Thoughts on Revisiting Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Oh Bookworms,

It’s time. We’ve reached the very last half of the very last book of the Potter Binge. I want to thank the Estella Society for hosting this re-readalong. I’ve had so much fun reliving the magic. It’s worth every minute of the Harry Potter hangover I’m about to endure. My emotional stability is about to be tested and found inadequate. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2, is happening right now. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. You’ve been warned.

• The Tale of the Three Brothers is pretty creepy, but reading the original versions of muggle fairy tales show a serious creep factor, too. Apparently traumatizing children is a tradition we share with our magical counterparts.
• Oh Hermione. Every once in a while your rationality is a terrible hinderance.
• Ted Tonks doesn’t make it. So sad. But Dean escaped, so that’s something. I like to think that Ted and Dirk Creswell protected Dean in the end.
• The wizarding broadcast is such a bittersweet moment. Lupin’s message to Harry makes me cry (as does most of this book.) Thank heavens for Fred and George. Comic relief is so necessary. I do hope Lee Jordan continued his broadcasting career on the Wizarding Wireless post war.
• DAMNIT HARRY! The name is TABOO you fool!!!!!!!!
• Hermione’s stinging jinx saves the day. (Well, mostly anyway) Because Hermione always saves the day. For heaven’s sake, that girl is BRILLIANT.
• Dobby to the rescue. But I know how this ends. And nooooooooooooooooo!
• Well, Wormtail, you had it coming buddy. Can’t say I’m sorry to see you go.
• Hasta luego, Grindelwald. THE BODY COUNT is NUTS.
• DOBBY!!!!!!!!!! Why can’t they save youuuuuuuuuuuu??? If only Madam Pomfrey had been on hand. Then again, if he’d been stabbed right in the heart (which it appears he was) it may have been too late for him to be saved, even with an ultra skilled healer. I love you, Dobby, you glorious free elf!
• Damnit. Crying again. That was such a heartfelt little funeral. Dobby would have been pleased.
• I wonder if Fleur cooks only French food or if she mixes it up with some English dishes. She seems quite adept at household spells, though.
• The baby!!!! Lupin and Tonks and Teddy! Yaaaaaaaaaay! AND LUPIN HUGGED HARRY!!!!!!!! He asks Harry to be Teddy’s godfather and then he gives him a REAL hug! FINALLY!
• The lack of a wand completely crippling wizards troubles me some. I mean, kids accidentally do magic before they have wands all the time. Maybe involuntary magic children do is schooled out of them? Regardless, it would really really suck to lose your wand if you were so dependent on it. Just think of how frustrated you’d feel to be completely without your phone, am I right?
• Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape from Gringotts via dragon. Our trio has style, no doubt.
• Aberforth’s patronus is a goat. Because of course. That man and his goats.
• Neville just keeps on fighting. Hot damn, Neville. You are something else. Rebel. And Granny Longbottom kicking Death Eater ass and going into hiding? Ooooh goosebumps.
• I should just buy stock in tissue. For the love, this whole book just tears me apart. The remaining DA members in the Room of Requirement. Now the supporters are flooding in. Luna and Dean. Ginny and the twins and Lee. Cho shows up. I’m misty as all get out.
• Enter Minerva Raging Badass McGonagall and her triple cat patronus. She doesn’t even scold Harry for using an unforgiveable curse on the Carrows, and then busts out with one of her own. Nobody spits in McGonagall’s face and gets away with it. Nobody.
• God help me, I love Flitwick. And Sprout. And bringing Peeves into the fight. Brilliant.
• And then EVERYONE is there in the Room of Requirement. Oliver Wood, Katie Bell, the whole gang. The Order. Again with the tears. Damnit. Ginny arguing about leaving her family kills me every dang time.
• Just when I think I can’t be any more of a mess, Percy shows up. Finally. I am sobbing all over the place. It’s going to be a complete shit show from here on out.
• The Grey Lady, what whaaaaat?! She gives a back story to the Bloody Baron too. Scandalous. AND IT EXPLAINS ALBANIA! I hadn’t paid super close attention to why Albania had been Voldemort’s hiding place in the past, but now I know all the things. It only took … Well. A few read throughs. It’s an intense portion, I can’t be expected to grasp details when I’m this unhinged.
