It was a warm night. Mosquitoes buzzed around the partygoers and the candles dotting the pale-blue balcony railing. We were all drinking cheap red wine and scooping up cream cheese and habanero jelly with poppy-seed crackers. Old friends, new friends, and potential one-night stands stood all around me, blabbing on and on.

Mike announced he was going to Harvard Law. Everybody “oooohed” and “aaaahed.” Tomas was going to live in South America and build orphanages with solar paneling. Karen had recently decided to get her P.H.D. in comparative literature. They all received high-fives and toasts. Great for them. Then they all turned to me.

“What are you going to do, Ryan?”

What was I going to do? Incredibly good investigative reporting wasn’t enough for these people? Apparently it wasn’t, because when I gave that as an answer, everyone looked disappointed. They looked down on the ground and mumbled among themselves. I left the party feeling empty and unfulfilled. Not to insult you, my adoring readers, but maybe being the best reporter to ever live just isn’t enough.

I need more. I need to further myself. But you know what? I’m not going to be just like all my friends, getting meaningless degrees after years of being mired in the stink of academia. Screw grad school -- I’m going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy, baby!

Karen will be a doctor (of books, if that counts), Mike a lawyer, and Tomas a certified good citizen. But not one of them is going to be a wizard.

I’m going to get a customized wand, a set of cloaks, spell books, and the adventure of my life. Have you ever read about the stuff that goes on over there? Ogres smashing up the bathrooms and dragons needing to be eliminated and Dark Lords rising from the dead powered by the burning hatred that stews in his unholy veins? You call up Harvard and ask if they have had any of that. You ask them if anybody has ever won a Goblet of Fire at their little school.

I can’t wait to start. Ron Weasley (Ronnie the Bear I call him) and I are going to be good buds, I can already tell. I think I’ll get along with folks from both Slytherin and Gryffindor, but I’ll probably end up being a Hufflepuff. I’m determined to change things in that house. When’s the last time Hufflepuff won anything? It’s a damn shame.

I’ve sent in an application including a video featuring me with a spoon sticking to my nose (without adhesive!), the tearing your thumb off your hand trick, and me solemnly promising not to get romantically involved with Hermione, no matter how adorable and cute and sexy (in a teenage witch sort of way) she is. I’m ready. I don’t care how hard Snape’s classes are or how strict Mr. Filch is -- if I’m an eighth as good at magic as I am at hand-delivering the truth to “the people,” I’m going to be one hell of a wizard. So go ahead and draw up the Ryan Dilbert Famous Wizard Card and put it in a pack of chocolate frogs, name the Quidditch stadium after me, and tell J.K. Rowling to get set to start scribbling about me Levicorpusing and Dissendiuming all over the place.

I can’t wait till my friends have another party and someone tries to show off with their academic plans.

“I’m getting a nursing license and going to work for Doctors Without Borders,” they might say.

And I will swallow my cheese cube slowly, down my wine glass, and say, “Hmm, sounds great, but I’m going to kick Voldemort’s ass.”