube yet.  I’ll do that soon.

After that, Paul DeGeorge and Hank Green (brother of author John Green, vlogbrothers, and Nerdfighters) started wrestling and my sister got some pictures of them and it looked quite wrong.  Hank asked us the next day not to post them online.

This was also the evening when I dropped my camera and lost one of the rechargeable batteries.  I have not acquired any batteries since.  Rechargeables are expensive and there aren’t any AAs in my house.

The last Wizard Rock concert was held in the afternoon on the third day, in one of the ball rooms in the hotel.  It featured Riddle TM, the Mudbloods, the Moaning Myrtles, and my favorite band, the Remus Lupins.  I only saw the Moaning Myrtles and the Remus Lupins since I was at one of Andrew Slack’s Harry Potter Alliance events.

The Remus Lupins have always been my favorite Wizard Rock band, so I was most looking forward to their performance.  As much as I love their CDs, they are even better in concert.  I heard all my favorite songs (which I have videos of that aren’t on Youtube yet, I know it’s taking me a while) and some ones that I hadn’t heard before.

Alex Carpenter ended the concert with a most epic event.  He took his awesome guitar and poured lighter fluid on it.  Then he tried to light it on fire.  I thought this was rather ironic given the fire drill we just had that morning.  It wouldn’t ignite.  He then proceeded to smash it on the stage and then throw the pieces into the audience.  My sister got one.  I was jealous.  One of my friends got one of Toby (the drummer)’s drum sticks, which was also awesome.

I can’t even do it justice in describing it.  Here’s a link to it on Youtube.  Epic Guitar Smash.  Even if you’re not into Harry Potter or Wizard Rock, watch it.  It was such an epic ending to the three days of Wizard Rock.

Melissa Anelli said it was the ultimate example of organized chaos.

We ate lunch in the Boston Commons again after the Live PotterCast.  The event after lunch was another that I was really looking forward to.  It was a Model UN, in which we had to decide what to do with the Death Eaters after the war.  Everyone got to choose a character, and we were allowed to be characters that had died.  Therefore, I was Remus Lupin.  One of my friends was Sirius Black and my brother was Severus Snape.

It was really funny because my friend was sitting in between my brother and I and she and him kept giving these subtle digs to each other that were so in character.  The two of them were so good at it.  My friend has done Model UNs before, but neither my brother or I have.

In every argument my brother made, he was trying to convince everyone he was only a Death Eater to be a spy for the good side and how he didn’t want the criteria for Death Eater accusations to be whether a person had a Dark Mark or not.  He kept pushing for Veritaserum (truth potion) to be used to figure out who was really a Death Eater and who wasn’t.

In the end, that passed.  We agreed that the Death Eater should be given prison sentences and then slowly reintegrated into society.  I believe we also agreed that some Death Eaters should receive life sentences or death sentences.

The girl who played Cornelius Fudge was also really good.  She kept talking about Fudge’s future campaigns for Minister and how there hadn’t even been a war in the first place, that Harry Potter just made the whole thing up.  The whole thing was just hysterical.  I’d love to do it again and I hope they have it at the next LeakyCon.

After breakfast and Wrock discussion, we went to a Wizard Rock Opera written by Lena Gabrielle of the Butterbeer Experience.  She wrote a musical of the story, Fair Fortune, in the Tales of Beedle the Bard.  It was wonderful.  The entire production was beautiful and although I was far away from the stage, I loved every minute of it.

Immediately following the musical was a live PotterCast.  I was really excited about this because I have been listening to PotterCast for over a year and have participated in live ones on uStream, but never in real life.  This one was particularly good because the Wrock band, The Ministry of Magic, performed songs every ten minutes.

For a very long time, two of the people on PotterCast have had this argument about house elves.  John Noe, who is a Slytherin, claims that Helga Hufflepuff, founder of Hufflepuff House, enslaved the house elves that work at Hogwarts.  Sue Upton, the most spirited Hufflepuff I have ever met, insists she did not.  This argument is still going on, over a year after J.K. Rowling herself was interviewed on PotterCast and informed everyone that Helga Hufflepuff merely gave the house elves a safe place to work.

