I had a really long HP6 post written out (like, "Firefly" thread posts long) and it was eaten up by the computer and I don't have the energy to re-write, especially since y'all probably already read everything I could think about at least 3 times, including explanations as to why it's wrong. So I won't. But I really liked the book.

Some staff did lose momentum on occasion, but I was totally immersed in the story despite that. I liked the characters, I felt for them, I *love* how everything that has anything to do with Snape can be interpreted in at least two ways (lots of what was eaten up was about this). The plot that gave the book its name wasn't that important , but I loved what she did with Draco (I *did* feel sorry for him, I don't care what anybody says), I love how she keeps the friendship in the center. She created some amazingly beautiful pictures - the cave and all that happened there, the lament of the phoenix, all the conversation between Draco and Dumbledore on the tower, the child Tom , just to name a few. I love how there are so many parallels, you know? Like pretty much every choice (and choice is such a big theme, here and in CoS, and I *love* it) is echoed is somebody else's choice. Almost all of my embarrassingly long post was about that.

I'm still too much "in" the book to start playing with speculations, but I love it that there can be so many. Also, that despite the computer's obvious forces of darkness, I managed to post a few words. Some even in whitefont, which I never get to do. Now to catch up.

Someone was brilliant enough to provide an index page to the varied kerfuffles over HBP.

Some of you may get a kick out of my friend Angelo's predictions for Book 7 while reading Book 5. There are no spoilers, and some are funny even if you've never read the books.

I really really think that Harry is the Horcrux. In OotP (I think), DD tells H that when V gave H the scar, a part of V became a part of Harry.

Also, when I first read The Prophecy, my first interpretation was that neither V nor H could survive.

I kinda like that Harry could die .

I predict that Harry figures out he's the final Horcrux, lets Draco take him out, Neville finishes off V, therefore still fulfilling The Prophecy . And then, Spike becomes the Shanshu .

I really thought Harry was going to be the death in this book.

Hee! Tech writers just gotta have fun...

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Hey, look! You can read L. Frank Baum's The Sea Faires online. I didn't know that.

This guy's not a bad writer:

The prettiest scenery in all England--and if I am contradicted in that assertion, I will say in all Europe--is in Devonshire, on the southern and southeastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart and Avon and Teign form themselves, and where the broken moor is half cultivated, and the wild-looking uplands fields are half moor. In making this assertion I am often met with much doubt, but it is by persons who do not really know the locality. Men and women talk to me on the matter who have travelled down the line of railway from Exeter to Plymouth, who have spent a fortnight at Torquay, and perhaps made an excursion from Tavistock to the convict prison on Dartmoor. But who knows the glories of Chagford? Who has walked through the parish of Manaton? Who is conversant with Lustleigh Cleeves and Withycombe in the moor? Who has explored Holne Chase? Gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash in contradicting me unless you have done these things.

I spent a fortnight in Tiverton 10 years ago. I walked a gloriously green river path every night and caressed the wood of a thousand year old church and stumbled across an unexpected, breath taking stone circle on Dartmoor. I'm with Mr. Baum.