Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

THAT BOOK WAS AWESOME!!!  Okay, I’m back on OD after finishing it, and I thought it was incredible.  First off, I warn anyone who hasn’t read that book, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!  So if you haven’t read it, just skip the section labeled *SPOILERS*

Anyway.  On the 20th, I took a shower and got ready for the Harry Potter party at Borders.  I was wearing the skirt that I made for Halloween a few years back, and a shirt I made just for that night.  I also got my witch hat and black cape out and wore those.  It was hot, but bearable once I was in the store.

So I get to Borders and there was a raffle they were doing, so I wrote my name on a ticket and put it in.  There was a Harry Potter Spelling Bee, a "Great Snape Debate," and a costume contest.  Not to mention a table where kids could color masks for themselves and whatnot, plus a palm reader, and people were lined up at the coffee bar the entire night!

I entered the Spelling contest, the debate, and the costume contest.  The Spelling one was the best of the three, I think.  They had different difficulties of words, considering that little kids entered it, too.  I got words like "poltergeist," "Expelliarmus," "Ollivander," and one or two others before I got the one I mispelled.  "Densaugio," the spell that enlarged Hermione’s teeth in the fourth book.

The "Great Snape Debate" was a disappointment.  Instead of giving everyone a chance to state their case, (even in a limited amount of time,) the woman just asked us some questions and one side or the other could answer.  But I got to talk to some of the people about what we thought and I told one girl about my thought that Harry was a Horcrux.  She said that no offense, but she thought that idea was stupid.  But I think I changed her mind, because I brought up how in the sixth book, Harry was in the snake’s mind, and Voldemort controls the snake, plus, it was suspected the snake was a Horcrux.  And then I gave her my idea that when Voldemort went to kill Harry, it wasn’t truly to kill him, it was to test if his Horcrux idea worked, therefore purposely bouncing the curse back on himself and making Harry a Horcrux.  I think that convinced her that it was a possibility.

The costume contest was awesome.  There was a kid there dressed as Dobby, and a couple of little girls dressed as House Elves.  They were wearing pillow cases, it was so cute!  There was a guy dressed in, like, perfect British every day clothes.  (Well, maybe not "today’s" every day clothes.  He looked sort of like Watson.)  With him was a guy with a hat that had fake dreadlocks attached to it, and he was wearing a black outfit with a garbage bag over that and a cardboard square on his chest that said, "Galleons for Grumblebeck — the Homeless Wizard."  And he was holding a tin can.  I thought that was great.  There was a guy dressed as a Dementor, too.  And this one guy who looked about my age dressed up as Harry Potter.  He had the robes, wand, and glasses, and had even drawn a lightning scar on his forehead.  And the women, one woman was dressed as Professor Trelawney, and another was dressed as Rita Skeeter.

I saw the palm reader just for fun, and it was kind of weird what she said.  She said there was something I really wanted, and that by focusing on it, it made it harder to achieve, so I should sit back and let things happen.  Kind of weird . . .

I left not too long after the costume contest to go to Barnes and Noble so I could pick up my reserved copy.  I was number 369.  The line was wound all around the store!  It took about an hour for me to get to the checkout and that night, I read the first 136 pages.  Then, more or less in shifts, I read the rest of it on the 21st and finished it at almost six am.  (Blah…)  But by the time I got close to the end, even though it was really late at that point, I didn’t want to stop.

  SPOILER ALERT 

I can’t believe she killed Hedwig!!!  That was so sad!  And Fred!  And Lupin!  And Tonks!  How could she kill them off?!?!?  I wasn’t that upset over Moody, but that still sucked.  I find it ironic, though, that fourteen set out on the journey and only thirteen came out.  You know, considering what Trelawney said about thirteen at a table?  Odd, no?

And I KNEW Harry was a Horcrux!  I got the situation wrong, because I figured Voldemort knew what he was doing when he put part of his soul into Harry, but I KNEW he was a Horcrux!!!

And everything with Snape!  That was awesome, it seriously was.  I can’t believe how he turned out.  And yet, where he gives the memory to Harry, in a way, I saw that coming.  Except I expected him to block a spell from Voldemort that was meant to kill Harry, and as he dies, he tells Harry that his debt to James is repaid.

I couldn’t believe that the Gray Lady, the Ravenclaw ghost, was killed by the Bloody Baron!  I can’t believe they explained why he was covered in blood.

And I loved the story about Dumbledore.  That was amazing.  And it really explained things about him.

  END OF SPOILERS 

The next day, I picked up these books a guy named Daviod Anthony wrote about Oz and Dorothy and all that.  I picked them up and it turns out they’re published by an independent publishing company.  It shows, cuz honestly, those books are NOT well written.  The dialogue’s not bad, but the descriptions and all really aren’t good.  I’ve seen better writing in middle school students, I swear.

On the upside, it’s inspired me to continue writing the Wizard of Oz story I came up with.  I wrote part of it in here, back in February of ’05, I think it was.  I’m revamping it, fleshing it out, and who knows?  I might try to submit it.

On a downside, on the twentieth, Rob had another seizure at work.  Unfortunately, simply because of the number of them that he’s had at work, he had to be suspended.  His boss said flat out that he was not being fired, but that he did need a doctor’s note before he could come back to work.  The note basically had to state that it was okay for him to have a job.  This sucks, but we’re doing our best to get one so he can go back to work.

The odd thing is, he’s been out of pheno since my birthday on the 16th, yet except for the one seizure at Subway, he’s been perfectly fine.  No withdrawl seizures, nothing.  So it truly

is stress that brings them on.

I don’t know.  We’re gonna try to get that doctor’s note.  He should still get a recommendation from this one to work for the Subway near my parents’ house, though, regardless of whether he goes back to this one.  Unfortunately, we’re running out of money . . .

And it doesn’t help that I have to take Smiley to that vet tomorrow morning.  The consult alone is about 35 dollars and the operation is gonna run probably around two hundred.  But it’s worth it.  But then there’s fixing the cats, August rent, the electric and gas bills, credit card bills . . .    ::Sighs::

But we’ll manage.  I figure if I have to, I can borrow money from my parents and pay it off when we get back to NJ.

On the upside, I have other books to read.