Harry Potter

OK, the first part of this post is going to be about standing in line to get Harry Potter. The last part is going to be a spoiler marked by **************SPOILER************** a number of rows before the text of the spoiler itself so you can close the window if you haven't finished the book. For those of you who could care less, you can close the window whenever you like :)

So last night Cortni, Meagan, Stephanie, Carrie and I went to stand in line for the book at the Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus. (Waterstones was having the 1/2 off price deal for pre-ordering.) Stephanie and Carrie were just being nice by waiting with the rest of us because they had pre-ordered their copy at another store in Trafalger Square. In hindsight, I wish that the rest of us had ordered from a smaller store, too. The line would have been shorter :) Though the crowd's excitement and all of the activity were exhilerating! Some of the costumes were really fabulous. One girl was dressed up as a stitch with her boyfriend dressed as a broom (though later she we saw her with a Harry Potter, oooooo drama). I also saw an entire family dressed as the Malfoys. Their costumes were really good but I ask you, the Malfoys?

All of the excitement really built as midnight got closer and closer. Finally the time came and the 1/2 to 3/4 mile line errupted into cheers. After that, it was kind of anti-climatic because they were letting only so many people into the store at a time. This made complete sense because it would have been a mad house if they didn't. (It probably was a madhouse anyway.) After an hour, we had only moved one city block and it didn't look like we were going to be going anywhere anytime soon. So my friends and I decided to walk home and come back in the morning to get our copies.

I had no trouble picking mine up this morning and started reading on the tube going back home. I originally planned to read in a park but it started raining again so that idea was out. Erika (who was reading Jane Eyre, not HP), Meagan and I sat in the kitchen all day reading. It was kind of funny because occasionally someone would gasp or laugh or exclaim about what they were reading. If it was Meagan or me, we'd shush each other so nothing would be given away. Towards the end of the book, I had to leave the kitchen so I wouldn't give anything away to Meagan. I think she would have hit me with the book and you know the size of that sucker . . . :)





**************SPOILER************** kind of











OK, I'm not going to dissect the book tonight because now I am coming off my high from finishing the book and am getting very tired.

J.K. Rowling is a wonderful author. She grabs your attention from the very first page and keeps it until the end. I was amazed by the ways she developed her characters and really kept you guessing about some of their motives until the very end. You know the one I am talking about.

How about that pensive memory of Snape's? Most of the time before this book was released, I was torn about whether or not he was good. I finally decided that he killed Dumbledore in order to ensure that Draco didn't but couldn't decide if he had truely betrayed Dumbledore to Voldemort. I found the conversation between him and Dumbledore about Dumbledore's death very powerful. Imagine planning out your own death. That was asking a lot of Snape to do. Sure, Dumbledore was dying already but Snape still had to kill him.

Didn't your heart just sink when Dumbledore told Snape that part of Voldemort's soul was put into Harry when he was a baby and Voldemort tried to kill him? That meant that Harry was a Horcrux. One of the very things that Harry was trying to destroy and needed to be destroyed before Voldemort would finally die. At that point, I knew Harry would sacrifice himself in order to make sure Voldemort would be stopped. I never even considered that he was doing the exact same thing that his mother did, ensuring that everyone fighting Voldemort had the protection of love. Now it makes perfect sense! I guess I was distracted by the drama of the fighting and the horrible losses of Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin and Dora Tonks.

The moment that Harry faced the Killing Curse for a second time was horrible. I hoped that she wouldn't kill Harry off but it was so hard to tell what would happen. It was clever the way that Rowling showed that Harry could survive because a part of him (his blood) was in Voldemort like a part of Voldemort's soul was in Harry.

And how about the ending chapter? It made me so happy that she did a follow-up for when the children of all of the main characters were headed to Hogwarts on the train. It would have been horrible to be left hanging at the end of the fighting even though the good side had won.

OK, the last part of this spoiler was a bit disjointed because now I really have to go to bed. Tomorrow, we go on an extremely long train ride to Edinburgh. Yea.