Hogwarts Herald

An article in today’s South Bend Tribune dissects the new Mugglenet.com book, MuggleNet.com’s What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7.

If you like spoilerish material, read below the fold. Obviously there aren’t any true spoilers out…it’s all educated guessing and speculation. But if you don’t want to know any possible outcomes, stop reading here.

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According to an article in today’s Telegraph, a quarter of Independent Booksellers in the UK will not carry Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

With the “Big Boys” like Amazon offering the books at deeply discounted prices, prices the “Little Guys” can’t match or even come close to, many Independents end up taking a loss with Potter. Or in the case with the upcoming Deathly Hallows, many are just not going to bother carrying the title at all.

You certainly can’t fault them for making this decision. I live within a block of three different Indpendent Bookstores, including one specializing in Children’s Books, and I often wonder how they’re able to stay in business. What it comes down to, I think, is knowing their market, finding their niche, creating a loyal customer base and not doing anything foolish…such as losing money on a book that doesn’t fit well within their niche.

Many other Independent Booksellers are willing to take a bit of a financial hit if it means making their core customers happy. It’s all part of the art of competing with the the bookselling behemoths. Let’s wish them all luck…and support them when we can.

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I was reading this article about Harry Potter in the New Zealand Herald when I came across this paragraph:

One theory at the Hogwarts Herald blog site (www.hogwartsherald.com) referred to Harry Potter’s late parents: “The title Deathly Hallows definitely brings to mind Godric’s Hollow - which as we know was the final hiding place of James and Lily Potter.”

How cool. It took a few seconds after reading this for it to register — “Wait…They just mentioned Hogwarts Herald. Oh my God.”

Now about that quote:

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is number one on Amazon’s bestseller chart in the UK, according to an article in UK’s Life Style Extra. Is this surprising? Not really. But it is pretty remarkable. A book that (by all accounts) isn’t even completely written…and it doesn’t even have a target publication date…has somehow sold more copies as a pre-order than any other book that’s actually currently published. More than that, it’s sold more than the rest of the top ten combined:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has outsold the rest of the top ten combined on pre-order sales alone, and went straight to number one in the chart eight hours after customers were offered the chance to reserve a copy on December 22.

And by all accounts this is shaping up to be the best-selling Potter yet. Again, not surprising. According to Amazon’s head of books, Christopher North:

“The fact that this is the final instalment seems to have heightened the excitement and buzz around this Harry Potter title. Demand for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows could well surpass that of previous releases and we expect more people to pre-order this time round.”

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A week after taking the “Do Not Disturb” sign down from the “Magic Door” and revealing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as the title for Book 7, J.K. Rowling has put the “Do Not Disturb” sign back in place.

What’s up next for the “Magic Door”? Let’s hope it’s the release date for Deathly Hallows, but that could still be a couple months down the road.

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When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released it will be like a second Christmas to Postal Services. Apart from Christmas, the busiest days for the various postal services are the days directly following the release of a new Harry Potter book. The Royal Mail in the UK is already making plans for the release of Book 7 according to an article today on CBBC, the news service on the BBC geared for kids and teens.

Apparently a good 500,000 copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were delivered to UK homes in 2005. Just think…if a hardcover copy of Half-Blood Prince weighs 36 ounces, or 2.25 pounds, that means the Royal Mail carried approximately 1,125,000 pounds of Harry Potter. That’s a lot of Potter. No wonder they start making delivery plans before the release date is even announced.

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In her article, “Snape - the Good, the Bad & the Ugly” Denise Witmer offers up several points to consider regarding Severus Snape. While I don’t agree 100% with what is said here, it’s food for thought…such as the question most of us keeping going back and forth on:

Did Snape kill Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s orders? The author of this article thinks so.

“Snape killed Dumbledore I believe on Dumbledore’s orders. Dumbledore knew this would insure that someone close to Voldemort would be on Harry’s side. This was the argument Dumbledore and Snape had in the woods that Hagrid overheard. What else could Dumbledore be begging Snape to do in that situation?”

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Bookies are now taking bets on who will kill Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and betters are putting their money down on Voldemort…and Harry himself.

Voldemort is currently the odds-on favorite at 4-5 odds, with Harry, Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley all tied wtih 6-1 odds.

Why Harry? According to Rupert Adams, a spokesman for bookmaker William Hill:

“JK mentioned that Harry might be killed off and the general consensus seems to be that Harry is the final Horcrux and to ensure that Voldemort dies he will need to be sacrificed.”

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With the release of the title for Book 7, theories are starting to get thrown around about the meaning of the title…and how it may explain what’s going to happen.

Now, before I begin I must say there’s no way anyone is going to figure out what’s going to happen in Book 7…let alone figure out with any amount of accuracy just what “Deathly Hallows” means. Whether it was the “Sorcerer’s Stone,” “Chamber of Secrets,” “Prisoner of Azkaban,” “Goblet of Fire,” “Order of the Phoenix,” or the “Half-Blood Prince” no one’s been able to crack the code yet. It’s always something we never expect…and even if you’re able to guess the general “ballpark” of what the title means (with “Order of the Phoenix” you could kind of get a sense of how that was going to manifest itself, generally speaking) there are always many curveballs to surprise and delight you. J.K. Rowling is just too good at inventing characters and narrative to expect anything less. With that said…

It’s still a lot of fun to theorize, and there have been some really interesting theories thrown about. Here are some of the best Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows theories I’ve come across to excite your Muggle souls:

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