Harry Potter

Yes... I know... but the fact is that the Children are going to a midnight party tonight, and one of them will be dressed as a Death Eater, and another is seriously considering Hermione (having natural assets of unmanageable hair and a know-it-all attitude - Love you Child!) while the third has rejected my suggestion of an old pillowcase thus becoming Dobby.

Child 1 was given a Harry Potter book in Alaska by its very best friend. I had heard rumblings about the books, but since they were *gasp* popular I assumed they were also horrible and I wasn't going to have MY children read them. (see also cultural deprivation as described in an earlier post) But Child 1's best friend was a charming and wonderful person, and it insisted that the books were fantastic! Marvelous! Really, really great! So I practiced my best oh-well-if-you-must-but-we-all-know-we're-better-than-this face and read the book.

Like how many thousands of other children mine have now grown up with the series. I think of them geographically: books 1-3 were Alaska, book 4 we got in Virginia, book 5 in California.

So now we'll be going, at midnight, to pick up book 7. They still want me to read it aloud to all of them, although it's a little harder to cuddle everyone together now that legs have stretched so alarmingly and they come darn close to outweighing me. So probably Child 1 will have some project spread out over the floor as it listens, Child 2 will be ensconced in a corner of the other couch where it can glare at me if the plot goes against its likings and Child 3 will spend half its time bouncing up as its inspired to make something or try something out or shout out a prediction.

I'll probably stop at the end of every really exciting chapter and make to close the book. There's no point in ending at a boring bit - you have to make them suffer a little bit - and the Children will howl in anguish and insist I read just one more chapter... and then another...

So - do you think Harry will die?