I really LIKED that movie! Way more than I was expecting! Sure, Ron was sidelined, they changed quite a few of the BIG moments and thus changed their significance, but it was such a great balance of humour and darkness, it's the first of the films that I've really, truly liked in its own right, rather than just as an adaptation.

Although please don't tell me it was just me who found all the Harry & Slughorn dialogue really... dodgy? Seriously, Melody and I were CRACKING. UP.

Oh yeah, Jackie and Melody and Nathaniel are here :D:D:D:D I AM SO HAPPY TO SEE JACKIE AGAIN. I LITERALLY THREW MY STUFF ASIDE AND RAN DOWN THE CORRIDOR TO HUG HER. AND MELODY AND NATHANIEL ARE AWESOME AS WELL. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

At last, my plot bunnies have got going again and writing is easy! Yay!

Basically, last night when I was half asleep I started thinking out the ending. I started thinking if I had to write the ending, right now, what would I have to go back and add in later to make it make sense?

I then basically deleted everything I'd written lately that was so rubbish - well, cut and paste it onto another document in case I needed it again - then started writing Section 3 all over again. Only this time, I started writing it with my traditional slightly odd and surreal opening sentences - 'Dave was paddling when the end of the world came' - and was also listening to the Battlestar Galactica track 'Prelude to War' while I did it to a) make me feel important and b) instil me with some sense of the drama of what was happening. Because deep down, I know the attempted-epicness and blasphemy-ness of my writing, but when I write it it ends up just like a couple of guys having a chat. Music helps.

So now I'm up to 59000 words and all goes well. I've written nearly 10000 words in a week! Woooo!

And the end is in sight, and I know exactly how it's going to happen, and it's going to give out a good message! Double woooo!

And last night I dreamed that I was Harry Potter having to hide around Hogwarts from Voldemort. I'd keep hiding in cupboards, then he'd open the door and go "HAHAAA, I HAVE YOU NOW!", then I'd yell 'Expelliarmus!' and run away again. Because, even in dreams, that's the only spell Harry Potter knows.

This makes no sense. Yesterday, I was awake for over 24 hours, and understandably got to bed around 9pm. Yet I wake up after 10 hours sleep, during which I dreamed I was Harry Potter and also stayed out too long in the sun and got lots of freckles, and feel COMPLETELY AWAKE? At ungodly o' clock??

The only explanation I can think of is my brain still thinks I was waking up around midnight, and is too busy rejoicing that I've finally allowed myself to become nocturnal to notice that we've switched time zones and it's bright daylight outside.

Anyway. Life trundles on. I've just noticed I'm quite hungry. I haven't eaten since about 3pm yesterday.

While I was in America, I re-read Harry Potter 7, and here are more coherent thoughts. Not that I think you're interested, just because I like typing things now.

( Random bibblings of a girl now with 10 days to kill before she goes back to Durham )

I finished reading Neil Gaiman's 'Stardust' on the train home, and OMGZ so much love. It's not the plot or the writing style that grabs me though - it's the storytelling. If that makes sense. It's a real old style fairytale, with just enough twists and quirks to feel completely new and fresh and make me want to run to a computer to write something. Sure enough, I got an idea for a story while I was waiting on the underground platform at King's Cross - so vivid, in fact, the first chapter started writing itself in my head there and then - so I dashed to a train to Faversham and sat down to start scribbling - only to realise I had no notebook or pen. NOOOOES.

So I just sat there thinking about it on the way home. By the time I got there - hot, sticky and generally unpleasant and hating my suitcase - I'd already decided that there was no way it could be a story by itself. So instead, I'm throwing it onto the pile of ideas for my NaNoWriMo novel this year, which so far consists of a boy called Udo Smutney who is in love with himself but too shy to say anything, unintentionally schmexeh Japanese tennis players, D&D, and Alcibiades, Zombie Executioner. Welcome to your new home, little key that makes people basically live their lives like one long game of 'Unfortunately/Fortunately'.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Stardust. Will definitely be going to see that in cinemas. As an added bonus, the guy playing young Dunstan Thorn is HOTT. And as an added ADDED bonus, he's also playing Caspian in the Narnia films. Thank you, Schmexeh Fairies.

