Book #7 of the “Harry Potter” series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released in California in exactly 840 (4*5*6*7) hours, or 35 days from right now. I plan on being one of the first people on the west coast to get my hands on a copy of the book, because I’m eagerly awaiting the answers to some open questions. There are lots of tantalizing bits of official information (i.e. affirmed by JKR) on the debunked rumors and confirmed information pages of Mugglenet. Obviously everybody wants to know whose side Snape is on, whether Harry or Voldemort (or both, or neither) will survive, et cetera. But I’m also wondering about some more esoteric things. Will Harry get assistance from Dumbledore’s portrait at Hogwart’s? Will Prof. Slughorn be back? And what exactly did he do on the two “perfectly lucky days” he mentioned in book 6? Will that have an impact on the story? Who’ll be the new D.A.D.A. teacher? Will Harry re-form “Dumbledore’s Army”? The “loose ends” page has many other interesting questions, although some of them have already been answered on the other two Mugglenet pages referenced above.
Hopefully I’ll manage to be first in line again at Border’s this year! I’m taking the pre-release day off, so I can get up early and score the #0001 ticket, go home and take a lo-o-ong nap, then read the book aloud to my family starting at a few minutes after midnight.
About three weeks ago, I got together with a few other Harry Potter fans to discuss the story. One of the topics that came up was the release date for the final book. Somebody (don’t remember who, sorry) said that they heard it would be published in 2007. This lead to speculation about the actual release date, which we predict will be July 7, 2007. This will be a Saturday (Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight), just like the last few books. Besides, since 7 is the most powerful magical number, how could the 7th book possibly be released on any other date than 7/7/7 (2007-07-07)?
The Sacramento Harry Potter Club and Meetup groups are going to get together at Naked Lounge in Sacramento to discuss the latest book in the series. See the event page for details, RSVP, etc.
If you haven’t finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince yet, don’t read this post!
Continue reading ‘Is Harry a horcrux?’
I was one of the first people in the Pacific timezone to get a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP), but I still have yet to finish it. Why? I’m reading it aloud to my family–not only is reading aloud slower than silent reading, but I can only read when all four of us are around. Note: reading a 652-page book aloud, including character voice changes, is very stressful for the larynx. (gasp, croak)
We’re down to the last 4 chapters, and we still haven’t found out who the “half-blood prince” is! In fact, there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point in the book–hopefully there are a lot of answers packed into the last ~70 pages; otherwise, it’s going to be a lonnnnng wait for book #7. (Okay, granted it will be a long wait anyway.) We should finish the book tonight, yea!
No spoilers here, yet. I’ll post my questions, theories, etc. after we finish the book (and I have some free time on my hands, which probably won’t be until late this week).
Peg Kerr has an interesting thread discussing HBP–I would love to add my two cents’ worth to it, but she’s only allowing LJ users to leave comments, and I’m not willing to register another blog account just for this. Doesn’t look like LJ supports trackbacks or pingbacks either, sigh.
I managed to be first in line for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at Borders in Sacramento this morning. It was a close race–I got there at about 05:00, only two hours ahead of the second person in line, and four hours ahead of the third! Before anybody asks: No, I was not planning on getting in line at 05:00! I woke up at about 03:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep. At about 04:00, I gave up and got out of bed, and I figured I could kill time either at home or sitting in the parking lot. I decided on the parking lot, just in case a horde of people were also itching to be one of the first on the west coast to get a copy.
Now I just need to wait for midnight…
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out tomorrow night/Saturday morning at midnight! I ordered a copy from Borders, same as last time. Unlike last time, they are not going to make people wait in line all day–they’ll be handing out numbers to pre-order customers when they open at 10:00 tomorrow, then selling them “by the numbers” starting at 00:01 on Saturday morning. I’ll show up a little early and hopefully grab a low number. My neighbor is also getting a copy, and she may be joining me in line.
My family has been trying to figure out who the “half-blood prince” might be, but we’ve never come up with a satisfactory guess. Now I suppose it’s getting to be too late for speculation–time to read the book and just find out!
