my thoughts on harry potter - "deathly hallows" SPOILERS!
"harry potter and the deathly hallows"
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chapter 33, "the prince's tale", p 552.
Dumbledore turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
"After all this time?"
"Always," said Snape.
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the book was tragic, heartbreaking and beautiful. i'll keep the series close to my heart forever.
i bought the book august 10th, and i finished it 16 days later. my god, it feels like much longer ago...
i read the last chapters (thirty-two till the end) this afternoon, i didn't mean to finish the book today, but i couldn't stop myself.
very great and epic last chapters... first fred died, and then snape... oh snape.
it broke my heart because if there was one character i didn't want to die, it was snape. because i KNEW that snape was on dumbledore's side. even at the end of "harry potter and the half-blood prince", i knew that dumbledore must have asked snape to kill him... i had assumed it was to keep snape's cover, but turns out it was because dumbledore would die anyways because of the ring's curse. but i did know, i felt it!, that snape was good, and ever since harry saw snape's memory of being humiliated by james i felt so much sympathy for him, and i wished that he wouldn't be killed off. he did die, however, and i can only hope that he knew how important he was, and that he made llily proud... i realise he probably couldn't have known when he died: at that time he still thought that harry was supposed to die, right?, and that he had failed at protecting lily's son.... but i hope that, wherever he went when he died (king's cross!), he realised that he DIDN'T fail, and that lily is grateful and forgiving, and that she loves him.
of course there were good and heartwarming moments too. the long awaited ron and hermione parts were beautifully done: when harry sees ron and hermione sleep and wonders whether they fell asleep holding hands, when ron came back (i had really disliked the chapters before with ron gone, he came back just in time if you ask me!), when the locket tortured ron by showing a kissing harry and hermione, and how harry told him there was nothing like that between them, and then finally the part during the hogwarts battle where hermione drops her basilisk fangs and kisses ron. wow! the battle of hogwarts in general was very impressive and epic, i loved the part where mrs weasly kicked the hell out of that bellatrix hag! and i got all teared up when neville took the gryffindor sword and beheaded nagini! that was... amazing. when i'd read that, my heart jumped and i immediately thought of the young neville... with his toad, who always forgot the password, stuff like that... and look at him now: one of the bravest of them all, and killing off the last horcrux... hats off to jk rowling for setting this up since book one, it was incredibly moving.
(i'll add more thoughts if they come up. currently i'm still totally overwhelmed and saddened by snape's death. this was all i could think of right now.)
harry potter: the series
it's so weird that it's finished now. i've been reading harry potter since i was 14 years old. i remember reading the first one for my english class in my third year of high school, and getting hooked, asking the others for christmas. i read "the chamber of sercrets" that christmas break while listening to a jennifer lopez cd ("this is me... then" it was). i read the third one the next christmas, i think, then reread the first two before i saw the movie of "the prisoner of azkaban". then i read "the goblet of fire" in my last year of high school i believe. the last three - "order of the phoenix", "half-blood prince" and "deathly hallows" - i read in the past 12 months: the first one partly during college class breaks, the last two during this summer vacation.
the harry potter books have been a part of my life for almost five years now, and it means a lot.
these books deserve to become classics, right up there with "the lord of the rings", as it is of the same rare quality and same good heart.
i won't forget.
(and if my futur husband won't let me name my child "harry", "ron" or "hermione" i won't marry him.)