Hogwarts Herald

Over at Tiny Treasury, Kelly has posted some of the cover art for the US edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Scholastic.com has posted Question #6 (in a series of 7):

Will Voldemort be defeated?

Your choices are: yes, and he will die; yes, but he will live; no way; and, there will be a truce.

I pick “yes, and he will die”. He’s got to go. Any sort of ending without the defeat of ‘you know who’ would be very disappointing - no matter what happens to the other characters - he must be destroyed.

Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Scholastic.com, “You know who”

So, much of the news and speculation regarding the events and outcomes of the final Harry Potter book has focused on Harry’s life expectancy.

My personal opinion (hope) is that Harry will survive - I know that keeping Harry alive would open the door for (unauthorized) sequels - but J.K. Rowling has the chance to influence and guide how Harry’s future will pan out.

Harry could, at the conclusion of the book, be depicted as an older man, sitting, perhaps, in Professor Dumbledore’s office, having just finished putting a “memory” in the pensieve.

Many “epic” novelists (I’m specifically thinking of J.R.R. Tolkien) include epilogues at the end of their great tales - a sort of post script for those readers (such as I am) who really suffer over the “but what happens next?” questions.

It’s fun to guess what will happen - of course, we won’t know until July 21st (or as soon as we can read!). It will be interesting to see if people stay “in” to read that weekend.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

You’ve most likely heard that an internet hacker is claiming to have hacked into Bloomsbury’s computer system and the Harry Potter manuscript. There have been no confirmations of this and, so far, no leaks.

We here at the Herald are vehemently opposed to any spoilers, leaks, ill gotten pieces of information and we will not post anything regarding the (actual) plot(s) of the final book until it is available to the public (after July 21st, all bets are off and we plan to post often).

We are, however, very much in favor of speculation, opinions, gleanings and the like. We have hopes and theories regarding what will happen in the final chapter of Harry’s literary life - and we can’t wait to read about it - but not until July!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Question 5 (of 7) on Scholastic.com’s Shrieking Shack is…

Where are the Horcruxes?

The choices listed are:

Diagon Alley
Hogsmeade
Hogwarts
Only with the Death Eaters
Godric’s Hollows
Ministry of Magic
Azkaban
St. Mungo’s
Among Muggles
Elsewhere

Any of the choices above, or Elsewhere?

I think that the theory(ies) that they may be at Hogwarts or among Muggles are the most intriguing. The “right under your nose” idea (whether that nose be wizard or muggle).

One problem with anything being “among Muggles” is that we are such a disposable society - we’ve probably thrown away or torn down (or at least renovated) anything that might have been used.

What’s going to happen? How will it all end? We’ll just have to wait and read!

Scholastic.com, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Horcruxes

Our party is just 5 weeks away. We’ve sent out invitations and were knee-deep in planning.

I’m still brainstorming on activities -

we’ve already decided to make bookmarks, and have a “door prize guessing game” - I’ve decided to fill one jar with gumballs (a smaller number) for a kid’s size house scarf and a larger jar with (un-inflated) balloons for an adult size house scarf - whoever guesses the number of items in the jar (or gets the closest) wins!

I’ve made a “suggestion box” and slips of paper with different “plot” questions (similar to the Scholastic questions) for guests to speculate how things will unfold in book 7.

If we need a “filler game” - a rousing game of charades is always fun - even more so with a Potter theme!

Now, let’s review our menu so far…

Beverages:
tea, I think would be nice.
butter beer sodas

Snacks/food:
cornish pasties
sandwiches

Treats:
Chocolate covered pretzel “wands”
raspberry trifle

So, I’m thinking that we need to plan more food! Look for more recipes next week!

Harry Potter Party, party planning, party games

To catch up to the current Deathly Hallows question at Scholastic.com…

Will Hogwarts reopen?

I say definitely yes. At what point, I’m not sure. I can’t imagine Hermione being out of class for very long - she’ll organize something. As far as Harry’s pledge to not return - it would seem that some of book 7 will have to deal with his dealing with his “quest” - Hogwarts is as much a character in the book as any person - a permanent closing of Hogwarts would put the entire education of wizards into question.

