Voldemort

This shirt was seemingly bought on a whim.
It comes from the Warner Brothers shop. They are similar to Disney stores but are much less plentiful -and are typically smaller-. My mom bought it because it was before the movies were made and Warner Brothers had just started making merchandise for it. So really this isn't from the movies, it's from the books. And finding book related merchandise is pretty rare. I did a quick Google search and couldn't find this for sale anywhere online so I assume it has been discontinued.
Since it doesn't have the Harry Potter movie logo or any of the actors on it I am going to consider this a book related shirt. I have very few novel-based shirts and am happy to have this in my collection. Literary apparel makes you look smarter, or at least raises your perceived IQ. The ink and size and fabric are all fine, since the shirt is professionally made for retail.
Across the chest it says "Voldemort". This is the main antagonist from the book series "Harry Potter" -in case you somehow didn't know-. Because this came out before the movies, there was not yet a visual representation of this character. He is a mysterious villain who can turn himself into smoke and has all kinds of powerful magics. The smoke puffs and creepy eyes work for him because it exemplifies him well but doesn't necessarily mess with the mental image that you may have created when you read the books. Amidst the smoke it says "He who must not be named!" a chilling quote from the books about not saying his name aloud. On the back it has a Harry Potter logo consisting of the letters "HP" with a wizard on a broomstick between them; a simple but effective mark.
Originally my mom got this for me because it was such a great representation of the books. I liked it because it was ominous and scary. I hadn't read the books -and still haven't- so as the movies came out and got popular I didn't want to go around with a big hype shirt. When I was cleaning out -weeding- my shirt collection many years ago I almost chucked it. My mom took it back and put it in her closet in case she wanted to use it sometime -it was still a good book reference- and who knows, it might be worth something some day. Well, she never ended up using it more than a few times so it went into storage with some of my other shirts. When I got another dresser I pulled out all my old shirts and this came with it. I like to wear it now it because of its age and this particular design predates the movies and all the new fans. I haven't yet, but if I were to ever go to a Harry Potter release -movie or book- I would wear this shirt, it is the only Harry Potter one I own.

Whenever I wear this out -like all my other shirts with blatant text on them- people feel the need to read it aloud when they see it. You would think that this would spark up a whole bunch of Harry Potter related conversations but it doesn't seem to. It could be because I just don't hang out with people that read the books or that my close friends know that I haven't read them. If someone were to start a dialog with me about Harry Potter -and had read the books- I would really try to go along with it: agreeing with their opinions, recognizing their references, probably even saying how the movies don't do the books justice. And it would work too if I was able to dodge the, "Have you read them all?" question that eventually comes around -I have yet to successfully pull off that stunt-.