Took me just over 12 hours straight, with minimal interruptions, to finish the book. Rose is just now finishing it... I handed it to her when I finished it last night at 12:30, and she stayed up all night reading it.
Some of my reactions:
Biggest surprise for me was that Snape had known Lily from childhood.
Deaths that affected me most, Remus and Tonks. I really wanted them to have a happy ending, and I actually found it a bit more heart-wrenching to have it happen "off-screen".
Really neat moments for me, Ron facing his own doubts and fears as he destroyed the amulet, and Neville pulling out the sword and killing Nagini. I always suspected Neville would have an important role to play in destroying Voldemort... after all, he *could* have been "The Boy Who Lived".
And speaking of the Horcruxes... am I mistaken, or was each one destroyed by a different person?
The first, the diary, was destroyed by Harry;
The second, the ring, destroyed by Dumbledore;
The third, the amulet, destroyed by Ron;
The fourth, the cup, destroyed by Hermione (not sure about that one, have to wait until Rose finishes the book to check it)
The fifth, the diadem, destroyed by Crabbe's fire;
The sixth, Nagini, killed by Neville;
and the seventh, within Harry, killed by Voldemort, and of course Voldemort effectively killing himself via his rebounded Death Curse against Harry.
(by the way, I found the "child-creature" in the background of Harry's conversation with Dumbledore to be reeeealy creepy!)
Figured it would be nice to have a chat place about the book once finished :-)
Remus’s death was so anti-climactic, it barely hit me. If I’d seen it it would have been much worse. As it was, I’d been expecting it Though not Tonks’. Very sad to have the story end so symmetrically, with a orphan boy whose parents died to stop Voldemort.
You are correct about who destroyed each! Interesting that Crabbe, the only one not conscious of what he was doing, lost his life in destroying it. There might be something there. And there’s an odd symmetry to some of them.... Crabbe destroys a diadem of wisdom, Hermione destroys Hufflepuff’s cup (surely if there is any non-Hufflepuff student in the school, it’s Hermione), Ron destroys the Slytherin locket that brings bitter jealousy, Dumbledore the ring that he wanted to use to bring back his past. It’s almost like they are destroying what might have been a possibilty for their own life if they’d made other choices. I shall have to think about that.
What was that supposed to represent in the background of King’s Cross?
I assumed that was Voldemort. Wasn't that sort of how he was described after the first attempt at killing Harry went wrong?
See pages 622-623, which include another of my favorite lines:
"It was nothing," said Ron, though he looked delighted with himself. "So what's new with you?"
There is another way their destruction could be credited:
Five destroyed by his Basilisk's poison: the diary, the cup, and after being absorbed by the by sword, the ring, locket and finally the other snake.
One by his Death Eater Crabbe's son's spell.
One (and the final LV part as well) by LV himself.
Thus LV was killed by a favorite pet, his dumbest supporter, and two doses of personal stupidity. Use that as his epitaph!
Kudos. Good summation of the Horcruxes’ destruction.
Yes, that crying baby is definitely a key image.
I’ve reread the King’s Cross chapter twice
more just to focus on the specifics of the scene.
Rowling is surely describing Harry as waking at the
gates of Heaven. He accepts the place as another
Room of Requirement. He and that flayed baby
are alone there until he is about to touch it...
VOILA! Dumbledore appears. How indeed? IMO
Rowling is recalling Milton’s oft used quote:
“The mind is its own place, and in itself,
can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.”
Even more, p. 709 alludes to a Christian image
with the blood being used to rebuild the body
and the mother’s blessing being carried in that
blood. And how fitting that for the whimpering baby
(Voldemort) ‘there is no help possible.’
Harry repeatedly turns to view it until the
moment HE becomes the mentor of the self-doubting Dumbledore (was I any better than V.? I too tried
to master Death) by reminding him that Dumbledore
chose HALLOWS not HORCRUXES.
So much for the critics who claim the HP series
is dangerou for kids to read: the real message is
there...Good conquers Evil; piety supercedes
self-inflicted ignorance and sacrilege.
But I still don’t buy the claim that JKR wrote
this book FIRST and the others later. I’ll give
her the EPILOGUE as the early write, of course, but
that’s the extent of it. That said, she did a
wonderful job in the series.