Knocking off Fred was more than a bit frustrating, it was almost like she was pulling names out of a hat to decide who died. I’m also rather unclear - wasn’t the sorting hat burned? And if it was, what does the sorting at Hogwarts now? But Harry tells him that the hat listens, so, hey, guess they got someone to fix it up?
Best ‘blip’ appearance in the book - Former Divinations teacher and Hogwarts Resident, Trelawney, tossing crystal balls from her bag at the death eaters. Really, really got a kick out of that mention.
Most frustrating death: Fred, without a doubt. Come on, could have given Percy a chance to save his brother and redeem himself for being a twit.
Overall, it makes up for the previous two books, but I really would have liked to have read about this year from the perspective of one of the Hogwarts students.
The whole point was that Harry finally got to be what he always wanted - normal. He has a family who loves him (the Weasley family! A big family too.)
Fred’s death was the worst, yes. Lupin’s was off screen, so it had no impact. It took my three reads through the page before I could believe Fred was dead.
When we got there, we were refused entry - we didn’t have one of the precious wrist bands they had issued an hour earlier, thus, we weren’t going to be permitted into the store, nor permitted to purchase the books we had reserved.
I called my credit card company to cancel the charges, and it was handled in moments, American Express had heard from a great number of customers across the country as they too were denied books at various stores, and there wasn’t the slightest bit of hesitation as it was canceled.
Instead, we went to our local Walmart, got in line, got wrist bands from a sorting hat, posters, book marks, and the coveted books, all with the minimum of fuss and muss. Made additional purchases while there, and we were out the door with our purchases while there was still a huge line left to process across the street at the B&N.
I can not fathom why, after getting a confirmation e-mail from the store of our reservation, and double checking the day before that we were on ‘the list’, that B&N would choose to treat their customers in this manner. But it does make us realize just how stupid a company can be on what is realistically one of their most important sales days in two years.
I made a commitment to buy, they made a commitment to sell, and I tried to keep up my end of the bargain, shame they couldn’t put forward the same effort. I’ll have to think twice before going there again.
What happened to the sorting hat!?!?!? The school just goes to the web and buys a new one.
http://harrypotter.wbshop.com/cat/Harry-Potter-Sorting-Hat.html?referral_id=GGLHPCL
In the Great Hall, after everything was over, kids from the different houses were sitting all mixed together, at the tables. The book gave the impression that that was the way it should be, in the future. If that's the case, there'd be no need for a sorting hat. Didn't the sorting hat say just that in the previous two books?
I was really hoping that the epilogue would be the totally cliche, Hollywood-style "Where are they now?" of the characters, and that HP's future would be Minister of Magic and include twelve children, bringing Trelawney's number of accurate predictions up to three.
Galbaraithian Fire?
Not at all. I knew one of Fred or George was going to die after the 6th book. One of Rowlings' points was that war is horribly expensive, and that the good guys often get killed.
She had to kill a Weasley, and it had to be somebody who mattered to us. That left Molly, Arthur, Ginny, and Fred/George. Of those, the twins were the obvious target.
My prediction was based on personal considerations: my grandfather lost his twin brother in WWI -- it strongly affected two entire generations of our family after that. I knew Rowling would have seen the plot possibilities there.