The Yak Shack Forum

So what did we all think?

I picked it up at 10:30pm and finished it at 6:30am (no break - who needs 'em? :rofl:)

I reckon it's the best one she's written yet. I couldn't put it down, it was like tialessa said, non-stop action all the way through. Very, very dark. I'd say not one for the kids, if I could ;)

The carnage was depressing, because it began early in the story, it set the tone for the whole book. I kept expecting people to die. I can't believe she killed Fred!! And Lupin and Tonks :'(

I KNEW Snape wasn't evil ;D What a way to go for him though. I thought it was cool how the importance of Lily's eyes (as hinted by JKR) was because of this relationship. And Narcissa saving Harry was surprising. And Kreacher's "conversion" was sweet. Yay for Regulus! I knew he had it in him! I assume Kreacher lied to the Death Eaters who then spread the rumour he was killed by them. :D

That scene at the end with Dumbledore was very interesting. What a complex character Dumbledore was. Not as perfect as we thought, but as flawed as any normal wizard could be.

It's amazing how many of these things people have suspected before though, when I used to frequent Mugglenet a bit, there was a Lily-Severus relationship discussion.

I have to read it again, very slowly, but I have one question to start off with: Who was the old man whom Voldemort sought out and killed when searching for the Elder wand? The one in the castle who mocked Voldemort saying that "I never had it". I thought it was Grindelwald, but that doesn't make sense. He definitely had the wand.

yes but they spectualate that he lied in the end to voldermort because  he was sorry in the end about dumbledores sister and that was him trying to make up for it in his way .

well that is the way it came acroos to me anyway .

I love the book it was fantastic and i was sad that we also lost hedwig abut the way she pulled it all togethere  ways fantastic and i loved the fact that she went 19 years into the future it is all so cool .

and who would have guessed Neville a teacher and that the Malfoys would be so useless in the end and  what a bout mrs Weasley she rocked i can just pictured her in that scene  screaming no my daughter and fighting wwooohhoo

Hedwig, Moody, Dobby (can't believe that a: Dobby made an appearance & b: he died), Crabbe, Fred, Tonks, Lupin, Creevy - we shall remember them  :)

Not sure I understand Dumbledore's explanation to Harry about how his wand reacted to Voldemort in the escape from Privet drive though.  What event was he referring to when he said Harry's wand was imbibed with power from Voldemorts wand?

And Snape was a good guy afterall - albeit grudgingly!  And he loved Lily.  Awwwww...

Ended on a rather cryptic note though - 'his scar hadn't hurt for 19 years - all was well'  Yeah, for now!  I feel another book in the offing.  And what do they all do for a living?  She only lets on about Neville.

I thought the epilogue was lacking, it wasn't necessary. It's true that she only talked about the "big three".

If my parents called me Albus Severus, I'd have a thing to say to them, famous Headmasters/Boy who lived or not :rofl:

I forgot to mention Dobby and Colin Creevey... Potter's elf/man to the end :(

I did expect Draco to do something a bit more heroic in the end.

Geek Boy, perhaps the Priori Incantatem connection that formed in the graveyard fight was what Dumbledore meant? Something could have travelled from Voldemort's wand to Harry's when Harry "won" that duel.

I think the epilogue was an excuse to write more books if called upon to do so!  You know, the intervening years - 19 years is a long time, a lot has happened...

Yeah Draco was a bit of a wimp really wasn't he?  Typical school bully, all mouth, no trousers, crumbles when he's on his own!

As for the wand, I had to read those paragraphs a couple of times.  At first I thought he was referring to the time Voldemort tried to kill Harry but of course he was a baby and didn't have a wand.  Then I thought he might have been referring to the escape from Privet Drive but Voldemort didn't have his own wand when he attacked Harry.  So yes, I guess the only logical confrontation was in the graveyard.

I just finished the book about five minutes ago.  I think I went through half a huge box of tissues!  It's going to take a little while to digest it all, and like tialessa said in another thread, I want to read it again in about a week.

I'm pretty sure that Voldemort didn't want to risk ANOTHER Priori Incantatem with Harry.  He just wanted him dead without delay.  That's where he got obsessed with the Elder Wand - had to beat Harry at all costs.

The whole wandlore confused me - I'll have to read up on it from other sites & pay more attention to Ollivander when I reread Book 7.

May I just say I was SHOCKED at Dudley at the beginning.  Who knew he actually cared about Harry?

I'm pretty annoyed at the NY Times with that review.  If I'd read it I would have HURT someone severely.  It revealed WAY too many plot points and could have waited to be published ONE MORE DAY...

