Sure... I'll start.

What did you think Dumbledore saw in the Enchanted Mirror?

His family?

or-

Himself holding the Deathly Hallows?

Some say his family... but I think he saw the Hallows... With the hallows, he could have brought his people back, and had the power he wanted so badly. (Wanted in a subconscious way, of course.... Which would explain why he would have to lie to Harry about it)

EVEN HEDWIG DIES (LOL)

I'm going to have to disagree with Tron here. I think Dumbledore definitely saw his sister in the enchanted mirror. I think he regretted his days of Hallows hunting.

I was at work yesterday and I started crying out of no wherez thinking about Lupin and Tonks. I'm 35 years old. I feel like a fucking retard. Anyone want to go for a beer?

No, the Lupin/Tonks thing was sad. (And it was written weird, too--like it sounded like they might just be knocked out, but then a page later, and it was like, oh, okay, that's cool, but WHAM, two pages later, nope, turns out they were dead!) But I got unexpectedly emotional over Dobby, too; that said, my delight w/ all things re: Kreacher kind of balanced that out. But the death that really caught me by surprise was Fred Weasley. A friend earlier was like "It doesn't matter. He's got a backup!" But it was still sad. THE FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO WEASLEY'S WIZARDING WHEEZES?!?!

On the whole I liked the book, but....

1) The epilogue was the weakest shit I've ever read in my life. All the characters that we knew were going to hook up got married? And had kids? And named them after their fallen comrades? I didn't need an epilogue to tell me that happened. How about some insight as to what happened to Hagrid? Or how George managed to cope without Fred? Or how they rebuilt the ministry and Hogwarts? Who took over as DADA teacher, and did they last more than a year? What have the big three done for the past nineteen years besides fuck? Did Harry become an auror? A world famous seeker?

2) The deathly hallows were a pointless addition to the book. I mean, the history behind them is pretty cool, but in no way do they help Harry defeat Voldemort, nor does the knowledge of what they are allow him to defeat Voldemort.

3) While the deaths of Hedwig, Mad Eye, and Dobby were handled excellently, Tonks, Lupin and Fred were all bullshit. At that point JKR was just killing off people to up the body count, without really exploring the effects. Especially Tonks and Lupin. It's handled with a sort of "oh btw, these two are dead now too".

a) I think in the mirror Dumbledore would see Gindelwald killing his sister, or his sister forgiving him. I think knowing that her death wasn't his fault, or recieving forgiveness for it, is more important to him than having her back.

When I finished, I would have enjoyed knowing more about what happened to the other characters, too. But now I'm hoping there will be another book, of stories about the missing 19 years!

Come on. Nobody has said a word about Snape yet. The whole series was him as a murdering, double agent. And when we see all of his memories, he was the bravest, biggest, and strongest supporter of Harry. It was impossible for me to see that. I was balling like a baby. This book is the best one, not without flaws though.

I hope JKR doesn't write another Harry book. It would be much better to see her skills in another character and story.

2nd question :

Do you think Kreacher was set free when Harry gave Kreacher the locket?

Does a pendant count as "clothes"?

Kreacher's behavior was indeed different after the incident in regards to how polite he was to everyone... But, he also started "giving" the orders as well... Which is uncharacteristic of an enslaved House Elf.. ("Take off your shoes", etc)

So was Kreacher acting of his own accord when he captured Mundungus and joined the fight at Hogwarts?

Hedwig's death also upset me a lot more than Mad-Eye Moody's, and I was also surprised at how upset I was at Dobby's death. But while I was satisfied with Book 7, I also think it was flawed. It seemed like when it wasn't going too slowly, it was going too quickly. I mean, enough with the camping bullshit already. These kids should be smart enough by now to come up with a half-way decent plan and act on it. And they should not have to go all Scooby Doo and rely purely on luck to save them at every turn.

I agree with caustic - the addition of the deathly hallows was an unnecesary distraction.

Where were all the people we've known and loved throughout the whole series? At best, they popped out of the painting at the end, said their two lines, waved to the audience and took off.

I also wish we could've seen Harry telling the Order of the Phoenix that Snape was really a good guy to give us the satisfaction of some sort of public vindication. Similarly, I wish we would've seen Umbridge publicly humiliated, once and for all.

And what was with the Percy reconciliation happening in, like, 10 lines? There's no reason why, say, George's injury or the wedding couldn't have prompted a more meaningful reunion among them.

My final complaint is the whole wandlore thing. Why were we just finding out about that in the last 100pp? And is the most climactic moment in a 4,000-page series the time to fill us in on all that? Criminy.

Believe it or not, with all that said, I did still really like it. Ultimately, I just felt like it could've been edited more intelligently.

Have to agree: too much plan formulating and not enough action in the first half. The book took a long time in getting anywhere and when it finally did, we were given a totally rushed finale! Voldemort's death was mentioned so nonchalantly that I had to go back and re-read it to verify Harry had actually killed him!

I thought it was pretty cool the way she filled in the histories of Dumbledore and Snape, though. The epilogue really should have included a lot more of the characters we've all been reading about all these years, rather than just the main three and Malfoy.

Becca, you may get some of your epilogue questions answered by JK herself. Check this out: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/

So I was watching The Goblet of Fire on TV this weekend after finishing Deathly Hallows.... and in Dumbledore's office there is a glass pyramid with a spherein it bisected by a long metal rod... so the set designer at least knew to drop that symbol in looooong before the book had finished.

you can catch it in the scene where Harry falls into the pensieve. It's in the case behind Dumbledore's shoulder....