yes, yes, that book - meta? of sorts
I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
First. I cried. I cried while I was reading, for a number of reasons. I cried in the last one hundred pages, harder than I ever have for any chapter in the series. Not for Sirius' death or Dumbledore's death. Not for Cedric or the past of Snape.
It was for all the deaths. J.K. Rowling killed off one after another and it seemed to go on and on and on. Each time a new chapter came on, I expected another character to die and it was unexpectedly hard to read. I've read stories where the heroes die, where it's just the hard luck of what reality is and this was difficult for me to read. I couldn't think of any snappy one-liners, I couldn't create funny AU scenarios in my head, and I laughed at the funny bits and then it made me cry all the harder later on. Baby? Perhaps. I think, right now, I wouldn't mind that title.
I don't even know where to start. I could start at the fact that we lost Moody in the very beginning. I could start with all the miscellaneous deaths that just kept piling up one by one. I could talk about Aberforth and just how much I love him now. I could talk about Grindelwald and his relationship to Albus and... and just what the difference between him and Voldemort was. I could talk about Harry and Ginny and how it still didn't feel exactly right. I could talk about Luna. I could talk about Percy. I could talk about Lupin.
... but I think I'll start with Severus Snape.
Snape: Redemption. That is quite possibly the only word that can describe the final revealing of Severus Snape's past. Snape's love for Lily from the time of childhood is the stuff of fairy tales. He loved her, loves her, and never stopped loving her. Voldemort would call her Snape's one weakness, but in the end, it was Lily who was Snape's one rallying spot of strength.
I had gone into this book expecting Snape to die. From the end of the sixth book and with all of Rowling's talk about characters dying, I was pretty much certain he was going to go kablooey before the end. He did. And when he did I burst into wild, uncontrollable sobs. I couldn't stop. I actually had to put the book down and weep into my blankets for the longest time until I finally got my snuffling to sniffling. His death tore me to little bitty pieces and then some.
His reaching up to Harry so give him one last thing to help him? The memories? And then Snape whispering for Harry to look at him so Snape could stare into Lily's green eyes as he died? Fucking TRAGIC. The whole chapter, "The Prince's Story" was a fucking TRAGEDY. Snape's life has been a series of mishaps and misunderstandings and he tried so hard and h e never stopped. Lily's green eyes were never important to Harry. Rowling had focused on them because they were the force behind Snape's love and hate for Harry Potter. It made sense of his sacrifices, of his deceptions. Everything that Snape has ever done came to bear fruit in my mind after he died. His simultaneous love and hate for Harry because of his love for Lily? Had me curled up in my chair, crying some more.
He was not a part of this book, not a great deal. I wondered how he felt as he fled the wands of McGonagall and the other teachers? Did he feel regret? Did he feel pain? Or did he just simply do the Snape thing and move onto the next goal and target? Snape dying, in the end, was the only closing that could have been given to Snape and maybe, just maybe, he understands it himself. In a way, I felt that this fit Snape, that his decades of unrequited love would spiral to an end where he dies protecting one last person, one last thing.
What little we got of Snape? EFFING AWESOME. Him not being able to save some of the people, because Dumbledore needs him for the Greater Good. Him trying his damndest to protect Lily's son, only to find out in the sixth book that Dumbledore was sending Harry out to slaughter. Him not punishing the mini-rebellion Hogwarts with any real punishment. And then his patronus. Him leading Harry to the sword, his patronus being Lily's, just everything about it.
Snape was the character of major redemption and it showed.
Dumbledore, Aberforth, Grindelwald:
I bet a lot of people were like me and completely blown away by the Dumbledore and Grindelwald backstory. I was just floored.
