My book arrived at 10:30 Saturday morning. Alas, I had already agreed to make the ultimate sacrifice and go to F’zer’s company picnic that day, so I didn’t actually get to start reading till about 4:30pm. (But hey, we won tickets to Disneyland and a Toys R Us gift card in the raffle, so it wasn’t entirely a vain sacrifice on my part.)

I finished it at about 12:30pm yesterday, having gotten to the “Battle of Hogwarts” chapter at about 2am and having thought that was probably the best place to break it off lest I do something stupid like stay up all night reading. (Not to say I didn’t consider it, mind you.)

Warning, spoilers ahead, as I revisit my predictions in the previous message and see how well I did.

My predictions and speculations on the final book:

• Regulus Black took the horcrux. It’s the locket they found in the glass cabinet.
  Indeed he did, and it was.
• Dumbledore was not dead. Snape agreed to make it appear that he was.
  Hmm… well, this one has no definitive answer, when you get right down to it.
• Dumbledore trusted Snape because they are related somehow.
  Dead wrong. However…..
• Snape was in love with Lily Evans.
  Yes, he was.
  
• Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione all survive.
  Yes, thank goodness.
• Draco and his mother survive but Lucius and Bellatrix get what’s coming to them. Draco ends up fighting on Harry’s side.
  Bellatrix gets a particularly appropriate comeuppance but the rest of the Malfoys survive.
  Draco and Narcissa turn out to be not quite as bad as they appeared in the beginning but
  they don’t come anywhere near redeeming themselves, as far as I’m concerned. Draco does
  offer Harry some very limited help. I was really, really hoping Arthur Weasley would kick
  some major Malfoy butt, but in that I was disappointed.
• Dolores Umbridge meets some kind of grossly appropriate comeuppance.
  She gets neither a bang nor a whimper, doggone it.
• Fred and George Weasley play an important part in the final battle.
  Yes they do.
  
• We learn something important about the relationship between McGonagall and Dumbledore when they first came to Hogwarts. The amount of time the two of them have been there figures into the plot somehow.
  No. Classic Rowling red herring.
  
• McGonagall, Hagrid and Flitwick get killed.
  Dead wrong, you should pardon the expression. The ones who do get killed are… unexpected.
  
• The fact that Bill Weasley was bitten by an un-transformed werewolf will play an important part in the final battle.
  Nope.
  
• Cornelius Fudge turns out to be braver and less of an ass-kissing weenie than he has appeared up till now.
  Nope.
• Dudley and Petunia Dursley turn out to be a lot better than we’ve been led to believe.
  Definitely true, and Harry learns something about the way he treated them, too.
  
• Percy Weasley was only pretending to be a twit in order to gather information inside the Ministry of Magic.
  Not true, but what happens with Percy works out to pretty much the same thing.
• There has to be some reason Grawp was introduced into the story, beyond getting Harry and Hermione away from the centaurs.
  Yes!
  
• Neville does something absolutely spectacular and his parents recover enough to be released from St. Mungo’s.
  Yes to the first part, hoo boy, but no to the second, alas.
• Goes without saying that Voldemort is toast.
  And how!

I had also noticed the connection between Harry’s blood and Voldemort’s in Goblet of Fire because of Dumbledore’s reaction when he heard about it. And when I heard what Ravenclaw’s object was, I immediately said “I bet it’s that ratty old tiara Harry used to mark his Potions book in the Room of Requirement.” So I followed many of the clues pretty well. I thought the fact that Dumbledore offered to hide Draco and his mother by making them appear to be dead was a clue that Dumbledore himself only appeared to be dead. That was a bit of very clever misdirection.

I loved finding out more about Dumbledore’s past. He’s always been presented as such a perfect but mysterious character up till now and this book filled in the blanks.

Now I have to wait for F’zer to finish reading the book so we can discuss it. And of course so I can read it again and go over the good parts at my leisure.

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