The Beginning of the End

So it is now 1:30am in the morning and I have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sitting on the desk beside me. I haven't even opened it yet. I think I may go to bed and start reading in the morning. Part of me thinks that I could just keep it aside longer just to keep it from ending. It's kind of silly but I suppose that most people don't want good things to end.

I was on www.the-leaky-cauldron.org and Melissa Anelli made a posting 25 minutes before they all got their books.

"We’re about 25 minutes away from receiving the book, here in Naperville, Ill. It’s just about starting to feel real, guys. Congratulations on making it here. Thank you for all the fun and laughter over the past seven-plus years.

There’s been a lot of speculation over the past few months about what happens now – about how we as fans go on, about what changes now that our series is complete. The answer is this: Nothing. We continue loving the series, we continue loving each other, we continue celebrating what has brought us all together and that which has absolutely no chance of breaking up now.

As I type this I’m sitting on my knees on the pavement and my friends are using their feet to keep my computer from falling onto the ground. It’s real friendship out here in Illinois. These little things – holding up someone’s computer, holding hands as we walk into the bookstore, fixing someone’s Hufflepuff robes, straightening someone else’s Slytherin tie – are what stick with us. Living through this time together has been a privilege and and honor for all of us. We cannot wait to see through to the next era of Potterdom TOGETHER.

And now a HARRY, HARRY! chant has started. It’s really time. We’ll see you all soon."

That about sums up how many people feel tonight I think. On Sunday the Leaky Cauldron is doing a podcast at 3pm to discuss the end of the series. I wonder if I'll be done reading by then?

Ok well before I sign off I'm going to open this book and at least read the title of the first chapter.

I've done it. I have read the title of Chapter one. The interesting thing however is that there are two quotations on the pages preceeding Chapter one. One is from Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers and the other William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude. I think that they will mean more once I finish the entire book.

"Oh, the torment bred in the race,
the grinding scream of death
and the stroke that hits the vein
the haemorrhage none can staunch, the grief,
the curse no man can bear.

But there is a cure in the house
and not outside it, no,
not from others but from them,
their bloody strife. We sing to you,
dark gods beneath the earth.

Now hear, you blissful powers underground -
answer the call, send help.
Bless the children, give them triumph now."

AND

"Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal."

Wow! Those are two very powerful passages. if one is to take them literally it doesn't bode well for the trio. I guess time will tell since I haven't actually read a word of the actual story yet.

I'll keep you appraised of my progress.