My story goes well, just passed 35000 words. I think it's officially the longest thing I've ever written! Though I don't have a computer copy of Lord of the Things to do a word count on... I haven't written much more lately though because, um, I got the Sims 2 off Claire. And I've been playing it for hours at a time. I don't know why they all end up sluts.

In yet more news: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3656798/1/estabella_ravenstar_christaleeena_gos_to_hagwetrs Possibly the single worst fanfiction I have ever read - 'estabella ravenstar christaleeena gos to hagwetrs'. Warning - causes nausea and head pain.

Estabella Ravenstar Christaleena is 'very cewl' and is adopted by 'Lard Vuldomart' just because she WHINES at him. They live in Mordor then go to Diagon Alley where, within ten seconds of meeting her, Draco Malfoy - or Drako Mulfoys - tries to 'rap' her. She manages to tie him up on the floor with her 'wondless meggics' and tells him TEN PEOPLE have already tried to rap her that day. Dear lord! Eleven people have tried to rap this girl! Those hiphop artists, they must be stopped! If only all girls knew wondless meggics! And she goes whining to Lard Vuldomart who just tells her it's because she's pretty. "Aww, don't worry, sweetpea, they only try to violate you because you're hot!" Great parenting there, Lard.

The reviews on ff.net are just as interesting. Some people are being nice, as I'd try to be - or as nice as they can be - asking whether she has dyslexia, or whether english isn't her first language, and telling her to get a beta reader (or, as one put it, 'If you ever need to borrow any vowels, just come on over and ask. I have plenty to spare'). Whereas others are not so kind, one saying 'If not then it’s all too obvious that your mother drank, smoked, and popped acid while pregnant', and another summing up quite admirably what I myself felt: 'No. No, no, no.'

Anyway.

Finally - I went to see Transformers.

Twice, actually.

I LOVED IT.

I need help.

Claire is letting me steal her internetz again. I was only supposed to be popping round to say hi on my way down into Durham to get lightbulbs (the one in my new room went on my FIRST DAY, FFS) and I've somehow ended up reading an interview with JK Rowling, and... coming on here.

I don't even have much to say. Durham is shiny. Our house is shiny. Mim has pet rats. I'm already not eating enough vegetables (food you just add boiling water to is so much easier). And we're going to see Transformers this evening, yay!

Oh - and The Fear has returned. I've practically finished the first segment - Jesus is back in Heaven, and beaming and being disturbingly happy at everyone - but the next segment is looming in a scary way.

I'm scared it's going to be boring.

Not that the first segment has been thrilling every second. But it's been weird, and that's good enough for me. But this next segment? Paul witnessing stuff - hardly involved much in plot - and Kirsten and Danny in Hell. And here's the thing. I like writing weird but happy characters. Kirsten's just lost the guy she loves, and both she and Danny have found out demons are after their souls, and they're in HELL. How are they going to be cheery??

That's another reason I'm so glad to have Danny there - he's terminally optimistic and excited about things. He's the type to be going, "Ooh, look at THAT demon! Those fangs are HUGE!"

And yes, that terminally was deliberate. As soon as I realised I loved this character, I realised I was probably going to kill him. Which makes me sad. I'm just too brutal with my characters. But a good thing about this story is death basically just means a change of location - though if all goes well in the end, and the world is returned to normal and Heaven and Hell are sealed up again, then we do indeed lose him forever. Also, I have a horrible feeling I might kill him in a far more permanent way - have him sucked into oblivion or something. Which I really, REALLY don't want to do, but I feel I might anyway.

This ISN'T because I feel my sadism and brutality as an author threatened by JK's levels in Deathly Hallows.

( One moment for DH spoilers... )

OK, done.

But, yah. I has fear.

YAY! I'm back amongst the hills! The sky is huge again! And filled with ominous clouds.

Right now I'm basically unpacking while people sit on my bed and listen to David Bowie and we discuss 'ALCIBIADES, ZOMBIE EXECUTIONER', my upcoming NaNoWriMo novel. Because if no-one else is going to write it, I WILL.