So, who was the person who picked up magic later in life?

Just finished, and on the whole it works for me as a fitting conclusion. Not as much carnage as I expected, though. There were a *lot* of plot threads that weren't set up in any of the earlier books, but still quite a few so that we can talk about what we expected to happen that didn't (or did!). There were some nice touches where objects didn't do what we expected them to, but came back in a different important way, like the G sword.

I really expected Hagrid to snuff it, based on the three stages of Alchemy, but it would have required Hogwarts being destroyed. ("There is no Hogwarts without Hagrid.") As it is, everything is too easy for a sequel.

I thought all along that Snape was "that awful boy" whom Tuney referred to.

Draco looked like he was going to be a bigger player at the end, yes indeed. It seemed to be in the process of being set up but that idea disappeared in a couple of paragraphs. It would have been cool if a different person had destroyed each of the horcruxes and then Voldemort, but having six for the six horcruxes was a nice surprise. Crabbe gets to go down in history as hero!

I thought that either Molly or Cissy would die defending one of their kids, as a reprise for Lily's sacrifice. Close but not quite. Mother's Love still played a role. I thought Molly would be saving Percy, who indeed redeemed himself; it would have been a trio of mothers/sons. And Arthur won't be Minister of Magic right away.

Long ago the diadem had seemed like an obvious choice for one of the horcruxes, but it fell off of my list when I was counting Harry as one of the six.

I'm sure other people came up with the idea that Dumbledore was dying from the ring's causing the withered hand, and that's why Snape was asked to do the honors, but I can claim to have reached that conclusion independently.

Maybe the next sequel should be "Travels with Charlie." I kept feeling we were being set up for him to have a major role, because he was always off somewhere. I was hoping he was an animagus dragon that the trio flew off on, after seeing the book covers.

I wonder what happened to Umbridge. I wanted Madame Rosmerta to show up because I wanted to see Julie Christie again in Movie 7.

I still want to know the whole story about Aberforth and the goats.

Shed a tear for Peter Pettigrew. Too bad his silver hand didn't take down Fenris, like I was hoping.

I figured that Sirius' mirror wouldn't play a role because they cut it from the OOTP movie, and I'm confused about how it got into Aberforth's hands. But the locket wasn't in the movie either, so no doubt we'll have a shorter explanation on how it later shows up, probably without Umbridge at all.

If Neville is Professor of Herbology, has he taken over Sprout's leadership of broom learning and Quidditch? The mind boggles.

I hope George and Luna go into business together. More speculation on what might happen in the future will come as we absorb what happened in the past!

I didn't think Sprout had anything to do with Quidditch, that was Madame Hooch...

Well... was very good that God Harry lived afterr dieing ::) DR gets his wish for a death scene. Also getting his kit off a lot good job he's had the practice. I was very upset she killed two of my favourites Lupin and Tonks sniff and of course pour Dobby that was so sad.

And Snape was on the side of good yay :D I am so glad.

I would like to remind people that I was certain Harry was horcrux and it would lead to his death :( Thank goodness it was perminant. I thought Neville would be the herbology teacher. Where did he get Grifs sword from.

What was Luna up to 19 years later? And how did George manage with out Fred :( Is Ted a Werewolf? Who did he grow up with when he was orphened :(

And who did Malfoy marry?  Pansy?  And what do Harry, Ron & Hermione do for a living?  Posts within the Ministry?  Is Harry an Auror?  How did Hogwarts get rebuilt?  Did the three of them go back to finish their studies?  And yes, how did Neville get the sword - unless it's the fake?  Maybe the Goblins have changed their views on ownership of Goblin created artifacts.  All questions to be answered...

I thought Harry might have lost his scar.  I also thought Draco would die.  I thought Voldemorts torture of Ollivander was odd.  Did Voldemort get to him before Harry got his wand - seeing as he was controlling Quirrel at the time?  Did he go to Ollivander after he failed to defeat Harry in the graveyard?  In which case, Ollivander could have backed up Harry's story about the return of the dark lord.

I also thought the locket was very..... Lord Of The Rings didn't you think?  An object that altered the state of mind of whoever was wearing it.  That had a sense of it's own mortality.  That left marks on the body if it was worn for too long.

Mr O was kidnapped in HBP.

Neville pulled the sword out of the Sorting Hat (Voldemort placed it on Neville's head and set the hat on fire), just as Harry did to defeat the basilisk.  Draco probably did not marry Pansy, because the book would have mentioned her name, not just "wife."