Dumbledore has never been my favourite character, but he has been a character I found fascinating, interesting, and all those pretty little adjectives. I considered him ruthless, precise, arrogant, and way more like Voldemort than people gave him credit for. And somehow? Rowling did it. Dumbledore is complex and amazing and it made me cry. I've never cried over Dumbledore, and I cried over him. The scene of the duel between Aberforth, Grindelwald, and Albus is just glued in my head and the lifelong guilt Albus felt from that point on. I felt my mouth drop as I traced the beginning of the tragedy, how three Muggle children destroyed their happiness and how, in the end, Dumbledore was presented as this flawed, imperfect human being that I felt I wanted to love.
We are nothing but a sum of our parts and Dumbledore, with his ambition and arrogance, wanted to be larger, wanted to be a leader, wanted to share the glory for the 'greater good' with his friend. But. He became self-aware. He knew he couldn't handle great amounts of power. He knew that he couldn't be trusted, and with that, I think that's when I really fell in love with Albus Dumbledore. He was a manipulative, self-righteous wizard who was as ruthless as Voldemort... but at the same time, he wasn't. He could see his weaknesses and he could put them into words; he avoided facing Gindelwald for five years, avoided the responsibility because he couldn't face the idea of dueling his friend and finding out who really set off the spell that killed his sister, Ariana. This was one particular aspect that really set me off, because Dumbledore stretched out the war because he was scared. Yeah.
I am incoherent with my love for Dumbledore right now.
I loved the contrast between Grindelwald and Voldemort and how they were both Dark Lords, but in the end, Grindelwald had that spark and understanding of love that Voldemort did not. He tried to keep the secret of the Eldar wand from Voldemort and it cost him his life... and it was a wonderful thing pointed out by Harry, of all people, that Grindelwald might not have done it so much for repentance as for the fact that he didn't want Voldemort to desecrate Dumbledore's tomb.
Aberforth's part in this really just sealed Albus' character. Here was a man who hated his brother and he was not the slightly comical figure we were led to believe. He has a bitterness toward Albus and the bitterness has never subsided. And that was one of the unbelievably tragic bits about the life of Dumbledore and on.
The Weasleys:
Fred's death was not so much about Fred's death, but rather for George. George is going to spend the rest of his life finishing his own sentences, bringing joy to a world all by himself, and never being able to look in a mirror without thinking of his brother. It was ironic that with Percy's return and his subsequent partnership with Fred, Fred died with Percy right by him and Percy's inability to cope with it. I loved that, loved how Percy made a joke right before Fred dies and how Fred appreciated it, and that just set the tearducts off. Seriously, I think Fred's been waiting all his life to hear a proper joke from Percy and he got to hear it right before he died. Seriously, yo.
Percy coming back to his family just made me cry, because, dude, it was the shortest reunion in history and it somehow worked out.
P: I'm here to help out - oh, hello.
Everyone: *awkward silence*
Remus and Fleur: *attempts to fill in silence*
P: I am a git!
Family: Yes, you are.
P: Forgive me?
Family: YAY.
I'd totally expected Percy to bite the dust and he didn't. Whoa.
I knew the Weasley family was going to lose at least one person, though I'm wondering whether Fred was one of the two main characters Rowling said would die.
Lupin:
Well. Lupin. This was a frustrating book for me because we kept jumping back and forth on Lupin's character. In retrospect, I feel like his character was added to quite a bit from this crisis. Lupin literally cannot stand the idea of his passing on the werewolf trait to his child and the fight that results between Harry and Lupin is fantastic. This is an adult fight, an adult argument, a showdown between equals. Thumbs up.
Lupin and Tonks dying irritated me. Read further on for why.
Relationships:
I admit, there was a lot about the relationships that just didn't strike right with me. Here's the thing; for me, Tonks was awesome and cool and then she went and got all mousy and depressed about Lupin. That never worked for me and though I partially wanted it to work, it just didn't. For one thing, when I read that they were married, I went, WTF? I couldn't see Lupin and Tonks married and maybe that's my Snape and Lupin bias showing.
Ron and Hermione? Worked out for me.
Ginny and Harry? Actually, better than before. I could see it, though I still got a bit, um, uncomfortable whenever Harry describes his longing for Ginny and at catching sight of her, like, everywhere. It was a bit disconcerting.