But our house has no interwebz. Oh noez. So I'm basically here to say hello, and I won't be back online till BT stops being annoying.

( And also to say (HP Spoilers)... )

Yeah. That's about it.

This time, Thea's still asleep. I've already had an orthodontist appointment AND gone to the supermarket AND harvested some courgettes, but she still sleeps.

Hmm, which shall I go on about first, Harry Potter or my own story? Harry Potter, so I don't forget the HTML for spoiler-tags...

( Woo, I can talk computer I can )

OK, that's enough ravings and random observations. You can expect more once I've read it through again.

Now, back onto my own story. It's still going well.

I officially love Danny, the new character who came from nowhere. I just instantly felt who he was. He was just on a night out when he nearly got hit by a car, rescued by Paul, and dragged into this whole messy business which he knew was far bigger than he was but knew he couldn't turn his back on. For one thing, he wanted to help Kirsten. He doesn't fancy her or anything - I think he might already like someone else but have never said anything, EVER, to them, or he might even be gay - but he wants to be sure she's OK before he walks away.

So he's sweet. He's also smart. When a succubus turns her attentions on him - trying to corrupt his soul, more on that later - he keeps his wits about him enough (or possibly his low self-esteem) to say, "Hang on, what are you doing? With me? I mean, have you SEEN you??" And he quickly guesses that if she's there for him, chances are there'll be one after Kirsten as well, so goes to try to warn her. The succubus stops him leaving, of course, to try to get out of him who warned him they were coming, so that I can have the fun of having Jesus come over and interrupt Kirsten and her demon (who's taking the easier route of trying to get her to kill herself).

I also still really looking forward to writing Jesus. He's just so damn happy to be out of Hell that he's got a kind of manic energy about him. He knows that once he gets back to Heaven, it's all going to be fine, and stays endlessly positive. And he has some respect and pity for humans, having seen two thousand years worth arriving in Hell, but still considers himself above them, so he's sympathetic AND callous to Kirsten, at the same time. He can only be played by John Simm in my head.

And that's utterly fantastic, because David Tennant is God, and at SOME POINT I'm going to get them both getting relationship counselling off Danny. Who's studying psychology. And the idea of David Tennant, John Simm and James MacAvoy in the same scene makes my head squee loudly.

I had a dream the other night where I was attacked by both Dementors and giant snails. It was actually pretty terrifying, because the snails's goo could paralyse you, and they'd be throwing themselves at you and sticking to you till the goo took effect and you fell over. And the snails wanted to eat you slowly, and the Dementors were collecting souls, because once they got a certain number they were elevated to a God-like status. So now my story will have a) some sort of demon that can paralyse with goo (probably not snails, though) because being paralysed and unable to escape something is my worst fear and b) demons trying to collect souls, because more souls = more status. This was a thing at 3YGB that actually worked really well.

I feel I should state there's a difference between Fallen and demons. Fallen are still angels, just ones that happened to disagree with God, and are still essentially good. Demons, however, are creatures that have never seen outside Hell. They were the Fallen's attempts at creating more angels, and were corrupted by all the evil and darkness and all that emo jazz.

The Fallen need souls in Hell because they are what sustains them. The seraphim are still linked to God, and get their power from him - the Fallen have had all ties with him severed, and would have withered and died, had they not realised that all humans had a tiny bit of divine power in them. This gets stronger when they feel strong emotion. They could try to make them really happy, or in love, or fluffy bunnies - but pain and despair are just so much easier, they just do that. Once they've got all the power out of them, they're let loose in Hell, where the demons can do to them what they want. Because the demons are bored cooped up in Hell, and feed on emotions - so they go for fear, or pain, or despair. Some demons can actually absorb the souls, which will make them stronger and more powerful, while others just enslave them to their will, and make them fight another demon's souls in a power battle, for example.

Vampires are seeming less and less likely. This makes me sad, but I accept that they're not going to fit into how my story is turning out.

Thea's up, must go.

Clare and Alex are still sleeping, and the internet is strangely lacking in procrastination opportunities today, so here I am.

Clare managed to finish the book. By the end, her palms were actually shiny with sweat, and I don't think she blinked for some time.