JK certainly left room for a sequel.  The Elder Wand could be retrieved from Dumbledore's grave, Harry has the invisibility cloak, and the resurrection stone is somewhere in the Forbidden Forest where it could be found.  I don't understand why Harry didn't want to retrieve it and destroy it.

This is why I need to re-read HBP.  And OOTP.   ;D


Ah.  So he did.  I was tired, I'd been reading all day, one or two things must have slipped by  :-[  I bet Griphook isn't happy then...

I did feel the book dragged a little in the middle with R/H/H moving aimlessly from place to place, trying to figure out the Horcruxes and Dumbledore's gifts.

I can see some nice trading cards for the final movie though.  Dual auto's of the happy couples, a five part auto of the Potter family, a piece of the Resurrection stone perhaps, bits of the Elder wand...

Ahhhh I missed that big time with the sword thanks.

While Tonks' father was killed, her mother was not.  Harry also mentioned that Teddy came over 4 times a week for dinner so it seems that he certainly hasn't forgotten Teddy's parents sacrifice.
Well, it DID have part of Voldemort's soul in it... Look what the diary could do - especially when it was able to start stealing Ginny's life...  The ring was cursed otherwise it might have affected Dumbledore in a similar way had he worn it.  The other horcruxes weren't worn so we don't know if they would have also done something similar...

i missed that bit i thought that harry had given neville the sword as his back up for killing the snake

I was, too, but I was more upset over the way Lupin was portrayed in this book.  He had always appeared to be calm, cool, and collected (as a human, anyway).  He didn't seem the type to marry if his heart wasn't in it, and it seemed out of character for him to walk out on Tonks when she was pregnant.  That whole scene at Grimmauld Place when he got violent with Harry just felt so wrong. :-\ And then, he showed up at Shell Cottage to announce he was a father and stayed there drinking instead of being with his wife and new son?  If my husband had done that to me after our kids were born, he wouldn't have been a very happy camper after I was able to get out of bed. >:(  I hope she talks about this in the interviews that are coming up.

I just went back and re-read that part, as it made me wonder, and it really didn't seem like he stayed in the cottage that long, maybe a matter of 10-15 minutes at most, but maybe I missed something.  And with being able to pop in and out instantly that really isn't too bad, especially as I don't think Lupin had much family other than the ones in the cottage (but then I am a guy and my perspective might be off :) )   

I thought the whole agony of Lupin was typical of a person who'd just found out he was going to be a dad.  Unless a pregnancy is completely planned (and often even when it IS planned) it's still a shock to find out - I'm pregnant!  It seemed to me Lupin was a little more in shock than most dads-to-be because while they're all "I'm not ready to be a father.  There's no way *I* can be a good dad. etc." he had the whole "I'm a werewolf and I don't want my son to be one too." going.  Harry's fight seemed to wake him up and we went back to Tonks - with luck she never knew about his doubts.

The whole Shell Cottage scene was celebrating - what parents don't do that?  If he'd been out all night carousing, then yeah, I'd be mad about it too, but if Tonks could have come with Teddy to show off the baby, I'm sure she would have. 

Wow. Talk about relief! I guess in a way, the whole "does he live or die" was right-he did both. I felt it coming; I was shocked when I realised he was going to sacrifice himself, but I twigged at some point that it would work in his favour.

I dont have too much to add at this point that is insightful; I think I need to let it all sink in. But all in all, Im glad with they way it wrapped up...but the epilogue has opened up a can of worms and I want to know more!

I can't believe I have read the last HP book, it certainly doesn't feel like that.  I thought the book was brilliant and whilst people died whom I wanted to live I think the ending was just right.  I do wish we knew what happened to everyone but then it really would have been LOTR all over again.

Like most people I need to re-read HBP and then this one again - the whole wandlore bit has me deeply confused.  I am totally lost by that last duel and who the Elder wand had an allegiance to.

The one thing I am happy about is that Dumbledore was not a perfect goodie.  After GOF I was starting to have my doubts about him and this book does confirm he was using people to fulfil his plans, albeit for the greater good.  And who would have thought Aberforth would play such a huge part  :o. 

I really dont know what to say...it was such a great book  :o The best book so far (and I thought nothing would overtake my love for POA) it was pure genius!!!

Pros:
The ending I wanted with Harry alive
Hermy, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna and *sobs* most of the weasley gang surviving
Snape being un-evil...I knew it  ;D

Cons:
The deaths of so many loved characters *pauses for a minutes silence*
A tad confusing with all the wand lore, I thought JK should have touched on this in HBP to make things easier reading this one

I really liked it, but the 'nineteen years later' could have been a whole chapter in itself and I really NEEDED to know more...you kind of feel like you are left half hanging to know what everyone else is up to.

