First thoughts

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 132927

Geoff:

Aha! The sign has been turned to "Open", the door is unlocked. The 
shop has re-opened. Time for a bacon butty and a half of Felix 
Felicis please.

Having finished my copy of HBP at about 4.00 pm BST on Monday 
afternoon, I began to try to put together some of my thoughts which 
had swum to the surface of my Pensieve.

First, I have to say that I enjoyed HBP far more than OOTP. The 
latter has never been one of my favourite books. It seems wordy and 
rather vague on occasions while I felt that, to me, HBP seemed 
sharper and more focussed.

Let me say in passing that I chickened out and didn't make any 
predictions – not even to myself. It was interesting to suit back and 
watch what others were thinking.

One of the first thoughts to cross my mind was that JKR has once more 
managed to send enough misinformation out before publication to 
catch  many readers on the wrong foot.

For example
.

The man who "looked rather like an old lion" (HBP "The Other 
Minister" p.21 UK edition). He isn't Godric Gryffindor, he isn't the 
Half-Blood Prince; he is Rufus Scrimgeour – Fudge Mark 2!

The Half-blood Prince. She kept me guessing right up to the moment 
when:
"You dare use my own spells against me, Potter? It was I who invented 
them – I, the Half-Blood Prince!"  (HBP "Flight of the Prince" p.563 
UK edition). It just underlines my own feeling of never liking or 
trusting Snape all the way through.

Felix Felicis. We all assumed it was a person's name. And it wasn't.

Spinner's End. We still don't know where it is. But the ruined 
chimney and the name of the road make me think of a Lancashire cotton 
town – I grew up in one. Workers in the mills were sometimes called 
weavers or spinners. This chapter though, for me, was a real eye-
opener so early in the book.

Interesting too, that HBP begins with not one, but two chapters not 
seen from Harry's POV.

And what of Book 7? Any hints? 

Harry says that he will not come back to Hogwarts even if it re-
opens. Will he change his mind or will he go off after Voldermort 
because he will then be of age to organise his own life? Will Ron and 
Hermione also join him?

Will we finally see Godric's Hollow and the Potters' graves?

And, who is RAB? Speculation has already begun
..

Finally, to round off this disjointed set of thoughts. The most 
depressing thing I have encountered this weekend is an interview with 
JKR in which she says that she will  go on with work on Book 7 at the 
end of the year and wants a 6 month break. I hope she's planned the 
book out but I hope that some more has been done on it while HBP was 
being sorted out at the printers etc. otherwise are we going to be 
chewing finger nails until something like 2007?

<exits stage left wringing hands and crying "Alas Alack">