HP7

I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. What a great book! I LOVE LOVE LOVED it! A very satisfying end to a phenomenal series. If you haven't finished it yet, DO NOT READ ON...

Things I loved:
1. Deathly Hallows -- not a place! What a creative and fun story line. I liked how the search for the hallows played against the search for the horcruxes and ended up being the test of character.
2. The reappearance of all the characters! Everyone from every book appeared in this one and they all seemed to get what was coming to them -- good or bad!
3. Neville. He has always bugged me, but in this book, he really stepped up to the plate. His parents would be proud. (See #6 below.)
4. Snape's story. We knew why he was fixated on Harry as James's son, but now the whole storyline with Lily got us thinking.
5. Answers from Dumbledore! I was so mad at him in book 6. Now I know why he did what he did. I especially liked his admission that he was not perfect, but a selfish man who loved getting all the attention. Very interesting.

My questions:
1. What happened to all the teenaged angst that was so prevalent in book 6? Ron loves Hermione and Harry loves Ginny and Joanie loves Chachie, right? There were a couple of mentions of Harry and Ginny, but Ron and Hermione spent the entire book together and didn't act like they were more than friends except for one extremely minor scene in the end(and a couple of compliments in the beginning).
2. How did Neville get the sword of Griffindor? Am I missing some connection between him and the goblin?
3. I find it unbelievable that Harry would say the taboo name of Voldemort, resulting in their capture. No way.
4. Poor Hedwig. Why?
5. No new magic! I was bored with the same old thing each time! If it wasn't Expelliarmus, it was Stupefy! If it wasn't hiding under the cloak, it was using Polyjuice! I have to admit, I wanted a little more creative magic! I don't know how I expected them to know any more than they did in the last book though...they didn't go to school this year!
6. Why didn't Neville get to finish off Beatrix Lestrange? Maybe that would have been unrealistic, but it would have been the greatest revenge.

About the epilogue:
1. I can't decide if I think it's cheesy or not. I love the characters so much that I was happy to read about them in the future. However, it was so contrived, with revelations coming through strained dialogue. Maybe JK just wrote it to avoid having to answer the inevitable interview question: Do Harry and Ginny end up together? How about Ron and Hermione?
2. We know Harry and Ginny have two boys: James and Albus Severus. What is James's middle name? My guess is Sirius. Also, their girl is Lily. What's her middle name?
3. They saved Draco's life! And his mom saved Harry's! I think their long-standing feud would be lessened by the experience (and the healing effects of 19 years). I found Ron's bitterness toward his child hard to believe.

That's all I'm thinking about right now.
Maybe more later.