Fleur and Bill are made of about ten million things of cute. ;)
In general, I liked this book quite a deal more than the sixth one if just for the fact that this kept itself distanced from the romance.
The Malfoy Family:
I admit, I wasn't expecting much from the Malfoy family. They were pretty much finished from the sixth book, but... we got a surprisingly detailed look at their familial dynamics in this particular cover. Draco is a coward, a little prick, but he tries in his own cowardly way to save them. He refuses to confirm they are who they are and I found that interesting. I don't think I'm ever going to like Draco Malfoy the way I first liked him, but with this book, I found his small attempts of resistance (however weak they seem) to be particularly telling. Also, his attempts to stop Crabbe and Goyle was an interesting touch, especially since he mourned Crabbe while the old Draco might not have.
Another thing was the love the Malfoy parents had for their only son. They were essentially removed from the fight for all of the book and the only concern on their mind was to survive, but more importantly, to make sure their son survives.
I flew into pieces. The scene where Lucius and Narcissa run around in Hogwarts? They aren't fighting, they aren't protecting, they not doing anything but look for their only son. That really drove the point home that this is family that has been manipulated and while Lucius is a bastard who's destroyed hundreds of lives, I've got to give him credit for loving his son.
But... I think the full credit goes to Narcissa, who performs one of the gutsiest deeds I've read yet. She lies to Voldemort, right in front of his face and all the Death Eaters about Harry Potter.
He could hear the woman's fast breating, her long hair tickled his face. He knew that she could feel the steady pounding of life against his ribs.
'Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?'
The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers.
'Yes,' he whispered.
Pretty cool, I think. Rowling did an amazing job with the mothers in this series and how they might have different goals, different philosophies, different personalities, but that their love for their children seem to be almost absolute. Lily did everything she could to save Harry, and Narcissa would do anything she could to save Draco.
The Slytherins:
With all the gray shades going on and the battles raging, I'd been expecting a little bit more from the Slytherins. I was expecting, well, at least a few to stay behind to fight. Admittedly, Horace Slughorn came bounding back with people to fight, so we had one. Snape dying to save the world was another. But it's hard to ignore the fact that it seemed like there were no Slytherins involved in much of the Battle of Hogwarts.
Rowling, through Harry, has lost most of her dislike of Slytherin House, but it's obvious she didn't really quite know what to do with the House that everyone hates. She can't just do away with the place because Slytherins are a necessity, but she did have them have a fairly good ending. Being a Slytherin is no longer a terrible thing, and perhaps Harry and Draco's attempts to be civil to each other finally paid off.
Harry walked into the arms of Voldemort, fully expecting to die. That, alone, was enough to redeem his past two books of fury and emotional angst.
From the moment Harry finds out the 'truth', the walk from the Headmaster's Office to the battle... it was like one long, beautiful story of Harry walking to his death and Rowling was absolutely brilliant in this part. Just how do you face the fact that you are going to die for the 'Greater Good'? How do you not reveal that to your best mates? How do you look upon your friends and know that you will never see them again? Harry was willing to sacrifice his life so that everyone at Hogwarts could be protected and that was just so utterly tragic and wonderful and I wondered, somewhat, if Snape's sacrifice had in part helped him choose?
Surprising, unexpected, and utterly lovely.
The image of Harry holding the snitch close to his mouth and saying, "I am about to die." will probably resonate in my head for a long time to come.
I loved Dumbledore and Harry's last conversation. I sat there and bawled my eyes out because this is where Dumbledore finally became a real human being rather than this infallible, inscrutable man who seemed to know everything. It was lots of profound and I couldn't help but want to quote every few sentences. Dumbledore's love for Harry was something that was concrete and real, but his need to use Harry was also the same way.
'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?'
Random and their Win
* Dobby and his dying for Harry.
* Harry digging a grave by hand. That broke my heart all over again.
