So much for spoilers

[Dicentra spectabilis]

No: HPFGUIDX 55992

I found this on Book Magazine online
(http://www.bookmagazine.com/archive/issue10/potter.shtml)

It was written in May/June 2000, right before the release of GoF.  At
the end of the article there are a bunch of "spoilers."  Check these out:


* The fourth Harry Potter book is expected to be very long, possibly
twice as long as the first book; this means it could be as long as
five hundred pages.

Uh, try 734?


* Harry turns fourteen, and the Hogwarts pupils begin to notice the
opposite sex, as hormones kick in. J.K. Rowling wants it to be true to
life, so they all fall in love with the wrong people. Harry will not
date either Hermione or Ginny though.

I guess this is true enough, but does this apply only to GoF or to the
whole series?  Is this the demise of H/H and H/G?


* The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is rumored to be Davey
Gudgeon—with his magical eye.

True enough.


* The first truly evil female character makes her debut.

Would this be Rita Skeeter?  She's a pain in the anatomy, but "truly
evil"?  I don't think so, unless we're going to find out more later.


* The Quidditch World Cup will take place, featuring Ireland vs. Bulgaria.

True.


* There will be a number of deaths, including that of one character
readers have grown to love. Rowling has said Voldemort will be shown
not as a mere pantomime villain, but as a truly evil entity. Only by
the killing of someone that readers care about, she says, does one get
a sense of how evil it is to extinguish a human life.

Cedric Diggory was a decent enough fellow, but someone readers have
grown to love?  Hardly.  And "a number of deaths"?  We had Cedric's
and Crouch Sr's.  As far as Voldemort not being a mere pantomime
villian in GoF, the jury is still out on that.


* Harry is in contact with Sirius Black.

True.


* Another Weasley, Ron's cousin, appears.

Not.  The character was written out.


* Readers find out about other wizardry schools like Hogwarts and
their pupils.

True.


* We learn why Voldemort is who he is . . .

Not really.  We learn what happened to Voldemort post-Harry and how he
got back into his body.


* The book's ending will be very frightening indeed. 

Not as frightening as the Yule Ball. :D


So you see, whatever spoilers we've read so far about OoP might or
might not be true, or at least not true in the way we might imagine.

--Dicentra, who hopes that all the predictions, spoilers, and
speculations are dead wrong.  Just for fun.