I need to read it again.......right now  :rofl:

I am not sure how other countries versions were printed but in the UK book the last line was at the very bottom of the page.  I genuinely turned the page expecting a few more pages and was gutted it was over  :'(

Yes it was printed the same here and I did EXACTLY the same thing...

That JK is evil leaving us like that  >:D

The wand lore was a bit confusing, but what I got out of it was that when you defeat someone, their wand has allegiance to you, so the elder wand would not kill Harry as he had disarmed Draco, who disarmed Dumbledore.  Voldemort thought allegiance went to Snape, as he killed DD, but DD was already disarmed, so allegiance had already shifted to his disarmer.  I think this might also refer to the graveyard scene where the wands did the same thing.  It was not about having brother wands, but about Harry defeating Voldemort at Privet Drive.  Voldemort's wand recognized Harry as its new master since Harry defeated Voldemort at their last "duel", even though he was an unarmed baby, Voldemort "lost" to him.  That's what I got out of it, I could be waaay off!  Anyone else have thoughts?

ive just finished also :) im a bit disappointed though...thought there may be a little more about Petunia..i liked the pensieve tale, but the way she and dudley acted didnt have a closing for me....

and Draco...there was too much of a build up in hbp for him to barely do anything..I loved it dont get me wrong! and cried like a twerp over fred, tonks and lupin...i guess im feeling a little sad now... i knew snape was good! hmpff

Agreed - very odd.  Maybe the whole bit with Dumbledore at the end of HBP took it out of him, the little lamb...

I had a discussion with an academic in my department, over morning tea this morning...and Im after everyones opinion.

He feels that, if Harry has the protection of his mother, and therefore so does Voldemort (in his blood), and that is what prevents Voldemort from killing Harry the first time (when he is an infant)....how is he able to "kill" him the second time, particularly given he is using "Harry's" wand...and then, how is voldemort able to be finally killed if he too still has Lily's protection....

It made sense to me when I read it, but the more I think about it (and discuss it with the academic) the more Im not so sure. Obviously harry didnt die when voldemort tried to kill him in the forest; was Nagini the link that held them both to life, or was it becuase Harry is the master of death, and therefore had a choice to go back or to move on...

Im off to lunch/seminar, but Im interested to see other peoples thoughts when i get back...

I thought that Voldemort couldn't kill him because the wand did not work properly for him, especially against its true master (Harry). Most likely though, I think it was because of the connection between Harry and Voldemort. There was still an intact horcrux (Nagini) that bound Harry to the living world.

Let me get this straight... Harry was definitely a horcrux according to Dumbledore. So that meant there WERE 7 horcruxes albeit accidentally.

My theory is that the wand wont work properly against Harry due to ownership; but worked enough to "kill" him so that the horcrux in Harry was destroyed. When they dueled, Voldemort again tried to kill him, but the curse rebounded, either due to Harry's spell, or the fact that the wand again wont work against Harry.

The problem is, if Voldemort has Harrys mums protection in his blood also, how is it that he can actually be killed; or is the protection in him too weak compared to in Harry? The more i think about it, the more confused i think im making myself...it made perfect sense when i read it, but of course academics always think they know more  ::)

I thought Harry didn't actually die because he was a Horcrux - as long as Voldemort was alive, Harry was able to stay alive.  So Harry was able to choose & when he came back he left the Horcrux which wasn't really alive to begin with. 
As for the blood bit & protection, Voldemort has very little of Harry's blood and he's weakened by the fact that all his Horcruxes have been destroyed.  The Avada Kedavra worked on Voldemort because even though he had the Elder Wand (which "belonged" to Harry) the wand still works, it just isn't the most powerful for him.
Boy is this confusing!  I think I'm getting a headache trying to reason it all out...

Dumbledore said that Harry's blood in Voldemort's body tethered Harry to life; the killing curse basically destroyed the bit of Voldemort's soul he didn't know was inside Harry.  Harry then had a choice whether to live or die.  In the Forbidden Forest, Voldemort collapsed the same time as Harry did, because he had unwittingly destroyed his Horcrux (inside Harry) and had left only Nagini and the little piece of soul that remained inside himself.

In the Great Hall, Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse collided with Harry's Expelliarmus, then rebounded and killed Voldemort, who was then as mortal as everyone else (since Neville had destroyed Nagini -- I loved that part!).

