One of the first things I noticed, after the utter charm of the inhabitants of Hogwarts, was the fact that reading it was in no way going to turn me into a wizard. I bought a wand just in case, but I still have to locate my car keys manually rather that flick my wand and shout "accio keys!"
The third thing I noticed was a very strong Christian ethic in this series running right to the core of the story. Like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia, this series of books by a British author is bursting with Christian allegory, and that's what I want to talk about.
There's going to be spoilers galore, here, so stop reading if you haven't read any of the books or seen the movies. Otherwise you might find out that Dumbledore was played by two different actors in the movies, and I'd hate to ruin that for you.
