The Regal Cinema in Sterling was filled with teenage girls wearing chunky, plastic jewelry and long, black sweaters, twentysomethings in plaid skits and argyle socks and even a few moms and dads in red-and-yellow scarves with plastic wands, one hour before the midnight showing of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," Tuesday, July 10.
Fifteen-year-old Megan Warren anxiously awaited her first midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie.
"This is a first for me," she said. "I can’t wait!"
Warren first began reading about Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and Hermione when she was in the third grade.
"I first picked up the book because it was pretty looking," she said. "Now, I’m hooked the books and the movies."
Like Warren, 18-year-old Sabrina Ripperger began following Harry Potter at an early age.
"The coolest thing is we’ve grown up together," she said. "As he grows up, so do we. We go through the same things. Well, sort of."
While Warren and Ripperger, strangers before 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, talked about the movie and the upcoming release of the sixth Harry Potter book, another group of teenagers girls let out a shriek.
NINETEEN-YEAR-OLDS Kat Manion of Sterling and Caity Schmidt of Leesburg were counting down the minutes until midnight on their wristwatches.
"We have a countdown going," Manion said. "Thirty minutes until Harry Potter."
Schmidt, dressed in a long, black robe, silk gloves and knee socks, said she bought her tickets several days in advance.
"I didn’t want to risk it," she said.
Despite the fact that Manion and Schmidt already had tickets, and seats to the movie, they waited in a long line of Harry Potter look-a-likes and miniwitches, to buy tickets for a Monday matinee of the fifth Harry Potter movie.
"We have to buy some for our friends, Schmidt said. "I’m going with them!"
WHILE THE MAJORITY of fans at the midnight showing were in their late teens, several groups of adults blended into the crowd.
Jaclyn Azat, 22, and Tierney Kain, 20, bought their tickets to the premiere weeks in advance.
For Azat, Harry Potter movies and books are ways to de-stress after a long day’s work.
"It’s an escape," she said. "Now that I work, I use movies to get out of my world."
Kain, dressed in a white-collared shirt, pink tie, plaid skirt and stockings, agreed.
"And when else can you dress up like a school girl?" she said, with a wand in hand. "It just makes me happy."
"HARRY POTTER and the Order of the Phoenix" was so popular it sold at multiple screens for the midnight showing at Regal Cinema in Sterling.
"We’re full-grown adults and we’re thoroughly excited," Schmidt said.