I was thinking it was the blood in Voldemort that gave Harry a tether if he wanted to go back (sort of a lifeline, if you will), but the protection from Lily had ceased to work when Harry no longer called Privet Drive home, so it wouldn't work for Voldemort either. 

This explains the gleam in Goblet of Fire, as Dumbledore knew Harry would have to die for Voldemort to die, but he was thinking (or as he put it "guessing") that that bit of blood would tether Harry to life if he let Voldemort kill him as planned, then only the hrcrux would be "killed", and Harry could return without it and finish Voldemort off when no links to life (horcruxes) remained for Voldemort.  That's what I got out of it anyway.

Oooh, good point!  This book is so complex, it's going to take several readings to sort it all out.

I'm going to post this elsewhere on the board, but in the US, the Today Show (7 a.m. EST) will have a two-part interview with JK set to air Thursday and Friday morning.  It will also run on Dateline this Sunday night.  They showed a little preview of it on the show this morning.  The interviews was conducted at Edinburgh Castle with a group of children who had all finished reading the book.  The reporter said that the kids asked questions, including why certain characters were killed.  Should be interesting!

Really?  Awesome - I'll set my VCR!

The Dateline NBC show is scheduled to air Sunday, July 29, at 7 p.m. EST.

I hate the fact that we don't get any of these brilliant interviews shown in the UK  :(

Cindy I think my thought process was the same as yours - the first Avada Kedavra killed the Horcrux but not Harry's 'soul' (for want of a better word).  Maybe the killing curse can only kill one thing at a time and in this case it was the Voldemort bit. 

The bit of Potter blood in Voldemort acted like a trail of breadcrumbs so that Harry could find his way back.  I don't think the 'Harry' blood that Voldemort had in him offered any protection at all, anymore than it offered to Harry himself.  Yes Lilly's love prevented Voldemort initially touching Harry but it never actually stopped the Dark Lord harming him - he took quite a pounding in the first three books albeit by third parties (Quirrell, Basilisk, Dementors).  As I understand it was actually Petunia's relationship to Lilly that protected him in Privet Drive which as Misty pointed out had by then ended.

Anyway that is how I am making sense of it  ;D

With YouTube and other websites, I have no doubt that you'll be able to watch the clips and shows on the Internet within a day or two of them airing in the US. :)

Thanks for all the responses to my musing...it looks like what I originally thought seems to be what everyone else here thinks...my confusion only occurred when the academic here at uni started questioning what i thought  :P

Ill pass on some of those answers!

For those interested also, through the leaky cauldron there is a link to a board where people are talking about their unanswered questions...things like what did they do with moody's body, who was the muggle who discovered magic late in life, etc...

UPDATE
So he still isnt convinced, and hopefully I can clearly explain why...
The first time Voldemort tries to kill Harry (as an infant), it appears that the curse rebounds, killing Voldemort (and destroying his body), and inadvertently making Harry a horcrux.
The second time (in the forest) Voldemort again tries to kill Harry; Harry isnt killed, but "dies". Voldemort also collapses, but this time keeps his body. It isnt apparent whether or not the curse rebounds, but if it had surely the other death eaters would have noticed it.
The third time (in the hall), Voldemort casts the curse, and it rebounds off Harry's spell, and kills Voldemort (but leaves his body intact).

So there appears to be some sort of inconsistency between the three events; particularly the second attempt. We know that Harry approaches death with acceptance, and that he also has the deathly hallows; so is this what makes the difference between the three occasions. Does Voldemort collapse becuase he has killed part of his own soul in attempting to kill Harry, but the two of them are tethered to life by the last Horcrux in Nagini (given they are tethered to one another)? Dumbledore also says (when harry is dead) that the enchantment survives while Voldemort lives ie. the protection he has by living with the Dursley's is not the same as the protection afforded by his mothers sacrifice... is anyone else confused yet?  ::)

"Avada Kadavara" vs "Expelliamus" Brilliant,well done JK. I believe the whole series can be summed up with this curse and spell.

Brilliant Misty, I didn't think about the leaving Privet Drive = loss of Lily's protection.

Let me have a go... I'll take Kate's "points of inconsistency"

Not so much kill, as destroying his body. He was still tethered to life by his six (the horcrux created within Harry by means of Voldemort trying to kill him made the seventh). So in this situation we know why Voldemort “disappeared” – his body had gone, but his soul remained in existence thanks to his seven horcruxes. Harry survived because of the protection Lily gave him by protecting him from Voldemort. This makes sense so far.