* Hedwig and the fact that Harry had to blow her up so that he and Hagrid could be saved.
* Pansy and her standing up to yell Harry's name. I found that interesting, especially since she knows most will stand against her.
* The return of Cho and Ginny's jealousy. Huh.
* Colin Creevey dying and Oliver Wood hefting him over his shoulders. I don't know why, but that picture of earnest little Colin dead made my heart constrict.
* Flying!Snape.
* Charlie's haircut.
* Luna's dad and his attempts to protect his daughter. I actually feel no ill will to him for that. He did what he felt he needed to do, and that is that.
* Crabbe turning on Draco and Goyle not. Yet.
* Ron remembering the House Elves. He's come a long way, hasn't he?
* Trelawney finally getting some actions and her raining crystal balls down on the Death Eaters. Haha.
* The school staff finally showing their true mettle. Flitwick and impossibly complex charms, Sprout and her dangerous plants, McGonagall taking full control of the situation.
* Harry revealing himself because someone spat at McGonagall. I just about laughed till I cried.
* Luna keeping Ollivander safe and sane.
* Mad-Eye being the first to go.
There's so much more, but I'm about to expire from exhaustion.
A Circle:
One thing about this book was how much it went back to the first book and others. So many familiar spots, so many familiar plants and spells and just plain ideas. It was as if this was one of those RPG worlds where you're supposed to rely on past ideas and treasures in order to rise through the darkness and defeat it.
Off the top of my head, the Expelliarmus spell; one of Harry's signature spells and the one he used against Voldemort.
'Are you a wizard or not?' - Hermione's line to Ron, an echo of what was in the first book.
Godric's Hollow, 12th Grimmauld Place, the Burrow, the Ministry of Magic.
King's Cross.
Harry couldn't stopper death. But he stoppered Snape's memories.
The Mirror of Erised.
DUDE. THERE ARE TOO MANY THINGS. I NEED SLEEP
Gotta stop there or I'm going to end up dead from lack of sleep.
First. I cried. I cried while I was reading, for a number of reasons. I cried in the last one hundred pages, harder than I ever have for any chapter in the series. Not for Sirius' death or Dumbledore's death. Not for Cedric or the past of Snape.
It was for all the deaths. J.K. Rowling killed off one after another and it seemed to go on and on and on. Each time a new chapter came on, I expected another character to die and it was unexpectedly hard to read. I've read stories where the heroes die, where it's just the hard luck of what reality is and this was difficult for me to read. I couldn't think of any snappy one-liners, I couldn't create funny AU scenarios in my head, and I laughed at the funny bits and then it made me cry all the harder later on. Baby? Perhaps. I think, right now, I wouldn't mind that title.
I don't even know where to start. I could start at the fact that we lost Moody in the very beginning. I could start with all the miscellaneous deaths that just kept piling up one by one. I could talk about Aberforth and just how much I love him now. I could talk about Grindelwald and his relationship to Albus and... and just what the difference between him and Voldemort was. I could talk about Harry and Ginny and how it still didn't feel exactly right. I could talk about Luna. I could talk about Percy. I could talk about Lupin.
... but I think I'll start with Severus Snape.
Snape: Redemption. That is quite possibly the only word that can describe the final revealing of Severus Snape's past. Snape's love for Lily from the time of childhood is the stuff of fairy tales. He loved her, loves her, and never stopped loving her. Voldemort would call her Snape's one weakness, but in the end, it was Lily who was Snape's one rallying spot of strength.
I had gone into this book expecting Snape to die. From the end of the sixth book and with all of Rowling's talk about characters dying, I was pretty much certain he was going to go kablooey before the end. He did. And when he did I burst into wild, uncontrollable sobs. I couldn't stop. I actually had to put the book down and weep into my blankets for the longest time until I finally got my snuffling to sniffling. His death tore me to little bitty pieces and then some.