Five people were picked to ask questions on the segment, ‘Canon Connundrums’.  One person asked a question about house elves.  I cannot remember the exact question, but as soon as it was asked, Melissa got up and left.  The entire audience burst out laughing.  Frak soon joined her and the two of them left the room while John and Sue had their house elf argument.  I must say that it was priceless to be able to witness one of these arguments.

Then a girl in a yellow shirt stands up and points to her shirt.  She went up on stage and I was able to see that it said ‘Helga Hufflepuff Did Not Enslave the House Elves’.  It was brilliant.  Then John, who was wearing a green shirt that said ‘Yes, She Did’ stood next to her.  Unfortunately, I did not get a good picture of this.

And for the record, Helga Hufflepuff did not enslave the house elves!

My sister and I planned on going to a presentation by a few of the Wizard Rock bands on Saturday morning.  We got up shortly before it and were getting ready to go.  Then we heard an announcement on the PA system.  It was really quiet and hard to hear in the room, but then a fire alarm started going off.  My dad and brother were still asleep.  I peeked my head out the door and didn’t see anyone leaving.  The maid said it was a test.  My dad woke up and asked what was going on and we told him the alarm was going off but the maid said it was a test.  My dad said we were evacuating.  My sister woke my brother up, told him we had to evacuate, and his response was “I’ll do it later.”

We ran down a maze of stairs amongst other very confused Harry Potter fans dressed in various states of pajamas, costumes, Harry Potter t-shirts, and Muggle wear.  Eventually we found ourselves on the sidewalk and there was a firetruck raising its ladder.  The firemen weren’t dressed in their suits, though.  They were wearing t-shirts and jeans.

Shortly after we got onto the sidewalk, John Noe of PotterCast came out the door.  He was the only PotterCaster we hadn’t gotten the autograph of, so my sister and I asked him to sign our programs.  He did, but without much conversation because he looked half asleep.  He was also carrying his shoes instead of wearing them.

Melissa Anelli came out the door a little while after John did, carrying her MacBook.  I then realized that I left my iBook in the room and told Melissa that she was smart to bring hers with her.  At this point, we still didn’t know if it was a drill or not.

Then the truck lowered its ladder and they announced that it was safe to return to the hotel.  To this day I am not sure if someone pulled the alarm or if it was a fire drill.

We went back up to the room after that to grab Pop-Tarts and Mountain Dew before the Wizard Rock presentation.  When we got there, only Swish from Swish and Flick and Paul DeGeorge were there.  We spent half the time talking about various fire drills in college and eating breakfast.  Then Steph from Tonks and the Aurors showed up and although they were only half of the people who were supposed to present, they talked about Wizard Rock and it was fun and interesting.  Definitely a unique way to start the day.  An evacuation and breakfast with Wizard Rock bands.

Alex Carpenter is the lead singer and founder of the band, The Remus Lupins, which is my favorite Wizard Rock band.   You have to know that in order for this post to make much sense.

Friday night was the second Wizard Rock concert.  Tonks and the Aurors opened, followed by Gred and Forge, the Whomping Willows, and then Harry and the Potters.

The concert was brilliant.  My favorite band was Tonks and the Aurors and I bought one of their t-shirts and CDs.  However, the best part of the night was when Alex Carpenter got ahold of my brother’s light saber and started dueling with a guy dressed as Hagrid.

Hagrid’s costume was complete with a pink umbrella and he and Alex were really going at it.  Hitting each other with the umbrella and light saber, running around the room.  It was hilarious.  I got a few pics, thinking someone would capture it on video and put it on Youtube.  A lot of people had cameras out, but so far nothing has appeared on Youtube.  I’ll post if it’s ever there.  Here are some pics I got.

Hagrid won, which just proves that even a broken wand concealed in a pink umbrella would beat a light saber in a duel.