• Neville battling with Mandrakes is awesome. Dude’s a gardener through and through. Herbology, FTW!
• Ron opens the Chamber of Secrets by mimicking parseltongue. Ron and Hermione, I love you so so so much.
• I love that Granny Longbottom comes to help, and that she finally seems to appreciate the awesomeness that is Neville. Took you long enough, Granny. We’ve known it for ages.
• Ha! Crabbe’s own stupid dark magic destroyed that horcrux. Serves you right, jerk. Fiend fire.
• FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED. He went out the way he’d have liked it, though. Fighting and joking. Respect.
• I’m crying anyway.
• McGonagall has a herd of galloping desks. OF COURSE SHE DOES. Don’t mess with Minerva.
• I’m surprised the Patil twins were still at Hogwarts. I know it became mandatory, but their mom tried to keep them home at one point in an earlier books. I’d have thought she’d have taken them into hiding, but maybe she’s made of sterner stuff.
• Does Lavender Brown actually die? She’s feebly moving when we last see her, so one must wonder. Does she become a werewolf? I would totally read The Adventures of Lavender Brown: Fashion and the Full Moon.
• Luna, Seamus, and Ernie with the patronuses rescuing a badly disheartened and traumatized Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Again with the tears. I CANNOT EVEN.
• I wish I could say I was devastated by Snape’s death scene. I mean, he does redeem himself (more or less) but he was still a big mean bully. I’m… Conflicted.
• But what DOES devastate me? Tonks and Lupin. THEY JUST HAD A BABY. And the grieving Weasleys? I just can’t take this.
• Hearing that Harry is to be a sacrificial lamb is a punch in the gut.
• Aaaaaaaaaand the mystery of the silver doe is solved. Heart = Broken. Snape, though hideously flawed, has one saving grace. He was able to love. Only one person, but he really did love her.
• RIP Colin Creevy. You were such a sweet kid. Poor Dennis is going to be devastated.
• Harry facing his own death is just so… I don’t even know. SO MANY FEELINGS.
• And now the Resurrection Stone. Good heavens, I can’t take it.
• My brain is too full to really comment on the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore in the peaceful great beyond.
• “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry. But why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” Ooooh Dumbledore, you and your wisdom.
• And now for Narcissa Malfoy’s redemption. For selfish reasons, of course, but still. Better than nothing.
• Voldemort, you are SUCH a douchebag. Ugh.
• God love you, Neville, you are the BEST EGG. “I’ll join you when HELL freezes over!” And then he gets the sword of Gryffindor. Nobody ever deserved it more, buddy. Is there a Neville Longbottom fan club? Can we start one?
• Thestrels and Hippogriffs and Centaurs, oh my!
• And then the reinforcements arrive! EVEN SLUGHORN! A Slytherin. Seriously, they aren’t ALL bad. Good on you, Slughorn.
• For the love, the house elves led by Kreacher! I’m crying again. Damnit.
• “NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!” –Molly Weasley, Queen of the Universe.
• Voldemort had a serious case of James Bond villain syndrome. He and Harry have quite a long conversation before either attempts to cast a spell, most of it Voldemort posturing and over-explaining himself. Why don’t you just throw Harry into a tank of sharks with frickin laser beams on their foreheads?
• Voldemort is killed by his own rebounded curse. Serves him right.
• Using the elder wand to repair your wand. Nice move, Harry.
• I don’t care what anyone thinks, I effing love the epilogue. I love every little thing about it. I like hearing that Teddy Lupin comes to the Potter house for dinner several times a week. I like hearing that he’s dating Bill and Fleur’s daughter. I like that Ginny and Harry ended up together and that Hermione and Ron have a family. It is utter perfection to my mind and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

I can’t believe it’s over. I’m going to be suffering a severe Harry Potter hangover for a while, but it’s wonderful to revisit my old friends. Thanks for bearing with me through these incoherent posts. I’m toying with the idea of creating a top ten list of my favorite random insights from the Potter Binge as a sort of last hurrah.

Tell me Bookworms. Did anybody sob as much as I did through the entirety of this book?!

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