His reaching up to Harry so give him one last thing to help him? The memories? And then Snape whispering for Harry to look at him so Snape could stare into Lily's green eyes as he died? Fucking TRAGIC. The whole chapter, "The Prince's Story" was a fucking TRAGEDY. Snape's life has been a series of mishaps and misunderstandings and he tried so hard and h e never stopped. Lily's green eyes were never important to Harry. Rowling had focused on them because they were the force behind Snape's love and hate for Harry Potter. It made sense of his sacrifices, of his deceptions. Everything that Snape has ever done came to bear fruit in my mind after he died. His simultaneous love and hate for Harry because of his love for Lily? Had me curled up in my chair, crying some more.
He was not a part of this book, not a great deal. I wondered how he felt as he fled the wands of McGonagall and the other teachers? Did he feel regret? Did he feel pain? Or did he just simply do the Snape thing and move onto the next goal and target? Snape dying, in the end, was the only closing that could have been given to Snape and maybe, just maybe, he understands it himself. In a way, I felt that this fit Snape, that his decades of unrequited love would spiral to an end where he dies protecting one last person, one last thing.
What little we got of Snape? EFFING AWESOME. Him not being able to save some of the people, because Dumbledore needs him for the Greater Good. Him trying his damndest to protect Lily's son, only to find out in the sixth book that Dumbledore was sending Harry out to slaughter. Him not punishing the mini-rebellion Hogwarts with any real punishment. And then his patronus. Him leading Harry to the sword, his patronus being Lily's, just everything about it.
Snape was the character of major redemption and it showed.
Dumbledore, Aberforth, Grindelwald:
I bet a lot of people were like me and completely blown away by the Dumbledore and Grindelwald backstory. I was just floored.
Dumbledore has never been my favourite character, but he has been a character I found fascinating, interesting, and all those pretty little adjectives. I considered him ruthless, precise, arrogant, and way more like Voldemort than people gave him credit for. And somehow? Rowling did it. Dumbledore is complex and amazing and it made me cry. I've never cried over Dumbledore, and I cried over him. The scene of the duel between Aberforth, Grindelwald, and Albus is just glued in my head and the lifelong guilt Albus felt from that point on. I felt my mouth drop as I traced the beginning of the tragedy, how three Muggle children destroyed their happiness and how, in the end, Dumbledore was presented as this flawed, imperfect human being that I felt I wanted to love.
We are nothing but a sum of our parts and Dumbledore, with his ambition and arrogance, wanted to be larger, wanted to be a leader, wanted to share the glory for the 'greater good' with his friend. But. He became self-aware. He knew he couldn't handle great amounts of power. He knew that he couldn't be trusted, and with that, I think that's when I really fell in love with Albus Dumbledore. He was a manipulative, self-righteous wizard who was as ruthless as Voldemort... but at the same time, he wasn't. He could see his weaknesses and he could put them into words; he avoided facing Gindelwald for five years, avoided the responsibility because he couldn't face the idea of dueling his friend and finding out who really set off the spell that killed his sister, Ariana. This was one particular aspect that really set me off, because Dumbledore stretched out the war because he was scared. Yeah.
I am incoherent with my love for Dumbledore right now.
I loved the contrast between Grindelwald and Voldemort and how they were both Dark Lords, but in the end, Grindelwald had that spark and understanding of love that Voldemort did not. He tried to keep the secret of the Eldar wand from Voldemort and it cost him his life... and it was a wonderful thing pointed out by Harry, of all people, that Grindelwald might not have done it so much for repentance as for the fact that he didn't want Voldemort to desecrate Dumbledore's tomb.
Aberforth's part in this really just sealed Albus' character. Here was a man who hated his brother and he was not the slightly comical figure we were led to believe. He has a bitterness toward Albus and the bitterness has never subsided. And that was one of the unbelievably tragic bits about the life of Dumbledore and on.
