My Reaction - Be Warned, Spoilers Down the Bottom

D espite many people using words such as 'weak', 'cliched' and 'disappointing', the final novel in the Harry Potter series was, in my opinion, an amazing piece of writing. It was excruciatingly thrilling, beautifully written and immensely clever. All of the links between the plot-lines were threaded so finely until they were all pulled together at the end of the book with, as always, unexpected results.

My emotions lay very close to the surface throughout the entire duration of my reading (I read it all at once, another sign that it was good); I am not ashamed to admit that I cried in almost every key moment of the book - however, if you knew me it is possible that this would not come as a great surprise, given the visible nature of my emotions and my love of books and their fictional characters.

My tears first appeared with Dudley's "I don't think you're a waste of space." Crying at something Dudley had said? I knew then that I would probably spend most of the book crying. I was correct, but thankfully I also cried upon reading of happy moments so this is not to say that the story is entirely depressing.



The moments that I found most touching were (and here, if you couldn't tell, are the spoilers):

The memories that Snape gives to Harry before he dies - I have always loved Severus Snape (since he told the first-years, in their first Potions lesson, that he could teach them many things, including how to "...stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads I usually have teach") and it made me simply bawl to know that he had never been happy and never been loved, and that he felt responsible for the death of the only person he ever loved. And that he had to look into her eyes every time he looked at her son - his whole life, he loved her! I'm getting emotinal now, writing about it.

Dobby. Just Dobby, and his kindness, nobility and loyalty.

When Percy comes into the Room of Requirement and reunites with his family, and tells them that he was "a fool". And then, when Fred died (laughing, in true Fred fashion) - how could the Weasley twins not make it out together? It was meant to be one big happy Weasley family.

When McGonagall shouted "NO!" upon seeing Harry's 'dead' body. I'm not even sure why, but reading that made me weep, even though Harry was alive.

Narcissa Malfoy caring more about Draco than Voldemort, as she showed when she helped Harry.

Harry's second son being named Albus Severus, and Harry telling him that Severus was "...probably the bravest man I ever knew."


There were so many more moments, but I'm getting too upset thinking about them all again. Everyone else who has read it - hopefully, given the name of this group, that is pretty much everyone - what did you think??