I am reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m a fan. I’ve read the whole series and seen each of the movies and I’ve enjoyed the whole thing. That being said, I’d like to ask you to go back to whatever you were doing the moment before you saw me reading the book and decided it might be fun to strike up a conversation.

If it’s any comfort, I think I can safely assure you such a conversation would not have been fun at all, not for either of us, though you’d have gotten the shorter end of the stick. I’d have made damn sure of that.

I bet you think we have a common interest in ‘The Wizarding World’. What was your first clue? Could it be the ten-pound fucking hardcover book I’m lugging back and forth to work? Did you guess I might be disinclined to damage my spine over a book in which I was only mildly involved?

So what if I like it? Maybe I’m confused here, but I thought Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was a book, not a sandwich board reading ‘I’M SO LONELY I’LL TALK TO ANYBODY’. I’m reading, for Christ’s sake! Maybe to you reading isn’t an activity; maybe reading is a whole exciting new deal for you and you don’t know the rules.

Or maybe you just think I’m probably a kindred spirit, and the one thing I’d like better than reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince would be discussing it with a fellow enthusiast.

Let me let you in on something. I am not a kindred spirit. I’m not a hopeless mouth-breathing virgin betrayed by life’s harsher realities, or some morbidly obese closet femme who just never got comfortable in his Klingon club because they were all too butch. I’m not some aging Soccer Mom, desperate to feel something, anything my children feel as a shield against the growing, cancerous sensation in my heart that maybe, just maybe I hate my own offspring more each day. I'm not some dank-smelling, hemp-wearing college Sophomore who really gets Snape’s "whole deal."

I don’t know who dies yet. I'm reading it. If you’ve finished the book already, I don’t want you to smile slyly at me and tell me how you "literally cried." If you haven’t finished it I don’t want to speculate with you about who kicks off, because it’s fucking Dumbledore, all right? And I didn’t put a "Spoiler Warning" in this letter because I haven’t finished the fucking book yet, but it’s Dumbledore because he was OLD in the first book and he’s really OLD now. Here’s a life lesson for you. Old people die. Is that too harsh for you? Good! That’s a sign that just because someone happens to be reading the same book as you doesn’t mean they volunteered to be a member of your FUCKING BOOK CLUB!

Will Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup under Harry’s leadership? Will Percy side with the Dark Lord? Is Snape really working for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? WHO GIVES A CRAP? I mean, sure, okay, I do — why the hell else would I be reading this damn overblown anvil of a book? But let me be crystal clear about this: while it’s true I do give a crap, it’s just a medium-sized one, not the kind of humongous, intestine-ripping gold-plated opera-singing crap-on-wheels it would need to be to MAKE ME WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT.

I DO NOT KNOW YOU. More importantly, you do not know me. Think: Is this a risk worth taking? I might cut you — cut you with the homemade shiv I brought out of prison as a reminder that when the chips were really down, I never let anybody make me their bitch.

People like you make me deeply ashamed of the things I like, and if you think I don’t hate you enough to kill you for that, what’s it worth to you to find out? Wanna lose a finger? You should be so lucky!

No discussion about if Emma Watson is too pretty to play Hermione; no chat fest about which character we identify with most; no late night bull session over Fritos and Mike’s Hard Lemonade about whether or not Ms. Rowling gets the respect she deserves when compared to C.S. Lewis; or if Harry will eventually loose his cherry to Cho or Ginny or fucking Hagrid; no nothing for you and me!

We will not have a nice jaw, become lifelong chums, get matching tattoos or discover together that the real magic is love, because you and I ARE NOT GOING TO SPEAK AT ALL! I WOULDN’T LET YOU SUCK MY GOD DAMN MUGGLE-NUTS, AND I SURE AS HELL AM NOT GOING TO HAVE A STINKING FAN BOY VERBAL JERK SESSION WITH YOU!

LET ME ALONE TO READ MY FUCKING BOOK!

Sincerely,

Max Burbank