grammargirl | Hey look, it's the big HP entry I was about to write when LJ asploded (Part 1)

So I had the brilliant idea of exploring my reactions to Deathly Hallows through the lens of the predictions I made just before the 21st.

Snape: working for the good guys, but still a total jackass
I've been a huge Harry Potter fan since shortly before Book 4, but I've never been a part of capital-F Fandom. As such, I was only dimly aware pre-DH of the "Snape loves Lily" theories floating around the intertubes, and dismissed the idea as the same sort of wishful thinking that spawned Sirius/Lupin slash. Aside from the sort of abrupt and anticlimactic way that Snape dies and shares his memories with Harry, which I think could have been handled with more grace, I am seriously impressed with how much nuance Snape's love for Harry's mother adds to his character, which is already among the most complex and fascinating in the book. I love the layers of meaning behind Snape's dying words--he wants Lily's eyes to be the last thing he sees, but the fact that they are in fact Harry's eyes makes the whole scene, to quote

cleolinda, 35% touching and 110% creepy--which is just about Snape in a nutshell, right there. And it just kills me that Snape is in a lot of ways the ultimate manifestation of the whole "love conquers all" theme--his love of Lily is the only thing that keeps him from giving himself up completely to evil, and the small part of Lily that lives on in Harry is what makes Snape save him again and again, despite the fact that Harry represents everything that Snape loathed about James. Seriously, people, give me funding and I swear I could write a dissertation on Snape's character arc alone.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione: all live, though I kind of secretly think it makes the most narrative sense for Harry to die
Right on all counts! I love that the rabid "Harry has to die!" people and the equally rabid "Harry totally lives!" people were all both right and wrong. And despite the hokiness of the resurrection + dead Dumbledore's pontification (oh man, the religious nuts are going to be even more incensed by the Harry-as-Jesus parallels than they already were with all the ~~Satanism~~ magic and ~~sex~~ kissing), it made me happy that Harry is willing to make the same sacrifice for Hogwarts that his mother made for him, and thus the students are protected from Voldemort by the same magic that saved Harry's life as a baby. Symmetry is pretty.

Weasely most likely to bite it: Ginny or Mrs. Weasely
Totally wrong here, THANK GOD. I was pissed off that Ginny sort of disappears in this book--for crying out loud, Crabbe destroys a horcrux, but Ginny doesn't? Come on!--but at least she doesn't die, heroically or otherwise. I was a big fan of the "I couldn't decide what to give you for your birthday, so I'm giving it up" scene (thanks to that big ol' recap post that's been floating around since the second the book was released for that little tidbit), but it'd have been nice if she had gotten to be more than the too-young-to-fight Future Baby Mama. Oh well. And Mrs. Weasely, holy crap she is so brilliant against Bellatrix that I actually forgive JKR for not having Neville finish her off (see below).

Neville: will kick Bellatrix Lestrange's ass (pleasepleaseplease), but might (pleaseno) die in the process.
Oh man, Neville is so freaking amazing in this book I don't even know where to begin. He's all "Viva la resistance!" while the Big Three are too busy wilderness camping and being generally angsty and useless to care about what's going on at Hogwarts, he pulls Gryffindor's sword out of the Sorting Hat (stupid Voldie, fell for that one twice) and cuts off horcrux!Nagini's head... and then he becomes the Herbology professor! And his gran's proud of him (and how awesome is she, by the way?). Seriously, the kid is ten pounds of awesome in a five pound bag. I love that, looking back, you can't believe this is the same boy who kept losing his toad and couldn't keep the password to the common room in his head for more than twenty seconds at a time... but at the same time, his character trajectory totally makes sense. Fourteen thumbs up for Neville Longbottom, hurrah.

R.A.B.: Regulus Black. This one probably goes without saying.
...yep. Not too much to add here, except way to be nice to your house elf, Reg (see below). Also: score one for redemption, yo.

Dumbledore and Sirius: really, truly, irrevocably dead. But Dumbledore-as-portrait will give some sort of inspiring speech.
Man, and I thought Live Dumbledore could pontificate? He ain't got nothin' on Dead Expository Dumbledore, I tell you what. I'm really glad Sirius's shade/memory/whatever gets to accompany Harry on his journey to meet Voldemort.

Draco: redeemed, but probably (hopefully) dies in the process.
One of my favorite thing about JKR's writing is that her characters are as complex and interesting as real people. In certain cases--Harry's caps-lock whining in Order of the Phoenix, for example, or Hermione's tendency toward superciliousness, or Ron's perpetual cluelessness and insensitivity--it can be trying to watch our heroes, all of whom are essentially good people, acting like, well, the whiny, angstful, frequently stupid teenagers that they are. In other words, JKR writes heroes that are flawed. The other side of the coin, though, the thing that I find most impressive and one of the many things that made me adore DH, is that her villains are just as multilayered as her heroes. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Snape, but most of us have known for a while now that he'd turn out to be a white hat. I love what Rowling did with Draco in this book because, after 6 books of acting like a total evil asshole...it turns out that he has enough good in him to make him back away from the evil, but not enough to stop him from being an asshole. In my head, post-final chapter, pre-epilogue Draco grows up to be a petty bureaucrat at the Ministry of Magic, unpleasant to the end but basically harmless, bearing an undying grudge against Harry for saving his life--the cycle of James and Snape all over again. And speaking of cycles, I love how in a way it is Draco who saves Harry...because Narcissa's love for her son finally overcomes her dedication to Voldemort. Once again, Harry is saved by a mother's love: not his mother's, or even Mrs. Weasely's, but the mother of his worst enemy at Hogwarts. Brilliant.

...Okay, I've got an hour left to do way more than an hour's work, and clearly I am being way too long-winded to confine this to a single entry. More analysis via the rest of my predictions later!