Question 4 on Scholastic is “who will end up with whom” - I’m going to leave the speculation on that one to you.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Scholastic.com, Hogwarts

you miserable boy.

According to J.K. Rowling’s website, today, June 5th, is Draco Malfoy’s birthday.

Draco has been Harry’s mini-nemisis since his first day at Hogwarts. He, Draco, embodies nearly every vile trait a wizard can possess; he is vain, arrogant, cowardly, bigoted, greedy and plain old mean. He compensates for his lack of wizardly talent with tricks and bullying (a little like you know who, I’d say).

It should be interesting to see what role he plays in the final book. Presently he does not have any redeeming qualities, except that he is still young -

Draco Malfoy, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Invitations - first we need a flock of owls.

Since it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to find that many magical owls, who are, otherwise disengaged, I guess we’ll have to rely on Muggle Mail - or the internet!

On-line invitations are an easy, fun and economical way to invite friends to any gathering. Sites such as Evite do most of the work for you - all you have to do is type in the basic information and they send out the invites (via email), track RSVPs and send reminders.

But, sometimes it’s fun to send out “real” invitations, and I think that this is one of those occasions. While I’ll probably send out a few internet invitations (to those friends that I might not have a street address for), we’re going to make (yes, make) invitations for everyone!

So, what should our invitations look like? An owl shape would be fun - that is how mail is sent through the wizarding world. We might use paper that looks like the parchment the students at Hogwarts use. Or maybe some eerie looking paper similar to the cover art. I think that’s what we’ll do!

Of course, we’ll have to include all of the important information:

What: Harry Potter Book Release Party
When: 5:00pm - whenever, Friday, 07/20/2007
Where: My backyard!
R.S.V.P. by July 14th via Phone, email or owl!

We should be able to have all of the invites completed in a week or two - we want to be sure to send them out soon so that everyone will be able to add our party to their busy summer schedules!

So, let’s see, we’ve been working on the menu, and activities. Next we need to figure out decorations, and just how wicked we want this party to be…

Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister to be, has announced that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is on his “summer reading list”, although he will take his seat as PM on June 27th.

Brown, a personal friend of J.K. Rowling’s, told BBC Radio 4 that he plans to read the book “hoping that my sons will want to read later.” Brown’s sons, John and Fraser, are 3 and 1 years old, respectively.

HT to The Wizard News

Over on Tiny Treasury, children’s book reviewer and recommender extraordinaire, Kelly, has posted a question…

Who do you think dies in Deathly Hallows: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger or somebody else?

So, check it out and let your opinion be known!

Also, be sure to check out her review of Troy CLE’s Marvelous World - Book One: The Marvelous Effect.

Here are the images of the US Front Cover…the US Full Cover…and the UK Adult Front Cover (with spine and flap):

…

We don’t know what the new Harry Potter book will look like, but we’ll know it’s green…that is, “green” as in environmentally friendly. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be printed on recycled paper. This is hugely good news for the environmental movement. A book of this size (more on that soon) that sells millions upon millions of copies–that’s a lot of trees saved. Not only is it good for the trees, it helps to send a message that you can be environmental friendly and profitable at the same time. Cheers to all who had a hand in making this decision.

The new book will be 784 pages in length…second most for the Potter series behind Order of the Phoenix.

The new book will be here before you know it.

…

Today’s Chicago Tribune looks at “All things Harry Potter” in their “Potter Watch” column.

What can you find in the column?

** News of Daniel Radcliffe’s new London play, Equus.
** A countdown to the 5th movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
** A countdown to the 7th and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

…

The second list of ways Harry will die is actually much funnier (in my opinion, anyway) than the first.

A few of my favorites:

9. Harry becomes Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and you know how that turns out.

6. Hagrid crushes his spine doing Heimlich maneuver when Harry chokes on one of Hagrid’s biscuits.

5. “Accio butcher knife” spell goes horribly wrong.