My take is that the Avada Kedavra curse did not rebound because Harry made no attempt to counter it like he did later. The Elder wand, while not functioning perfectly for Voldemort, did the job and “killed” Harry, or to be more precise, killed the horcrux within Harry. It may be that the curse didn’t kill him because Harry-Elder wand connection.

Voldemort collapses because even he can’t fail to notice that he only has one bit of soul left (Nagini). His body is fine because nothing has happened to it – Harry didn’t try to counter the curse.

Following from the previous point, because Harry counters the spell this time around, the two spells rebound. As there are no shared wand cores in operation, there is no Priori Incantatem this time (as per GOF). The spells bounce off each other.

Now why would JK explain that the reason Voldemort copped a faceful of Avada Kedavra was because that the Elder wand would not work against its master, Harry? Couldn’t it just be because the spells happened to ricochet and he was just unlucky? Or, (and this is going deep into speculation territory) could it be because the nature of the wand gave it a evil, spiteful nature that revelled in the destruction of it’s master’s enemies?

I’m interested in hearing what other people have to say! :D

Slightly off topic on what we are currently debating but...

Was it ever explained (maybe in HBP, I cant remember) what the Veil was that Sirius fell through in OOTP??

I thought it would be clarified as there was so much mystery around it.

Before anyone thinks im being difficult, Ill just point out that Im happy with the way everything worked, and to me it didnt seem inconsistent. For the exact reasons Jo mentioned above, it all made sense. Particularly the attempt on Harrys life in the forest; It was quite clear to me that voldemort destroys his own horcrux; I assumed harry survived for one or more of the following reasons: he is the master of the eldar wand, he was submitting himself to death (ie sacrifice) and/or he had all three deathly hallows united...

Anyway, this guy at uni keeps debating it with me, and was after other peoples opinions-Im sure either way he still wont be satisfied!  ::)

Heehee - I don't think you're being difficult Kate, you're making me think about a highly confusing plot line and it's very helpful! ;D

I find the more I think about it, the more confused I get! I was perfectly happy to accept it at face value until my thoughts were questioned  :P

Thanks for your answer though, youve taken my back to my original conclusion  ;D

As if I wasn't confused enough, I had to come here and read all this.  I am content now in thinking that Harry survived in the forest because he had all three Hallows joined, Nagini was still alive, and the wand would not work against him.  I am still confused though as how Dumbledore says that because Voldemort had some of Harry's blood, it kept him alive.  Is it safe to assume that this means Harry was still alive because a small part of him (his blood in Voldemort) remained?

After the "19 years later", I too had more questions...like who is Headmaster now? Did George continue his joke shop in honor of Fred? 

I must say, for a children's book (which I don't think it is any longer), it really did have bits that you had to re-read to truly try and understand.  Other than that, I loved it!!!!!! Although, I really am a mess about Fred.  I woke up this morning and started to tear up again just thinking about it.  I never imagined that one of the twins might die.  I was a wreck with Dobby too.

Now, I have a question....can we make a lit of everyone who did die?  I am just curious to know the head count (not including all the unknown death eaters, obviously). Was Lavender Brown one of them?  I read that part twice. At first, I thought she was saved, but then when I read it again, I noticed it said thet Greyback jumped on one of the bodies and bit.  So, the second time I read that line, I thought that he had killed her before Trelawney sgtarted dropping those crystal balls on him.

Oh, and when did it mention that a Muggle later came in to Magic?  I must have missed that part.  Thru tears, it is sometimes hard to read.  Everything appears a bit blurry :rofl:

And I know this is not a big deal, but when Hagrid was carried off by the Spiders, there was no mention of Fang.  Do you think he died as well?

Sorry for all the questions ::)

I wish this had been mentioned but I suppose as JKR had said Sirius was really dead it was no longer important.  I seem to remember that the Veil was an execution devise - the wizards version of the electric chair.  What does make a bit more sense to me after this book is where the Veil lead to.  I now believe it took Sirius to his own version of Kings Cross (where Harry met DD).  The difference between Harry and Sirius though was that Harry still had a link to life (the Voldemort connection) but Sirius would have just passed 'into the light'.


My take on Lavender Brown was that she survived but was now a werewolf.

