selenak

First of all, I'm egotistical enough to check on my guesses:

1) Snape acted on Dumbledore's orders; it was the "Severus, please" that settled it for me back when Half Blood Prince came out, and as we know, Salman Rushdie asked and received a spoilery confirmation about Snape's not-bad-guyness from JKR, but it's still nice to have it in print. More on Snape in a second.

2) One of the Weasley twins will die. I think most people figured one of the Weasleys would buy it, but thought it would be Percy, in a gesture of redemption. I thought it would be one of the twins because they're the symbol of anarchic adolescence, and this is the last book; no starker symbol for that rite of passage. Check. Bye, Fred. I'm neither a twin adorer nor a twin hater, but I thought that was fitting, for said symbolic reasons.

3) No more romantic sub- or main plots. That was easy and the obvious reason why she crammed all the romance in HBP; it really didn't have room in the finale (and isn't missed, either). Well, except for one exception, to wit:

4) Snape was in love with Lily Evans. This speculation has been around in fandom since ca. book 4, mostly based on the fact Snape never said a negative word about Lily, as opposed to the plenty he had to say on the subject of James Potter, and HBP gave another hint in the direction with the revelation the crucial event for Snape's turn from Death Eater to Dumbledore's man was the threat to the Potters; rather obviously, it wasn't James he could have been concerned about. (Also, Slughorn recalling that Lily was great at potions could be read as another hint.) What I think nobody guessed and what I never read in any of the fanfics toying with the idea was that Severus and Lily knew each other since that early a childhood, pre-Hogwarts; not even after HBP revealed Snape's father was a Muggle.

Guesses that didn't come true on my part were that the Dursleys would play some role - though I'm really pleased with the farewell scene we got, complete with Dudley revealing layers, and Petunia giving Harry that last look; the revelation in the Snape flashbacks that Petunia wrote to Dumbledore, begging to be allowed at Hogwarts when Lily went there and that her "freak" attitude had its seed when she got rejected makes complete sense. I also didn't think anyone other than one of the Weasleys would die among the declared good guys, and my, did good old JK, as the Doctor calls her, go for wholesale ruthless slaughter, starting with Hedwig at the very beginning and ending with everyone's favourite werewolf Remus Lupin. I bet most of the Remus fans are going to be in tears of rage for months to come, not just because he's dead but because if OotP (the novel, less so the film) revealed the flaws of Harry's other three father figures - James, Sirius and Dumbledore - , DH showcased Remus Lupin's. Trying to run out on your pregnant wife? That's low, Remus, and you deserve every word Harry has to say about the subject.

What I also hadn't expected was that dead Dumbledore would get such an interesting fleshed out backstory. Which is indeed awesome new canon. Now views on Dumbledore have so far been split between Saintly Dumbledore and the minority opinion of Machiavellian, possibly Evil!Dumbledore, but I think nobody would have guessed at Used-to-be-friends-with-Grindlewald, has Tennessee Williams Backstory!Dumbledore. His behaviour towards young Tom Riddle, Severus Snape and Harry Potter suddenly looks like a unified whole: as a young man just barely with his own touch of superbia behind him, he saw something of himself and Grindlewald in Tom, which made for an instinctive rejection; as an older man, he recognized the remorse and saw the potential for redemption in Severus; and as an old man, he saw Harry as someone utterly unlike himself. All the while being as Machiavellian as they come; he uses both Snape and Harry to the max, while using himself and his own life no less. Dumbledore, now that I know you were a manipulative son of a bitch, I can embrace you completely. And hope all that tasty new canon, both backstory wise and with all the flashbacks to yours and Snape's conversations will inspire lots of fanfic.

Biggest surprise on the Slytherin side of things: the fact all three Malfoys survive, and that Narcissa plays a crucial role in Harry's victory, building on her portrait in HBP. It's the loving mothers that get Voldemort every time, and Narcissa is definitely among those. (Oh, and the description of Draco's receding hairline in the epilogue cracked me up. Not that I expect it to change the status of Fanon!Draco as a Jude Law lookalike, but I bet JKR did that deliberately.)