The Weasleys:
Fred's death was not so much about Fred's death, but rather for George. George is going to spend the rest of his life finishing his own sentences, bringing joy to a world all by himself, and never being able to look in a mirror without thinking of his brother. It was ironic that with Percy's return and his subsequent partnership with Fred, Fred died with Percy right by him and Percy's inability to cope with it. I loved that, loved how Percy made a joke right before Fred dies and how Fred appreciated it, and that just set the tearducts off. Seriously, I think Fred's been waiting all his life to hear a proper joke from Percy and he got to hear it right before he died. Seriously, yo.
Percy coming back to his family just made me cry, because, dude, it was the shortest reunion in history and it somehow worked out.
P: I'm here to help out - oh, hello.
Everyone: *awkward silence*
Remus and Fleur: *attempts to fill in silence*
P: I am a git!
Family: Yes, you are.
P: Forgive me?
Family: YAY.
I'd totally expected Percy to bite the dust and he didn't. Whoa.
I knew the Weasley family was going to lose at least one person, though I'm wondering whether Fred was one of the two main characters Rowling said would die.
Lupin:
Well. Lupin. This was a frustrating book for me because we kept jumping back and forth on Lupin's character. In retrospect, I feel like his character was added to quite a bit from this crisis. Lupin literally cannot stand the idea of his passing on the werewolf trait to his child and the fight that results between Harry and Lupin is fantastic. This is an adult fight, an adult argument, a showdown between equals. Thumbs up.
Lupin and Tonks dying irritated me. Read further on for why.
Relationships:
I admit, there was a lot about the relationships that just didn't strike right with me. Here's the thing; for me, Tonks was awesome and cool and then she went and got all mousy and depressed about Lupin. That never worked for me and though I partially wanted it to work, it just didn't. For one thing, when I read that they were married, I went, WTF? I couldn't see Lupin and Tonks married and maybe that's my Snape and Lupin bias showing.
Ron and Hermione? Worked out for me.
Ginny and Harry? Actually, better than before. I could see it, though I still got a bit, um, uncomfortable whenever Harry describes his longing for Ginny and at catching sight of her, like, everywhere. It was a bit disconcerting.
Fleur and Bill are made of about ten million things of cute. ;)
In general, I liked this book quite a deal more than the sixth one if just for the fact that this kept itself distanced from the romance.
The Malfoy Family:
I admit, I wasn't expecting much from the Malfoy family. They were pretty much finished from the sixth book, but... we got a surprisingly detailed look at their familial dynamics in this particular cover. Draco is a coward, a little prick, but he tries in his own cowardly way to save them. He refuses to confirm they are who they are and I found that interesting. I don't think I'm ever going to like Draco Malfoy the way I first liked him, but with this book, I found his small attempts of resistance (however weak they seem) to be particularly telling. Also, his attempts to stop Crabbe and Goyle was an interesting touch, especially since he mourned Crabbe while the old Draco might not have.
Another thing was the love the Malfoy parents had for their only son. They were essentially removed from the fight for all of the book and the only concern on their mind was to survive, but more importantly, to make sure their son survives.
I flew into pieces. The scene where Lucius and Narcissa run around in Hogwarts? They aren't fighting, they aren't protecting, they not doing anything but look for their only son. That really drove the point home that this is family that has been manipulated and while Lucius is a bastard who's destroyed hundreds of lives, I've got to give him credit for loving his son.
But... I think the full credit goes to Narcissa, who performs one of the gutsiest deeds I've read yet. She lies to Voldemort, right in front of his face and all the Death Eaters about Harry Potter.
He could hear the woman's fast breating, her long hair tickled his face. He knew that she could feel the steady pounding of life against his ribs.
'Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?'
The whisper was barely audible; her lips were an inch from his ear, her head bent so low that her long hair shielded his face from the onlookers.
'Yes,' he whispered.
Pretty cool, I think. Rowling did an amazing job with the mothers in this series and how they might have different goals, different philosophies, different personalities, but that their love for their children seem to be almost absolute. Lily did everything she could to save Harry, and Narcissa would do anything she could to save Draco.