The night only got better when Harry and the Potters, the first ever Wizard Rock band, took the stage.  Their songs were amazing and they really energized the audience.  The band, brothers Paul and Joe DeGeorge, really like bacon.  During one of their later songs they passed around platters of bacon while changing ‘Bacon, bacon, bacon, etc.’  My sister wound up with a platter and no one wanted to take it from her, so she just set it down on a table.  It was pretty funny.  Here’s the platter she had.

At this point, LeakyCon was only half over and only getting better by the minute.  I must say that I had a hard time getting to sleep while I was there because I was so excited.

After our GIT programming, we went to the Boston Commons to eat lunch.  My sister made us sandwiches because everyone knows Hufflepuffs make good sandwiches.  We actually met the guy who started the Hufflepuffs make good sandwiches thing, Scott from the Blibbering Humdingers, and my sister made him a sandwich, too.

Lunch was fun because after we finished eating we had a duel in the park.  I used my Elder Wand and everyone else used sticks they found on the ground.  Someone got it on video, but I’m not sure who.  People stared and it was epic.

Shortly before the duel we went back to the vendor room to give Scott his sandwich.  I was looking at some stuff he was selling and I overheard someone complimenting my sister on our GIT t-shirts (picture coming soon).  I turned around because I was wearing the same t-shirt and saw that it was Sue Upton!!!  SQUEE!  She’s from PotterCast, in case you didn’t know.  I hadn’t recognized her voice because she sadly lost it before the con.  We talked with her for a little while and then got a picture.

After lunch and the duel I went to an Author Panel where I got to meet some awesome authors.  The first being Lisa Wright DeGroodt, who wrote the Quest Series.  She had actually been the one to answer most of my LeakyCon related questions on the LeakyCon message board. So it was cool to meet her in real life.  I bought the first book in her series and she signed it.

Then I got to meet Melissa Anelli, webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron, and writer of Harry, A History, which is an awesome book.  She signed it for me, I got a picture with her, and she gave me an autograph for my youngest sister who was too young to go to the convention!  It says ‘See you next time.  Grow up already!’  She was thrilled.

We also met Frak, another PotterCast member, who is an amazing artist and has an obsession with Pellegrino.  He actually talked on the phone to my sister when I asked him to, which I thought was awesome.

It was just amazing to get to meet all these people who I’ve listened to their PodCast and talked to online and have written amazing books.  It makes the whole fandom seem even more close and real.  I can’t say thank you enough to them for organizing this whole thing and making it so great.

The second day of LeakyCon began with my sister and I getting together with two other girls to work on the programming we signed up to do.  It was an Improv workshop centered around Harry Potter.

We named ourselves the GITs, which stands for Gryffinpuff Improv Troupe.  Gryffinpuff because two of us are Gryffindors and two are Hufflepuffs.

The programming itself went amazingly.  The first skit we did was ‘Park Bench’ which I ran.  One person was a Muggle and they sat on a bench.  Another person, who was a Harry Potter character, sat down on the bench and tried to get the Muggle to leave while staying in character.  Once the Muggle left, the character oved over and became the next Muggle.  It was hilarious.

The Knight Bus was next.  My sister pretended to be Ern, the guy who drives the Knight Bus and people came aboard the bus.  She told them which character to be.  My dad had to be Luna, which was really hysterical.

The highlight was probably when someone had to be Hagrid and was asked what creatures he was raising.  Hagrid’s reply?  Snapes!  He then went on to explain how hard it was to find something they would  eat.

Snape entered the bus after that and Hagrid asked,  ‘Why won’t you eat the carrots?’

Then we split everyone up into groups to work on small skits.  They had to either begin their scene with either the line ‘I’m not paying seven sickles for that’ or ‘Can I see the Prophet?’  The other line would be used at the end.  The groups came up with stuff from Azkaban offering tours in order to fund Fudge’s anniversary present to Cedric Diggory dying and Moaning Myrtle fawning over him.

We had people of all ages participate and it was really awesome.  We’re going to try to do it again at LeakyCon 2011.