Katie, 24 Medway, Kent

The series is Katie Spender’s comfort blanket. Whenever she opens one of the books, her worries melt away.

She still remembers her “best present ever”. Over a decade ago, on Christmas Day, she tore off the paper, and gasped. It was the entire box set.

That winter she read all 3,407 pages in two weeks. The experience shaped her life. Katie, now 24, works as an editor, with dreams of stumbling across the next defining series.

Her first editing feat was trying to rewrite the book with a pal, aged 12, from the perspective of bumbling Neville Longbottom. “We got through two chapters. We were like, ‘This is going to be great.’ I found it when I moved, it wasn’t that good.” Some people, she admits, don’t really understand her love for the series. “Probably the most frustrating thing is when you get judged for liking something so much,” she says. “Everyone can have a passion.”

She loves the books because, “Take away the magical bit, they are just trying to fit in. That’s lovely.”

Take away the magic, they are just trying to fit in, it’s lovely