SYMPTOMS OF REACHING THE LAST TWO CHAPTERS OF THE DEATHLY HALLOWS:

- Widened eyes, not blinking and transfixed on the page
- Tensing of body, almost into the foetal position
- Voice going up several octaves and talking very fast in response to questions
- Mild hyperventilation
- Face held very still to fight urge to squee and yell
- Irrational rage when distracted at crucial times

While she was doing that, I was writing a bit more of my summer story (still don't have a title, this is getting annoying now) - Ceph and Takhan, the Fallen in charge of 'Infernal Internal Allocation', trying to come to some arrangement about the fact Paul now can't go to Hell. This was awesome for me in three ways:

1. I realised Ceph has started to care a lot about what happens to Paul and Kirsten, and actually feels bad for the mess they've gotten into. And he's first starting to realise that maybe the system they've got going isn't a great one.

2. There's suddenly a new character in play. The guy that Paul saved and made deliver the message to Kirsten - Danny. He was supposed to just be a small player, for that one bit, but once I started writing him a character just clicked in my head and I realised he wouldn't just go off and forget about all this. So after delivering the message, he actually becomes friends with Kirsten, and even goes with her to the college ball (just as friends, because Paul said he wanted her to go anyway and she didn't know if she could manage on her own), which just happens to be where Hell opens. BUT THE AWESOME THING IS, I realised what the Fallen would want in exchange for losing Paul's soul - another innocent soul to condemn, in exchange. And the Destiny Department would assign whichever soul's Path had already been messed up. Whose Path has been messed up most other than Kirsten's? DANNY'S. Fallen are going to be after his soul as well. Suddenly, he's going to be sticking around in this story.

3. I got to put in the dialogue: "What's that?"
"Er... if I'm not mistaken... all Hell is breaking loose."
"... Please tell me that's a figure of speech."
"No, I mean the actual Hell being ruptured and Fallen and demons and infernal beasts being free to walk the Earth."
"Bugger."

But yeah. This is all getting exciting. Plot is happening, there's suddenly a new character who I really love and empathise with (and is so being played by James MacAvoy, I'll just have to find someone else for Ceph), and I'm successfully suppressing The Fear. I think that's being repelled by a) the prospect of writing the Apocalypse and Crazy!Jesus b) clear plot outline in my head and c) the addition of Danny, who I love, but still don't quite know what part he's going to play, so I still have bits of plot to find out.

( And now, some more squeeing over HP7... )

I think I can hear movement upstairs, so that's all the squeeing I can do for now. Now to investigate who has risen from their pit...

... this has been a very odd 24 hours.

First off - I am SO GLAD I didn't go to Maelstrom. Not just because of the heavy pounding rain that created such a heartwarming soundtrack to reading 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' - no, because I wouldn't have missed the experience of the live launch for ANYTHING. It was about as TEHAWESOME as it could have been - probably more TEHAWESOME then we deserved...

Let me recount. Don't worry, I won't start squeeing about the actual book till I retreat into the safety of an LJ-cut - and I will be squeeing, because I literally just finished it, and I'm still reeling.

First off, there was the Live Mugglenet Podcast. Mugglenet is one of the biggest Harry Potter fansites out there, and they hold a regular podcast - well, this one was going to be live. And I managed to get two tickets. SQUEE.

Clare, Alex and I arrived at the Piccadilly Waterstones - having just had Chinese food, me dressed as Hermione, Clare in a brown cloak and Alex in normal clothes - and immediately went "WHOA" at the queue. It was already pretty damn long. Some people had been there for three days. Clare and I headed in to the podcast, walking past people holding signs saying such things as "HARRY AND DRACO DECLARE THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER" ("It's the REAL ending, they're both in denial!" shouted the girl holding it at passers-by) and "WOT HARRY POTTER?? I LOVE QUEUEING!!" and already getting a sense that things were going to be a bit crazy towards midnight.

In the queue for the podcast, I managed to mortally offend some Canadians by asking which part of America they were from (I'm bad with accents!!) and, when I joined in their discussion on '300' with some historical facts and said it was what I was studying at university, got asked whether I was doing an 'Ancient Spartans' degree. But then we went upstairs, where the floor in front of the desks where the panel would be sitting was littered with tiny blue cushions. Which we got to keep. Yay!

