Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - the SPOILER thread!

I'm re-reading it too and my DS is reading it now so we discuss it lots

He is very disciplined he was reading book 6 when 7 came out and carried on reading it despite bk 7 sitting under his pillow!

Just read the transcript, so cool, though I didn't want that to end either!

Do what I did fake, start reading it again

Agree that Ginny would be too strong a personality to change her Patronus.
Hope Hermione kept her Otter too.

Oh heck i feel all wierd now ive finished the best book ive read !
How on earth can i follow that ?
Washing has piled up around me,dc eaten quick dinners,house a mess,even the loo not been cleaned for a few days !
Now i have finished it i feel lost

well thats answered most of the mystery then

I think that Ginny would be too independent and Harry would never chane his. I bet Hermione and Ron's end up similar though.

Or would Harry's change to mirror hers?

The bit in the interview about partners often having linked patronuses - do you think Ginny's would be a doe as well?

Easier to read transcript here

Loved it, answered sooooo many questions.

I wonder if it was deliberate on jk rowling's part but she seems to have made Harry's parents, particularily James, a bit of an 'unknown quantity' in terms of what they were actually like. Apart from what we see in the flashbacks to them as teenagers, and what other people say about them as adults, both of which don't amount to a great deal. There is more reference to what they look like (for obvious reasons). I think her sympathies lay with Snape. She's good at portraying people acting inappropriately or badly due to their prejudices, but not necessarily being 'evil' people because of it.

Someone on that Q&A with JKR asked why Snape was so unkempt. She said that she figured he saw other things as important, but I would have thought that it was because he didn't see any point in looking nice - who would it be for? The only woman he ever wanted to impress was dead You know how it feels when you've split up with someone, you just want to slob out - so that is what Snape was doing but for a lot longer

James was an arrogant teenager, then he grew up. He was probably lovely as a grown up. And he and Snape were like Harry and Draco, except with Lily in the middle which would, of course, make them worse.

Persephone, I know, when Harry sees him crying over the letter. He must have been tortured by the fact that he led V to kill her. Even if it's his fault it wouldn't make him feel any better/worse about it. And it turned him into a good guy in the end. What a sad life he had.

my DS came into me with "dust" in his eyes. He had just read about Dobby

I cried when he summoned his family with the stone, and when I realised Snape's patronus was a Doe. .

I always actually liked Snape

I don't think you can disapparate into or out of a house with protective enchantments can you? Otherwise they could have done it straight into 12 Grimmauld Place, rather than on the doorstep.
I think Snape hated James before he got Lily, for the reasons stated, and hated him even more when he did get Lily. There were things loveable James though, otherwise there's no way Lily would have married him. She also ended up friends with Lupin, PP and Sirius so she must have come to realise that they weren't all as hateful as they had come across when they were younger.

Also he told Lily to get out with Harry - he knew he was going to die but tried to give her time to escape (why didn't she disapparate)?

I think you're giving James a raw deal

Yes he was a bullying arrogant bastard, but he had a conscience - he went to save Snape when Sirius sent him down to the shrieking shack to get eaten by Lupin, he hated the dark arts and he got Lily because there were good things about him. Snape couldn't recongise the good things because he got Lily.

yeah but snape only hated james so much cos he got the girl......snape just dwelled on that for the rest of his days......he made himself dislike harry because he couldnt bear to be reminded of the woman he loved and gave a death sentence to......thought it was lovely that he looked into harrys eyes before he died and we all know he wasnt a shit in th end

Definitely concentrated on the James stuff - the way he described him as arrogant, happy to find himself famous and mediocre like his father.

I'm so dumb . . . That's why he wanted to look into his eyes!!!! I did rush read it first time so I could freely watch tv and listen to radio etc without spoliers. Am now re-reading at leisure - taking time to concentrate on important bits. May have to skip the dobby bit though. Too too too sad (and I found him annoying at first!)

I guess he avoided the eyes and concentrated more on how he looked like James

but I still dont get how he could look into Harry's eyes and still be really horrid to him! Surely he would look into those lovely eyes and feel remorse and love

The bit that gets me PS is when he asks Harry to look at him so he sees Lily's eyes as he's dying and when DD turns back to him with tears in his eyes after he sees that Snape's patronus is a doe.