This was done on the Card Talk forum by dis68

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 1 Charity Burbage ( Professor of Muggle Studies )
 2 Hedwig
 3 Mad-Eye Moody
 4 Bathilda Bagshot
 5 Rufus Scrimgeour ( Minister of Magic )
 6 Ted Tonks  ( father of Nymphadora Tonks )
 7 Dirk Cresswell
 8 Gornuk ( Goblin  from Gringotts )
 9 Gregorovitch ( Wand maker )
 10 Gellert Grindelward
 11 Peter Pettigrew ( Wormtail )
 12 Dobby ( Freed House Elf )
 13 Remus Lupin
 13a Nymphadora Lupin ( nee Tonks )
 14 Vincent Crabbe
 15 Severus Snape
 16 Fred Weasley
 17 Colin Creevey
 18 Nagini ( Enchanted Snake / Horcrux )
 19 Antonin Dolohov ( Deatheater )
 20 Bellatrix Lestrange ( Deatheater )
 21 Lord Voldemor
plus about 50 unnamed others killed in The Battle of Hogwarts

The passage reads: Two bodies fell from the balcony overhead as they reached the ground, and a gray blur that Harry took for an animal sped four-legged across the hall to sink its teeth into one of the fallen.

"NO!" shrieked Hermione, and with a deafening blast from her wand, Fenrir Greyback was thrown backward from the feebly stirring body of Lavender Brown.

I took this to mean that Greyback ran to Lavender in order to bite her, but hadn't actually done so yet.  I think, IMHO, that if he'd bit her, the sentence would have read, "...an animal sped four-legged across the hall and sunk its teeth into one of the fallen."  The way JK wrote the sentence, it could go either way.

So the old man in the castle WAS Grindlewald? I was confused because of one line he said "I never really had it" (the Elder wand).

And I'm pretty certain Lavender wasn't bitten, I interpreted it like Cindy did

Must reread!

Hermione stopped Greyback before he could reach Lavender, so she should be fine. She was injured, but I was under the impression that she survived.

Yes, the man in the castle was Grindelwald.

I saw in an interview with JK that there is a new Headmaster of Hogwarts after 19 years (taking over for Minerva). She said that this identity will be revealed in the Encyclopedia she is going to write.

I think Dumbledore or someone at the end explained that Grindewald did have the wand, he just lied to Voldemort so he wouldnt know where the wand was. Im sure it was DD explaining it to harry, that he was surprised that he didnt give the wand up so easily....

Yes, I remember Harry saying that Grindelwald lied to Voldemort "at the end", and Dumbledore saying he had heard that Grindelwald had felt remorse in prison, and maybe that was his last bit to keep Voldemort from the wand, and Harry suggests that maybe he wanted to keep Voldemort from violating Dumbledore's tomb.  This make Dumbledore tear up a bit, I suppose he was remembering his friend, even though they turned out differently, he was thinking there was good in even Grindelwald, unlike Voldemort, who was totally unredeemable.

I am still wading my way through OotP again and have just read Snapes worst memory.  When Harry speaks to Sirius and Lupin in the fire they say that James and Snape hated each other at their first meeting.  I am now wondering if the reason James hated Snape so much was partly to do with jealousy over his relationship with Lily.  Yes James hated the Dark Arts and Snape was certainly into those but he was also on good terms with Lily at a point in their lives where James fancied her rotten but she didn't like him.

I all harks back to the power of love or perhaps I should say 'obsessive love' that Dumbledore was at such pains to make Harry appreciate the true meaning of.
I'm sure you're right Sharon - teenage love had everything to do with how Lily, James and Snape developed as people and their interactions with each other shaped the destinies of many long after Voldemort intervened ...

Was wondering today as I was watching Ootp today and knowing about Snapes feelings if the whole world would have been different if he hadn't of hung out with the wrong people and called her a M*dblood.

Didn't we see their first meeting in Hallows?  They are all talking about being sorted ?  Surely that was it.  Seems James was pretty much ignoring Lily at the beginning when Snape comes in.  Maybe a bit later his loathing of Snape had to do with Lily, and the power of obsessive love we heard about had everything to do with Snape hating James. 

Anyway, it was cool to go back to the beginning.  How weird would it be if you could be in the memory of the first time your parents ever laid eyes on each other?

The small maimed creature under the chair at kings cross, after voldemort tried to kill harry in the forest, was, i think that part of harry's soul that was lost when voldemort used harry's blood to rebirth himself. i think it was supposed to be there with dumbledore who was in fact dead and perhaps with the dead part of harry's soul. what do you think.
                                                                                                 dave

I thought it was Voldemort ...

I must admit I thought it was the Horcrux part of Voldemort's soul as well  :-\.  I assumed it was waiting there for all of the other parts to be 'killed' and then it would become whole again, but still distorted and diseased.  I sort of thought if Voldemort had shown remorse this would have cured the creature with DD and allowed him to be in some way redeemed.

