Have finished

[louiselux]

This definitely isn't a book for little kids anymore. It's a hard, nasty world and the hero is angry, confused and really not very nice a lot of the time. My breath is pretty much taken.

The non-presence of Dumbledore really opened things out I thought, as even though Hogwarts had actually been quite a dangerous place for Harry in the last four books, Dumbledore had always been there, like a safety-net. Without the feeling that there was someone there to sort everything out and explain things, Harry's experiences took on a real hard edge of nastiness, and I thought that it tied in nicely with the feeling you get that he's growing up. physically and mentally.

I loved the part set in 12 Grimmauld Place: the description of Sirius's family tree and all that background information on wizarding families, like the pure-blood interbreeding. The discovery that Sirius ran away from home, and his family were as good as Death Eaters.

I loved the further glimpses we got of how the wizarding world sat so closely beside the muggle world.

Did anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that Dolores Umbridge was channeling Anne Widdecombe, at all? Her physical description, her habit of railing against half-breeds plus the saccharine blandness of her tastes really gave me pause for thought on this. And Rowling *really* sticks the knife in about our educational system.

Sirius. Oh my god. He had long black hair, he lived with Remus and they gave Harry a joint christmas present. And now he's dead. Rowling, surely you toy with our hearts and minds? Fuck. I'm still in shock over this, and boy does it kick my SBRL challenge into serious AU territory.

I had no idea she'd kill him until Harry got the warning vision, and then I knew. That part of the book would've been painful anyway, it is painful, even without a couple of years of slashing Sirius and Remus providing a background to my reading of it. Ouch. Repeat a few thousand times. The part where Harry finally cries, down by the lakeside, is heartbreaking.

Rowling simply must be a Snape/Harry shipper, because she gave them the most beautiful gift: mind-reading lessons. You lucky, lucky bastards. Snape's background story was marvellous, as was the snapshot of James and the others. I expect that's the only bit of backstory we'll get now, as I'm sure the other two books will concentrate on the actual war itself.

*huffs out big sigh*

Time for a drink, or several, I think.