The podcast itself was really good. There was discussion of what they thought was going to happen in book 7, and what they'd thought of film 5. Good moments were the American guy getting lots of English death glares for such comments as "England, Europe, same thing" and "Hang on, is Judi Dench British?", and the others teasing the same guy for always pulling out his Apple iPhone, and him showing off its musical capabilities by starting to play 'Spice Up Your Life' on it.

Afterwards, Clare and I went up to the front because I wanted to say hi to Jamie, one of the Mugglenetters who went to Durham. And chat we did, he recognised me from when I stalked him on Facebook, we discussed Grey College's awesome bar, he signed my Giant Squid shirt (THE GIANT SQUID - Innocent Mollusc, Animagus, Horcrux or Cthulhu?) and Clare's pillow, and said we'd meet up some time next term. However, by now pretty much everyone at the podcast was trying to get to the front to talk to the Mugglenetters, and Clare and I found ourselves and our spleens crushed up against the table. We couldn't physically move. Jamie noticed our plight and let us crawl under the table to escape.

So we went back outside, with our free pillows and purchased Mugglenet shirts. We asked a Waterstones guy where the end of the queue was. He said "Go out there, turn right, and keep walking till morning."

He wasn't kidding.

The queue was ENORMOUS. Potter fans lined the pavement as far as the eye could see. We found out afterwards that there were at least 7000 people there, and the queue stretched half a mile long.

So it's probably a good thing I phoned Alex to see where he was. Because he told me he was right at the front of the queue.

".... what?"

"I'm about ten metres from the entrance."

"Which entrance???"

"... the one we came in by?"

"How??"

"I've been chatting to some of the fangirls!"

"Will they let us join in the queue?"

"Eh, they probably won't mind..."

So that is how Clare, Alex and I found ourselves right at the front of the queue, about 10 metres from the entrance, amongst the people who'd been camping there for days. Because we were now hanging out with those same people who'd been holding the signs earlier. I got given a sign of my own - 'STOP BEING A MUGGLE, JOIN THE WIZARDING WORLD!' Alex had also created his own sign, 'THE GIANT SQUID IS A HORCRUX!', and it was being waved and shouted by another fangirl.

It was fantastic, standing there waving our signs and waving at passers-by and counting down the two hours till the release. It didn't feel like two hours, it actually flew by - amazing, considering we were standing still waiting for something very exciting. But there were loads of people to talk to - the girls with the signs, one girl dressed as Voldemort, various people dressed up walking past - and others walking past read our signs and most laughed, and some took photos, and we got filmed by news cameras, and a whole new bunch of people gathered across the road just to watch us queueing. Suddenly, standing in line was a spectator sport.

One guy walked past and said "You know, when you have sex, all this will seem less important." We just waved the "AND GINNY AND HERMIONE WILL MAKE OUT!" sign in his face.

And another guy came up and asked how long we'd been there. Then he asked if we wanted to know what happened at the end, with the hint of a gleeful grin of a spoiler. The other girls yelled for him to go away, and I just looked him straight in the eye and said "Look - you CAN yell out the ending, but I promise you, if you do, right afterwards you'll be yelling out 'OH MY GOD, MY CROTCH, SHE KICKED ME IN THE CROTCH.'"

I knew that line would serve me well.

He laughed and said, "Do you really think you should be threatening me?"

I looked at the company I was in - Voldemort and fangirls - at my own Hermione costume, at my sign, and raised my eyebrows at him in a way that I hope plainly said, "Do you think, if you spoiled us, you'd get away intact?" He certainly didn't hang around after that, so I'm guessing the message was clear.

By now, we'd had a couple of people asking us how long we'd been queueing, and we confessed we'd only been there an hour or so. The people behind us in the line, from Michigan, heard this, and weren't very happy. They'd been waiting in two days in the pouring rain. I felt bad, but the prospect of traipsing all the way to the back of the line NOW was not a happy one, so I apologised and said I wasn't meaning to cut in, and that they could go ahead of us to get the book. Luckily they were too excited about the book to get mad, and they didn't spread the word, so we weren't lynched or cast out from the line. But after that, when asked how long we'd been there, we'd just say, "Ohh, a while..."

