Finito

Well, we DID go to a HPDH party, but we ended up deciding to go to one closer to home. I had been watching pictures appearing of the party of Union Square, and I started to feel claustrophobic about squeezing through all of those hundreds of people.

The party at Bayside, however, was not as fun-filled as I would have liked. There were a few people dressed up (Michael and I dropped that part of the evening also-we'll shoot for Halloween instead) but that was pretty much it. Oh well. I did go ahead and buy a replacement copy of OOP so I could get caught up, which I did as soon as we got home at about 9:30.

Then, I read OOP Friday night and waited most of the day Saturday for DH to arrive in the mail. Unfortunately, the postal service did not realize that procuring DH was a life-and-death sort of need and simply put a "Sorry we missed you" slip in my mailbox instead of coming to the door. Totally frustrated, I found the slip at around 5 pm and immediately went to Target. Of course, they had plenty of copies, so I got one along with some reading snacks.

As soon I got home, I dug into the book, along with all of the candy, chips, soda, and ice cream I'd bought. Twelve hours later I was FINISHED! It took me most of the night, since I started so late, and I went to bed around 6 in the morning and then Michael woke me up for church around 9. I am proud to say that I DID go to church and make it through the whole service and then to lunch, but then came home and crashed.

Overall, I thought the final installment was quite satisfying, although I did think there were a couple of places that dragged a bit (anyone up for pitching the tent again?) most of the "oh-my-god who lives, who dies" was simply hype (although I shed tears for Hedwig) and the epilogue still left some questions unanswered (what happened to Luna, and why were Teddy and Percy at the train, and who is was in charge at Hogwarts?) I think it was a fitting ending to a well-loved series. Long live Harry Potter!