<p>
That’s easy: they form an elf-help group.</p>
<p>You are a bad, bad man. :)</p>
<p>Well, it <em>is</em> true that I post from an undisclosed location.</p>
<p>On the subject of other possible books for JKR to write:</p>
<p>My son and I both agree that the year that Ginny, Nevile and co spent at Hogwarts without Harry and co would be fascinating subject matter…JKR alludes to their doing so much but it’s never really explained. Sort of a side-along story similar to the ones that Orson Scott Card has done with the Ender/Bean stories…</p>
<p>I also love the idea of taking up the story of Teddy, though!</p>
<p>Why did Draco’s mother lie to Voldemort about Harry being dead? I know she asked Harry if Draco was OK, but she did not know Harry had saved him. She could have gotten the info and then announced he wasn’t dead.</p>
<p>Because if LV thinks Harry is dead, the DE’s will enter the castle, and she can be re-united with Draco. If Harry is alive, the battle goes on.</p>
<p>I love that Moms (and Grandmas and parents in general) are so important in the last scenes.</p>
<p>D is in Africa and talks about 2 things she is looking forward to upon her return - (i) home cooking and (ii) the new Harry Potter book. Needless to say, she is nowhere near a bookstore.</p>
<p>I thought the book was very satisfying. And I think Rowling is talented at providing info to the reader who may have missed or forgotten crucial information*. She does it in a skillful, non-obvious way, 99% of the time. (I hate it when authors feel compelled to have their characters pedantically explain things to each other. They sound like idiots but we’re expected to trust the author’s assurance that they’re brilliant PhDs…Aargh.)</p>
<p>Youngest son is away at computer camp until Friday but I told him I was using his B&N gift card to get the HP book and he was pleased it will be waiting for him when he gets home. Only slightly used. :)</p>
<p>Oh, someone asked earlier who “Victoire” was. If this hasn’t been answered yet, I think she must be Bill and Fleur’s daughter. We know she’s a Weasley cousin, it’s a French name, and I’m guessing she was born fairly soon after the “Victory.”</p>
<p>Even though the epilogue was in some ways dissatisfying I’m glad it was there. Loose ends were tied up in ways that assured no more books. Teddy does not yield another series because there is no V counterpart, it would just be another tale. Despite all the magic the series had a huge dose of reality in it- very believable character and plot developments. Like reality, things don’t always turn out the way we want them to (eg Fred’s death). It was also very realistic for antagonism between the Malfoys and Potters to continue to exist. We all want MORE, but I’m gad the futures of the characters were left without details. The series was a slice of their lives involving world changing events, the subsequent details of their lives were beyond the scope of it. The ending (epilogue) showed that after all the excitement the characters settled into ordinary, mundane lives like the rest of us (how many of us brilliant women with great potential have ended up doing the whole parenthood bit? We don’t get the details of Hermione’s life, it may have been intellectually challenging).</p>
<p>There are two other many book fantasy series I read this past year (the final books are due this fall), and while I want to read the final books to see how they end the conflict and tie up loose ends, I would never consider rereading them. The HP series, on the other hand, I can definitely reread. Knowing the ending does not take away from the enjoyment of reliving the events. I am also waiting for the final two movies. Definitely a series which can be read/enjoyed on many levels (and one I choose to not examine under the microscope for flaws- like real life, they’re there, but any flaws don’t ruin the books).</p>
<p>While I doubt the series will be continued, it does seem that the magical world develops a new villain every now and then - remember Grindelwald? Did anyone else theorize that Grindelwald was linked to Nazi Germany?</p>
<p>The line in the epilogue where Harry lectured his son about where his middle name comes from gave me chills.</p>
<p>If LV was so accomplished at legilimency, why was Narcissa able to lie to him so easily?</p>
<p>Perhaps because she was a seasoned witch…I am just guessing. She probably could block him.</p>
<p>His power was very much diminished at that point – all the horcruxes but the snake had been destroyed. </p>