The Slytherins:
With all the gray shades going on and the battles raging, I'd been expecting a little bit more from the Slytherins. I was expecting, well, at least a few to stay behind to fight. Admittedly, Horace Slughorn came bounding back with people to fight, so we had one. Snape dying to save the world was another. But it's hard to ignore the fact that it seemed like there were no Slytherins involved in much of the Battle of Hogwarts.
Rowling, through Harry, has lost most of her dislike of Slytherin House, but it's obvious she didn't really quite know what to do with the House that everyone hates. She can't just do away with the place because Slytherins are a necessity, but she did have them have a fairly good ending. Being a Slytherin is no longer a terrible thing, and perhaps Harry and Draco's attempts to be civil to each other finally paid off.
Harry walked into the arms of Voldemort, fully expecting to die. That, alone, was enough to redeem his past two books of fury and emotional angst.
From the moment Harry finds out the 'truth', the walk from the Headmaster's Office to the battle... it was like one long, beautiful story of Harry walking to his death and Rowling was absolutely brilliant in this part. Just how do you face the fact that you are going to die for the 'Greater Good'? How do you not reveal that to your best mates? How do you look upon your friends and know that you will never see them again? Harry was willing to sacrifice his life so that everyone at Hogwarts could be protected and that was just so utterly tragic and wonderful and I wondered, somewhat, if Snape's sacrifice had in part helped him choose?
Surprising, unexpected, and utterly lovely.
The image of Harry holding the snitch close to his mouth and saying, "I am about to die." will probably resonate in my head for a long time to come.
I loved Dumbledore and Harry's last conversation. I sat there and bawled my eyes out because this is where Dumbledore finally became a real human being rather than this infallible, inscrutable man who seemed to know everything. It was lots of profound and I couldn't help but want to quote every few sentences. Dumbledore's love for Harry was something that was concrete and real, but his need to use Harry was also the same way.
'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?'
Random and their Win
* Dobby and his dying for Harry.
* Harry digging a grave by hand. That broke my heart all over again.
* Hedwig and the fact that Harry had to blow her up so that he and Hagrid could be saved.
* Pansy and her standing up to yell Harry's name. I found that interesting, especially since she knows most will stand against her.
* The return of Cho and Ginny's jealousy. Huh.
* Colin Creevey dying and Oliver Wood hefting him over his shoulders. I don't know why, but that picture of earnest little Colin dead made my heart constrict.
* Flying!Snape.
* Charlie's haircut.
* Luna's dad and his attempts to protect his daughter. I actually feel no ill will to him for that. He did what he felt he needed to do, and that is that.
* Crabbe turning on Draco and Goyle not. Yet.
* Ron remembering the House Elves. He's come a long way, hasn't he?
* Trelawney finally getting some actions and her raining crystal balls down on the Death Eaters. Haha.
* The school staff finally showing their true mettle. Flitwick and impossibly complex charms, Sprout and her dangerous plants, McGonagall taking full control of the situation.
* Harry revealing himself because someone spat at McGonagall. I just about laughed till I cried.
* Luna keeping Ollivander safe and sane.
* Mad-Eye being the first to go.
There's so much more, but I'm about to expire from exhaustion.
A Circle:
One thing about this book was how much it went back to the first book and others. So many familiar spots, so many familiar plants and spells and just plain ideas. It was as if this was one of those RPG worlds where you're supposed to rely on past ideas and treasures in order to rise through the darkness and defeat it.
Off the top of my head, the Expelliarmus spell; one of Harry's signature spells and the one he used against Voldemort.
'Are you a wizard or not?' - Hermione's line to Ron, an echo of what was in the first book.
Godric's Hollow, 12th Grimmauld Place, the Burrow, the Ministry of Magic.
King's Cross.
Harry couldn't stopper death. But he stoppered Snape's memories.
The Mirror of Erised.
DUDE. THERE ARE TOO MANY THINGS. I NEED SLEEP
Gotta stop there or I'm going to end up dead from lack of sleep.