As we got closer to midnight, I was getting so excited I was dizzy. By now, Alex was wearing my purple Giant Squid shirt. There seemed to be about as many people watching us queue as there were in the queue.

And then - there was the countdown - and then - we were allowed in to get the book!!

That all happened very quickly and surreally, in fact - we were sent through the doors in groups of five, lots of cameras flashing at us, were handed our copy of the book by a man and pointed to the tills, where we paid (only £8.99 - they seem to have thought we'd preordered it - but hey, we weren't complaining) and went to another table where they were stamped with 'HARRY POTTER PARTY', and then shepherded back out the back door past more flashing cameras and people still queueing (whose gaze I avoided, knowing I should still be with them...). We were amongst the first into the store, and we'd gotten our book by about ten past midnight. Thank bunnies for Alex's social skills.

And we met up with my parents, who drove us home and we decided to go to sleep before starting reading it (though Clare still read three chapters, she confessed). This morning, I sat down and started reading at around 11am. We took a break to make sandwiches for lunch, then kept reading. We didn't stop till about 8:30pm, when Mum made us come have dinner (at what might have been the WORST POSSIBLE MOMENT, I will say which in the cut section). We actually sat there in silence, reading, non-stop, for all that time.

But once I'd finished dinner, I found myself filled with reluctance to finish it. I knew I only had about a chapter and a half left - and then it'd all be over. The Harry Potter story would be over, and that section of my childhood would be done. I didn't want to do that.

.... but as I said, I'd left it at a bad moment, so I didn't let it bother me for long.

I finished. Clare was a few chapters behind, and Alex was still reading book 6, so I couldn't say anything. I just closed it, put it down, stared out the patio window where it was twilight, and said, "Huh" in a voice a couple of octaves higher than my usual one.

I then started to wonder how I'd gone from sitting relaxed in an armchair to hunched over my book on the floor in the space of a chapter.

But that's it. It's over. Clare is still finishing (she's near the end - the carpet around her is all ruffled up and her hands are sweating like mad), Alex has just started, and now I'm just trying to resist texting Frankie "OMGBOOK". She doesn't get the book till Monday, poor girl.

( And now here be spoilers and excessive squeeing... )

... I'm leaving the internetz for a few days till I've read HP 7. Spoilers are leaking everywhere, and I really don't want to have the ending ruined for me. I realise I'm probably going to THE MOST SPOILER-DANGEROUS PLACE POSSIBLE to get my copy, but I'm prepared to risk it for the awesomeness of the experience. Plus, anyone yelling out the ending will soon find themselves yelling "MY CROTCH, OH MY GOD SHE KICKED ME IN THE CROTCH."

So, yeah. I'm off. Just got to finish my T-shirt: "THE GIANT SQUID - Innocent mollusc, Animagus, Horcrux or Cthulhu?"

I still haven't written any more of my summer story. This is getting shameful. But I choose to blame that fact that HARRY POTTER 7 COMES OUT IN FOUR DAYS.

Not because I'm excited or anything. Simply because I'm trying to read the rest of the series before then. I started a bit late, and was on holiday, so right now I'm only just nearing the end of Order of the Phoenix - and that's only because when Frankie came round last night, we just sat there for about FOUR HOURS, READING IT. Occasionally wondering out loud about a theory or laughing at a funny bit, but other than that, speed-reading in silence. Oh yes, we know how to party.

But now that the time draws ever closer, emotions are actually kicking in. With my emotional detachment later, this is a big thing. But then again, this is the release of the LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK. By Saturday evening, I'll KNOW whether Harry dies, whether Snape's good or evil, and have most likely had my heart broken over the fact that the Giant Squid is, in fact, not a Horcrux.

