A rousing game of quiddich was the only thing missing when hundreds of Harry Potter fans descended on Oak Harbor Cinemas late Tuesday evening to line up for the newest movie in the series.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” opened in Oak Harbor with a midnight showing Tuesday night. Or, to be specific, a 12:01 showing Wednesday morning.

Eager fans started lining up as early as 5 p.m. Tuesday. By the time employees opened the doors for the show, the line stretched almost to the rear of the building.

“I got here right after school,” said Sara Lawler, a Whatcom Community College student. While waiting in line, she was flipping through a copy of the Order of the Phoenix she brought to the show.

People bought their tickets in the days leading up to Harry Potter’s opening and it sold out quickly.

For Colton Baumgardner, the trip to the first showing was a birthday present. He turned 11 and he is a huge Harry Potter fan.

“I even have a wand to prove it,” Baumgardner said as he showed off the magical device while waiting to enter the theater.

Wands were common in the movie queue. Several movie-goers were dressed in cloaks and scarves. There wore handmade Potteresque T-shirts and other fans sported hand-painted replicas of Harry Potter’s famous scar on their foreheads.

One eager Potter reader was hopeful that the latest film in the series would more thoroughly follow the book than past versions.

“There’s a lot of stuff cut out of the movies that should have been there,” said David Brasket as he waited near the front of the line. However, that didn’t stop him from seeing each movie and reading each book three times a piece. Which helps explain why the magic of Harry Potter is still alive in Oak Harbor after all these years.