I think it's was a piece of Voldemort's soul.  Dumbledore wouldn't have told Harry that there was nothing that could be done for it if it had been part of Harry.

I thought it was emphatically stated in the book that the creature was the Horcrux Voldemort accidentally & unknowingly created when he killed Lily Potter & tried to kill Harry.  There's quite a lot of description of Voldemort feeling a tearing & losing his body.

Yes, I agree, it is part of Voldemort's soul.  As Tialessa said, there is a pretty fair description of this part of the soul being ripped from the rest as Voldemort loses his body. 

And as kbmum said, if it was part of Harry, Dumbledore would know it could be helped, Hermione did the research on Horcruxes and said the only way to put the soul back together was extremely painful, that Voldemort would have to feel remorse, and "really feel what he had done" .  Not something he would ever do, so, as Dumbledore said to Harry, that thing was "beyond either of our help"   Also, doesn't Dumbledore say something to Harry like "your soul is whole and completely your own".  I think I'm remembering that right. 

I am halfway through the UK version to see if there are any major differences in it and the US version, so far nothing big.  Do any of you have both versions?  If so, have you read them both and are there any big differences?

Scholastic seems to have gotten better with that.  There were some big differences between the US and UK versions for the first three books, but fewer problems with the other books.  I haven't picked up the UK DH book yet, but when you're done reading the UK version, Misty, please post again (or PM me) and let us know if there were any real differences. :)

Has the US one got bigger print because there are supposed to be more pages.

I think the US one has pictures at the beginning of the chapters.

Ah yeah but is that 200 pages worth? I think thats the difference.

Hello all. I was wondering if I am the only one who thinks that Harry and Voldemort are related? The Deathly Hallows were first owned by three brothers: The Peverells; The Cloak came to Harry through Ignotus 's last living relative Harry's father. It is one of the Deathly Hallows. and the Ring  with the Resuurrection Stone in it came to Voldemort through Marvolo Gaunt his Grandfather.  I believe that this is important, but I don't know if it could come up in maybe another book? 19 years is along time alot can happen in that time? lol

Yes, you're quite right - Harry and Voldemort are distant cousins - I caught that little nugget a day or so after finishing reading (once I'd had a bit of time to digest all the little nuggets of information JKR had written.)  ;)

What I found the most interesting about Voldemort's "Pure Blood" movement was how many half-blood & muggle-born witches & wizards there were...  I just found it so odd that Voldemort who was himself not pure blood was only interested in pure blood witches & wizards...

Tom Riddle - witch mother, mundane father
Severus Snape - witch mother, mundane father
Harry Potter - wizard father, muggle-born mother
Seamus Finnegan - witch mother, mundane father
Hermione Granger - muggle-born
Dean Thomas (thanks Nienna) - thinks he's muggle born but per the HP Lexicon (JKR quote) wizard father, mundane mother

(I'd have to do research for more)

Dean Thomas is another to add to your list ...  ;)

Back to the US/UK versions...

The print is a little larger in the US version, but the book is also bigger (taller).  As for differences, like I said, I have not noticed anything yet other than spelling differences in these, but I think I heard somewhere that Half Blood Prince had significant differences in the US/UK versions in the chapter "The Lightning Struck Tower"  I do not have the UK version, so I can't confirm. 

Of course, I have heard some really silly things about differences - for instance, someone in the movie theater when I went to see Order of the Phoenix tried to tell me that all the UK versions had completely edited out Dean Thomas - that he is not in you versions at all.  Of course, I asked him who Ginny was kissing in the corridor if Dean did not exist, and he had no answer for that.  Why are some people determined to try to ruin HP for the rest of us?

When this was first revealed I immediately thought of Hitler - a short, dark haired Austrian with a disability who believed in a society made up entirely of able bodied, aryan Germans.  There are quite a few tyrants throughout history who are exactly what they are trying to destroy.  I am sure there is some fancy psychological term for this.

What I find more fascinating is why none the pure blood wizards, who are all fully aware of Voldemort's parenting, don't say "Hang on, the Dark Lord is a half blood, lets get him" or words to that effect  ;)

Yes I think of him too whenever anyone brings this up, Voldemort is just like Hilter, 'never mind what I am'

I thought that when I saw ootp and Bellatrix calls Harry a filthy half-blood, well whats your master then. Its why I thought Snape wasn't going to be the half blood prince as I assumed he would be pureblood.