But seriously. These books have been a big part of my childhood. Each book has been met with a different level of fannishness and anticipation:

1 - "So this is the book everyone's talking about. Seriously?? It's about a BOY who gets on a TRAIN. That's boring! But I don't have anything else to read on this car journey, so bleh, I'll take it..." (At this point, I still had not learned not to judge a book by its cover)

2 - "Ooh. There's a second one. That's pretty cool. Chamber of Secrets, though? What, like a room with lots of gossip written on the walls? Do the teachers not want the kids to find out gossip about them? Otherwise, I can't see what's such a big problem about it being opened..." (I remember by the end a) I was hooked and b) I thought anagrams were AMAZING)

3 - "Third one, yay!! Gimme gimme gimme!!" (Mum bought this one for me while I was in Normandy with the school, I started reading it as soon as I got home. By 10pm, she told me to put it down, go to sleep and save it till the morning - as soon as she was gone, I turned the light back on and kept reading.)

4 - "FOURTH ONE FOURTH ONE MIDNIGHT OPENING SQUEEE!!! .... Ow." (I was going to go to the midnight opening, but a marble table fell on my leg and gave me the bruise to end all bruises, so I sent my Dad instead.)

5 - "Harry Potter? Ha, that's, heh, so not cool. But, er, you want to buy me the book, that's fine too." (Harry Potter was 'not cool'. I still secretly liked it a lot. My mum could tell.)

6 - "YAAAAY! But I'm in the south of France... eh, bugger." (I no longer denied my fannishness, but wasn't too bothered to be in France when it came out. We still checked every bookstore we came across though... sadly, I found spoilers first...)

And so now we come to book 7. This is my last chance, so I'm going all out - I'm going up to London for the biggest midnight opening I could find, at Waterstones in Piccadilly, dressed up. I'm even going to the live podcast held by Mugglenet, because I'm THAT COOL. That's at 8, finished at 10, we all go out to join the queue (which'll be pretty long by then, I'm guessing) and wait for midnight.

At 11:59, I put on my iPod at full volume, because some people will be bastards and yell out spoilers. Their exact words will probably go, "HARRY DIES OHMYGOD MY CROTCH SHE KICKED ME IN THE CROTCH!"

I'm also probably still going to be trying to finish HBP.

Hmmm, I wonder if I could make a 'THE GIANT SQUID IS A HORCRUX' T-shirt by then?

Then Clare and I get a lift back from my kind and understanding father, settle down on cushions in the living room, and READ, having both solemnly sworn not to spoil anything for each other. I think caffeinated snacks will be necessary. Then we will try to resist the temptation to text those people on Choir course with annoying messages like, "Wow, so THAT'S what the other Horcrux is!", "DUDE, that ENDING!!!" or even just, "OMGBOOK."

Thing is, this isn't just the last book. This is going to affect how I re-read all the others. PS is affected by the knowledge Harry is a Parselmouth, so he can talk to that snake, CoS is affected by the knowledge that the diary is a Horcrux, PoA by the knowledge of how much trouble Sirius's escape is going to cause - I mean, it causes Voldemort's return which leads to Sirius's own death, which kinda sucks... Even little details, like in HBP where Fred and George shove Montague into the broken Vanishing Cabinet, make me go "Noooo, that's how Malfoy figures out how to get Dementors into Hogwarts!!"

Gods, I hope this book is good. I don't particularly care whether Harry lives or dies, but I think I'd get sad if Ron or Hermione did. If she kills Fred, George or Neville - WILL. NOT. BE HAPPY. Or Bill, or Charlie, or the Weasley parents - don't particularly care about Ginny or Percy. I wouldn't even mind if Luna died, which is REALLY odd, because she's the character most like me. Or Lupin!!! Oh gods, I don't want Lupin to die!!

But seriously. Can you imagine how EVIL it would be to have Fred and George die?? Or, even worse, only ONE of them???? See, if I was writing this, I would totally do it. Because I am sadistic when it comes to killing off my characters. On a Joss Leaf-on-a-Stick Whedon scale. At least most of the characters in my summer story are immortal seraphim - well, immortal to mortal weapons anyway... there might be some casualties in a big battle between God-seraphim and Jesus-seraphim and demons...

Anyway, that's quite enough ranting. I'm finally seeing the fifth film tomorrow - yay!