Harry Potter- Yes, there are SPOILERS!!

My dear Harry Potter series. I cannot believe it is really finished. I have been hooked on it from the very beginning. JK Rowling has helped me feel like I was a part of the world she created and it feels like a very real place to me and I continue to visit it in my imagination quite often. I imagine being a student or teacher at Hogwarts. What a delight it would be! A good story can take us into another time and place. She is a master at this.

I enjoyed the sequencing pattern to her stories. I love the rhythm of her beginning each part in the summertime right around Harry's birthday. Then the preparation for school begins. The traveling to school, the plot moving forward with the seasons and school year schedule. Christmas holiday and finally spring comes. Then everything breaks until the next school year. I think her organization has been superb. I am also amazed at her details. I cannot believe how detailed her setting was, her characters, her plot, her themes; all of it amazes me.

The relationships between the characters make this adventure so memorable. This is at the heart a story about friendship, loyalty, growing up and discovering who one is. It is about responsibility and caring for others. It is about love and loss and life. It is about sacrifice. I especially love the relationship the Weasley family share with one another and all those around them. My favorite relationships, of course, are the friendships between Harry and Ron and Hermione.

This last book was solemn for me. I read it in a gulp, I couldn't stop and had to keep going until I knew what happened to everyone I grew to care for so much. I was heartbroken over Hedgwig. Why, oh why, did this innocent little creature have to die? I still think about the little owl almost everyday. It is such a sentimental little thing but I can really picture it being crushed in the cage after an entire summer of not getting out to fly and it makes me quite sad. Thinking like a writer I see that perhaps it would have been quite a task to try and keep Hedgewig in the story this time around as Harry was traveling all over the place and the pattern was a bit different from the normal school routine. As a writer it seems almost practical to me to allow the precious owl to rest in peace but that did not help my grief as a reader.

I thought I might miss this structure of Hogwarts during this last book, since they did not return to school, but I did not end up missing it. Seven was my favorite out of all of them but perhaps it is because of all the previous books put together. Also, I was grateful that the last battle of all did take place at Hogwarts so we were able to go back and visit one last time. What a battle! I think I forgot to breathe for the last ten to fifteen chapters.

The end of Chapter 34 was so solemn. I closed the book at that point and pretended it was the end of the story. I allowed the moment to be as it was. I sat there and felt that quiet feeling one feels in the soul when someone actually dies. I sat there for quite a while before finally going out to get a drink of water and continue with the story. Only then did I allow my mind to see the hope in the pages remaining in my right hand and the redemption that would follow.

I was so pleased with the ending. She satisfied my every longing for the last book and honored all the characters that died along the way with dignity. It was rough to see so many die! I have to say one of my favorite parts to the story was when all the paintings in Dumbledore's office gave Harry a standing ovation when the battle was over. I cried and got the chills while reading this part! I was so happy to see there was an epilogue, but somehow this was the only part that felt way too short and I wish more had been said. I did want more about all of that, but the story was ending all too quickly and then it was done.

All is well though. All is well. And that really is the point of the story and something we want to know from all the stories we read, isn't it? To know that all is well in the end, all is well. We are not alone. Love is stronger than evil. Friendship endures no matter what. Good prevails in the end. I can't say this was a "happy" ending. It wasn't a feel good sentimental type ending. It was an ending that was hard fought with scars everywhere and losses too. But even yet, all is well.