My mom got it for me yesterday, and I had no time to start it until arriving at the airport this afternoon to come home from Chicago. LOVED it. I am with all of you who felt horrible for poor woobie Snape, loved Neville's glory and were heartbroken about Hedwig. I had predicted that Harry was a Horcrux, Snape was secretly on Harry's side because of Lily and that Harry lived. I seriously thought Ron, Hagrid or Hermione was going to die, and am very glad I was wrong about that--I didn't think the story needed a more "major" death after Snape, Tonks and Lupin. I couldn't wait to what read all of you had to say.

I am with all of you who felt horrible for poor woobie Snape, loved Neville's glory and were heartbroken about Hedwig.

Harry had a lot of things familiar and comforting in previous books stripped from him in this one: Hedwig, his brromstick, even his wand. Put me in mind of the end of Season 2 of Buffy. And, for some reason, Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series.

wrt Molly's use of the word 'Bitch', I found that entirely in character. Keep in mind that the language we normally see from Molly is the language she uses in front of her kids, who all see her as 'Mum', and before whom she always plays that role.

Now the language I use in front of 'my' kids (at school), when I'm being Miss Fay, is most emphatically not the language that I normally use when I'm just being myself. I swear like a trooper, but it would shock my students rigid, because they don't see me, they see one facet of me. Ditto Molly. (We got a little glimpse of this in HBP, with "Mollywobbles", which was very cutesy of course, but still a reminder that she has a sex life and isn't simply a cosy little baking machine with a nag function.)

So for my money, 'Bitch' is entirely appropriate coming from a grown woman to another grown woman who is trying to murder her youngest child, mere hours after another of her children has been killed. Molly has never struck me as prissy or missish.

fwiw, I'd put money on the full curse being "Merlin's saggy left bollock". Rowling's characters very rarely use Americanisms, if ever, so 'butt' is right out, and 'tit' seems unlikely.

While yes, there is a lot of poor Snape, there is also something really still unlikeable some of his interactions with students. Sure he was impossibly brave on a metalevel, but did he do a good job of following his promise to Dumbledore to protect the students.

Because of the torture? Yes, that bothered me too - although I'm sure it wasn't his idea, but I'd have hoped he could prevent it. Still, I can buy that he couldn't prevent it - and clearly where he could, he was 'punishing' misbehaviour (such as the attempted stealing of the Gryffindor sword) very mildly - sending them to help Hagrid in the forest is the same punishment Harry & co got back in Book 2, under Dumbledore's rule.

As to Snape as a truly lousy teacher - you know, after this book I actually give him a free pass. I think he's a terrible teacher, and that he's cruel and bullying and immature in his treatment of the kids - but the thing of it is, the only reason he is a teacher is because of his promise to Dumbledore. And teaching is a bloody awful job, if your heart isn't in it. (And the Wizarding World doesn't seem to have any kind of teacher training system - hell, they don't even seem to have Further Education in any formal fashion - so it's not like he's had any chance to develop better behaviour management skills or think about a philosophy of education.)

I know that I find it be enormously hard to be patient with some of my kids - and my kids are angels. But when you're good at a subject, and you've explained something clearly, and someone is staring at you vacantly/making a total cockup of something, it is phenomally frustrating. So if you don't like children to start with, and don't care about teaching, and you're wracked with guilt and misery for having caused the death of the love of your life and have no chance to go meet new adults and move on in any way shape or form, ...well, much as I hate his treatment of the kids in his care, I don't actually hold it against him any more. Dumbledore put him in that position. He could have been a librarian or something, for God's sake - he's blatantly unsuited to teaching.

Oooooh! Potterpuffs is back - bloody loved her artwork after HBP, and this does not disappoint. Cracked me up, especially the Molly/Bellatrix smackdown.

(Incidentally - Harry totally mastered Draco Malfoy's wand. Heh. Hehehehehe.)

or think about a philosophy of education

Do you have one, by the way? I'm still struggling with it, you know: "Learning Good."

And since I've only said this on lj, I wanted to say that I did think to myself, "It might as well have been Hermione Granger and the Deathly Hallows," because really, how many times over would they have been dead if it weren't for her? It really made Harry (not to even mention Ron) look like a total slacker -- she's carrying on her person everything she thinks they'll need for an instant escape; reading up on her magical history; and altering her parents' memories so that, among other things, they don't know they have a daughter (let's just take a moment and think about that). And that's all before the book even starts. My God, she's good. Three cheers for Hermione!

I fell asleep last night trying to do a comparison of of the two Battles of Hogwarts. In both you have the side that is fighting against the institutional power using the Room of Requirement to invade. There is individual combat in the form of duels. Each ends with the death of the titular head of the group who is in power at the school.

Also, was Malfoy attending Hogwarts (I think not based on the capture/torture of Hermione and escape with Dobby's help part)? If not, how did he get there and get in in a timely manner?

I think that Hermione says at some point that she's never done a memory charm before, but this is after she said she's modified her parents' memories. Did I misread something there?

I don't think so. I noted this when I was reading through.

I thought the epilogue was cute, but I would have preferred one set a little closer in time to the Battle of Hogwarts. There was a lot of mess to clean up after that all went down, and I would have liked some acknowledgement of that. Going straight to a Happily Ever After with hints of The Next Generation was jarring to me.

Also, I wasn't bothered by Tonks's death as much as I was by the fact that she apparently had a personalityectomy.

Do you have one, by the way?

Not as snappy as yours. Er. 'Try really really hard not to shout' maybe? Or 'Assume that they didn't understand until they've proven otherwise. And then assume that 10% of them still didn't get it.'

(I had a whole big paragraph of more serious answer, and then decided that I was being boring and harshing the Potter mellow. But I could expand on it, if you like.)

Word on the fabness of Hermione, incidentally - they would all have been dead a gazillion times over without her. Competent, level-headed, organised, resourceful - Hermione rocked my socks. I don't really think Ron's good enough for her, but if he's who she wants then that's okay. He seems to be aware that he's phenomenally lucky, and does do some growing up in the book. (Have to say, I did laugh at the fact that he'd read that 'Witches are from Venus, Wizards are from Mars' book, and was putting it into practice with compliments and all that. Although what was he thinking, giving Harry a book on how to pull birds, and then freaking out when he snogged Ginny? Silly boy!)

Literally, Hermione was the one character I absolutely positively did not want Rowling to kill. I would have been so unhappy if she had done so. I was very much relieved that she survived everything.

I cannot believe she isn't a professor at Hogwart's.

She's probably Minister of Magic by now. Ron's famous because he's married to her....