Ammon News - It was a couple of hours before midnight Thursday, and in the Carl's Jr. parking lot below Universal City, Deeanne Ferraro and three girlfriends were suiting up in their black Death Eaters costumes.

"I'm Bellatrix, this is Lucius Malfoy, Snape and she's a Dementor," the 19-year-old Santa Clarita resident explained. "We've seen all the movies, and have read the books since childhood."

The occasion was the first midnight showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1," the seventh and penultimate film in the franchise based on J.K. Rowling's best-selling boy wizard novels.

Ferraro and friends would soon be joining many other character-clad fans at AMC's CityWalk Stadium 19, where six auditoriums and the IMAX theater were sold out to eager Muggles.

Nationwide, the "Hallows" midnight screenings grossed $24 million, according to the ticketing website fandango.com.

That's the third-highest take (the last two "Twilight" entries came in at $30 million for "Eclipse" and $26.3 million for "New Moon") and a record for Potter films, besting "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," at $22.2 million.

The Thursday night fans at CityWalk, though, reveled in priceless anticipation.

"I've been to every midnight screening, and not just in California," said Ashley Hackworth, decked out as Harry's love interest, Ginny Weasley. "I've seen 'em in Indiana and Washington when I lived there.

"I'm one of those weird, big Harry Potter fans," added the 20-year-old college student, who lives in Sherman Oaks. "I have the scenic games, I have every book, every DVD special two-disc edition.

"I have 16 T-shirts of Ron Weasley; that's my favorite. I want to see every movie when it first comes out, but I don't want to see it the next day. If I can see it at midnight, why not? It's just more fun.

"It's like going to a concert. You get to wait out all night."

In one of the early entry auditoriums, a half-dozen die-hards whiled away the time playing Monopoly on the floor. But it wasn't a Potter version of the game; it was the Transformers edition, the only game they could find in CityWalk's stores.

Chaminade High School students Maddee Bonniot and Clare Keaney, both 16, patiently rolled the dice, wearing their Hogwarts schoolgirl outfits.

"We have uniforms for school," Bonniot said. "We definitely prefer these."

Both girls insisted that they would make it to Friday's classes at the West Hills campus, even though the film would run past 2:30 a.m.

"We've been here since 5," Bonniot said. "Getting all ready and then seeing it first is really exciting. Going to school being all tired the next day is not fun, but you're like, `I saw Harry Potter!"'

Thirteen-year-old Emily Maynes of Studio City brought a history book to study while she waited in line.

"I wanted to do my homework tonight," said the Walter Reed Middle School student, who came dressed as Harry's offbeat friend Luna Lovegood.

"I went through my closet and found the craziest clothes I could," she said. "Then I said, `Hey, that looks like Luna. Why don't I wear these?"'

Maynes also felt safe among the friendly throng of Pottermaniacs, even though her parents couldn't score tickets and had to her off for the night. Her 15-year-old friend Tierney Bent summed up the general good feeling of the opening midnight crowd.

"Everybody here has a common interest," the Burbank teen said. "You can see random people you've never seen before and everybody's giving each other high fives and taking pictures. It's just a really awesome experience."

Bent was dressed down for the occasion in a Ravenclaw T-shirt and jeans. She's saving her big costume for when the final Potter film, "Hallows - Part 2," is released in July.

That one will be in 3-D (Warner Bros. couldn't adequately convert "Part 1" to the process in time for its release), and all agree it's got to be awesome.

But its midnight debut may not be as much fun as this month's was.

"It's gonna be really sad," said Ferraro, the Death Eater. "You feel like you grow up with this and it's kind of something that never ends. Then, when it ends, it's like `Oh my God, Harry Potter's over!' Sad."

"I'm probably gonna cry," Maynes said. "At the end I'll just be bawling and everybody around me will be giving me dirty looks - or everyone in the theater will be passing around a box of tissues."

Bent was a little more philosophical.

"I've kind of been along for the ride," she said. "I guess if you keep it going too long, it'll get kind of tedious. It's time for it to end. It'll be bittersweet; I'll be sad when it's over, but I won't be devastated. It'll be like a happy-sad."

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