The end of HP - spoilers

Listening to: Broken - Lifehouse

Reading: Darke Academy/ Secret Lives by Gabriella Poole

Writing: Revising some scraps

Mood: tired/excited

I want to start this blog off by making one thing clear: I am not a Harry Potter fan.
I am, however, a fan of J.K. Rowling. She's got a very engaging author voice and her writing is something to marvel at. Albeit I did find The Deathly Hallows (the book) to be quite dragging and boring as all Harry did throughout most of it was run and hide and change location and hide some more, and every once in a while go looking for another Horcrux. Or that's how it felt to me, and please note, that is also the ONLY complaint I have about the book overall. The plot was complex and layered, and it really is mind-blowing how well she wrapped up all the lose ends.

I do want to say that the producers of the HP movie have done a brilliant job. The chaos of a waging war upon Hogwarts was just as chaotic and messy as I'd imagined it when reading the book. The magic shield they put up around the castle was far more impressive than I'd seen it in my mind - so was the army that followed Voldemort.

I do have a couple of jests about the movie. I imagined the scene where Gryffindor stuck up for Harry against Slytherin to be a lot more effective and awesome than what they put in the movie. In that perspective, it kind of dragged a teeny weeny bit too much to my liking in the movie. Here's why:

The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognised Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, 'But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!'
Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stood, and, almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to Harry, all of them looking towards Pansy instead, and Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves.

Maybe it's just me, but I envisioned the Gryffindors to basically rise to their feet as a single unit; an abrupt sort of motion spurred on by the threat of throwing Harry under the bus. I mean this is a war, and if you consider how the different houses (especially Gryffindor and Slytherin, in particular) have been in a 'social' war of their own for years, I got the mental image of them like a fleet of soldiers suddenly called to attention, just having waited for that one day when their opponent would push the wrong button that will cause them to finally rise up against them.

Another scene I was a tad bit disappointed in was the King's Cross scene after Harry's death. Voldemort's soul cowering beneath the bench - I don't know, I just imagined it would be a bit more disturbing to view on screen. The visuals I got in my head were under-your-skin-creepy, and I didn't get that from the movie version.

And, my last jest about the movie, is of Neville saving the day. Again they dragged out a scene in the movie that I had envisioned to be more wham-bam-WOW in the book. I don't recall Hermoine and Ron trying to kill the snake, and Harry didn't roll himself out of Hagrids' arms like a sack of potatoes when Neville stepped forward. I guess it was to make up a certain amount of time for the movie, but I didn't quite enjoy that as much as I did in the book. I mean, Harry pulling the invisible cloak over himself when everyone is distracted by watching the only guy with some backbone face up to Voldemort being set afire, and then making his great get-away - far more genius than him deciding to flop out of Hagrids' arms like a dead fish in the movie. Also, Neville not wasting any time in dealing the blow that basically won the war for Harry - total awesomesauce. Those were the scenes I looked most forward to in the movie.

But, more often than not, the books are always better than the movies. With that said, they didn't do too shabby with the movie. It was action-packed and had scenes that will make you sit on the edge of your seat, that will make you cry, and laugh, and although I found the script to be minimal in comparison to the action taking place, they did take several lines straight out of the published book.

And that concludes the end of Harry Potter! Or does it? Even if J.K. Rowling does somehow continue the HP series (I heard something about a Potter-something brewing on her website), no other story will ever compare or replace or substitute for the story about the boy who lived. The story has been told; there is nothing more to it. Now all that remains are the many thousands of fanfictions of HP by hardcore HP fans that just won't let their favourite characters go.

A bit off topic:

I wanted to go in to our local kitchen utensils store and ask the lady behind the counter if they could reserve their Spongebob cake-tin for me for next week Thursday. I'm not a person who can think on the spot (I'm actually really bad with words) so I ran the possible conversation through my head as I approached the store, to short of prep myself for whatever response I got. So I thought, well, if the lady looks like she's not too keen on it, I'll just be blunt and tell her that I want to bake a spongebob cake for my kids next Thursday, that it is impeccable that it is Spongebob because my kids are spongebob MAD, and that it is to celebrate the birth/welcome their little brother into the family next Friday____________________________________________________________

And that's how my mind went for the few minutes that I stood outside their store staring at the cake tins in the window display. Then it really hit me.
I'm having my last baby next week Friday.
*insert appropriate exclamation here*

I've been through it twice before but the saying still remains the same, even after two kids - nothing can prepare you for something as life-altering as this. It blows you away. The enormity of it can't be expressed in words. It makes me want to cry, and laugh, and hyperventilate all at once (though this might only be due to my messed up preggy emotions).
Well. At least I can say I've had a movie date with my hubby before bubs comes, because who knows how long it will be before we can go on another date. And I had a couple of hours to myself this morning. Let's forget that it was because I had to go have blood tests done and the kids would have been too much for me to cope with; the point is, I had a few hours to myself.

Anyway. Something new I'm going to implement in my blogs from now on is ending every blog post off with a happy note.

Gratitude for the day: after months of scouring our library and yearning to finally read Bram Stoker's Dracula, I happened upon a Penguin published one going for a whooping $1 on the 'withdrawn' shelf at the library. I now own Dracula!