<p>I think actually its obvious through the whole book that his power is waning, because Harry can see LV’s thoughts, and is able to anticipate actions and protect himself with what he sees; but LV is obviously never aware of the connection and LV never catches on to the most important secret of all, the power of the Deathly Hallows. It is the one thing he wants more than anything else - eternal life – in his grasp at least potentially when Harry walks into the forest bringing the stone & the cloak with him.</p>
<p>Legilmancy is something they have to deliberately use. I’m sure he thought she was too cowed to even consider lying to him.</p>
<p>I haven’t been following this thread, but I read the last couple of pages. My particular 2 cents is that I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of “Alby ‘n’ Rose” books (and associated paraphernalia, like lunchboxes and action figures) aimed at the 6-12 set. I’m sure they and their cousings can have lots of fun and mischief at Hogwarts, including some feuds with those snooty Slytherins like Scorpius Malfoy, without a Voldemort to darken everything.</p>
<p>Substantively:</p>
<p>– I was very disappointed at Snape’s and Draco’s passivity. I very much wanted at least one of the Slytherins to make a positive choice for good, and I hoped for both. Snape, I guess, made such a choice, but long ago, and it seems to have been the effect of a lifelong crush rather than a moral position. Draco gets to be ambivalent, but no more.</p>
<p>– I was also disappointed that Harry really doesn’t seem to mature much by the end. He’s more the lone wolf than ever – no real trust or collaboration with others, even his closest friends, and no ability to share what he thinks and feels with them. Ginny and Hermione do all the heavy lifting in all of the relationships. Realistic, I guess, but I hoped for a glimmer of more.</p>
<p>– I didn’t get the metaphysics of the climax at all. Harry’s a Horcrux, Voldemort is protected by Lily’s sacrifice, both of them seem to spend time in the land of the dead but both survive (even though Harry is the only true Master of the Deathly Hallows at that point), or maybe Harry’s dreaming . . . It’s all a big, fat “Huh?” Not that I care that much, but I would have to be convinced that there’s any clear logic to it.</p>
<p>JHS, I think the end does have a clear logic to it. Harry has a piece of Voldemort in him (the Horcrux) and Voldemort has a piece of Harry (the blood), so neither can kill the other. And in the end, Voldemort ends up killing himself.</p>
<p>
I agree completely.</p>
<p>Overall, I was very happy with this book. I did not like the sixth as much as many of the others, and I was worried that I wouldn’t like the seventh for similar reasons. I thought it was pretty well-done. I would really have loved for the book to show that Slytherins can be good, though. She stayed in a sort of safe zone and never went all the way. Dumbledore even hinted that Snape, if Sorted later, would have been in Gryffindor. I remember back to earlier books which spoke about the need of the houses to work together. I would have liked to see the cunning of Slytherins come in handy for the good fight, at the very least. I also would have liked a chapter in between the last chapter and the epilogue. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the epilogue, either, but I’m glad she did it. </p>
<p>There is more I’m wondering and more I would have liked to see. JKR created an amazing world.</p>
<p>JHS–they don’t both go to that inbetween land. The baby is not LV himself, but the piece of LV that was in Harry. When it’s erased, by Harry’s willingness to sacrifice himself, LV still carries a piece of Harry, but not the other way around. Thus, LV is much weakened, and doesn’t know it. </p>
<p>At the end, Harry tries to appeal to the piece of himself in LV, which is descended from the good in his mother, by imploring LV to show some remorse, which is the only way he could survive. Horcruxes gone, and use of the Elder Wand against its chosen owner, though, seal his death.</p>
<p>I thought the way she handled Snape was perfect–it was pretty neat that H tells little Albus Severus that his middle name comes from someone who might be the bravest person H ever knew.</p>
<p>Draco? It would be neat and tidy to have him turn, but more realistic for him to be weakly on the right side of the law at the end. Ambiguity is probably more common. </p>
<p>I think H’s lone wolfness comes from the roles thrust on him by others (D, S, LV). In the epilogue, freed from all these expectations, he seems to be a well-adjusted husband, father, and friend.</p>