Neville was wonderfully heroic, Luna was wonderfully herself (and also heroic, and how much did I love that last little moment between her and Harry when she provides distraction so he can take some time out?), and Percy coming through for his family (while surviving, as opposed to most guesses) was neat. Meanwhile, both Hermione's ruthlessness and smarts get showcased (her memory altering her parents into believing themselves other people, sans daughter, and emigrating to Australia was at once brilliant - it almost definitely saved their lives, especially when one compares it with the fates of the Tonks family) - and deeply chilling. Hermione is scary. I mean that as a compliment. Regarding the kindness which she's also capable of: her ongoing subplot with the houseelves finally pays off with Kreacher. (And again, minor surprise/satisfaction that yes, Sirius' behaviour towards Kreacher was appalling and contributed to his death. I mean, Dumbledore hinted as much in OotP, but it was open to debate whether or not he was right.) Who'd have thought Kreacher survives and Dobby dies? Not I. Incidentally, I think it's the right choice, nothing against Dobby, but his character development towards first free elf was over. Kreacher's story about Regulus Black was deeply touching, and again, should made fanfic writers very happy. (Everybody and their dog had guessed R.A.B. had to be Regulus, but I don't think anyone had come up with the idea that he had found out about the horcrux and hid with with Keacher's help.)

Ron's mid-book period of doubt might displease Ron fans, but I thought it was emotionally realistic - and he was right, of course, about Harry not having had a plan, and about his siblings being primary targets -; throughout the book, there is a contrast between Voldemort and his Death Eaters, the way he treats even the most loyal and admiring of them, like Bellatrix, and their need to follow him without question , and Harry's friends, who do question him but come through for him when it counts, which Ron does, in style.

Harry himself is the end product of all those years: the NYT review wrote, more King Arthur at the end of Camelot than young Wart, and no kidding. The anger is still there, but no longer dominating via capslock, and it's significant that the most memorable outburst isn't about himself, it's about what Remus would do to Tonks and her baby, or that he manages to build up a relationship with Kreacher. That he is aware some part of him is responding to the power using the Unforgivable Curses gives without panicking, as previously, that this could overwhelm him. Still, there are such a lot of ties to OotP in this novel when it comes to Harry - the "I must not tell lies" scar on his hand, and the resulting deep mistrust of the Ministry of Magic, and of couse the big one: in OotP, Harry gets a glimpse of Snape's memories that cause him to question several of his previously held assumptions, and he gets that via looking at the Pensieve behind Snape's back; in DH, he looks at Snape's memories at Snape's dying request, and they not only overturn assumptions but also answer questions he, and the readers, have had since book 1. I predict The Prince's Tale overtaking Snape's Worst Memory in the "most reread chapter for Snape fans" category. The fact he calls one of his kids "Albus Severus" and tells the boy Snape was the bravest man he ever knew (and that it's okay to be in Slytherin) in the epilogue should make Snape fans happy, but probably won't too much, considering Snape, to one one's great surprise, dies in the novel. (He really was the most surefire death candidate after Voldemort).

So, Severus S. JRK's most ambiguous creation: great researcher, awful teacher (never mind the whole convoluted relationship with Harry, there's no excuse for the way he bullied Neville, or his crack about Hermione's teeth), unpleasant git, ex-Death Eater... and lonely hero trying his best to keep Harry & Co. safe against universal odds throughout seven novels. I thought the whole series of memories (of which the one Harry accessed in OotP turns out just to be a fragment) wonderfully avoided falling into several traps; because we don't get one single reason why Snape turns Death Eater. He always has the potential to be cruel (the twig falling on Petunia, dismissing Avery's bullying of Mary MacDonald as "a laugh"), in a period where he and Lily are still friends, so there is nothing tritle like "disappointed love drove him to it"; at the same time, the loneliness, the desperate longing for a human connection and the bravery are also there from the start. Voldemort, Snape and Harry are three variations of how the tale of the gifted half-blood wizard with a lousy childhood suddenly getting power can turn out. (And in case we miss this triple connection, JKR has Harry making it: "Hogwarts was the first and best home he had known. He and Voldemort and Snape, the abandoned boys, had all found home here.") But, keeping with the ongoing theme of the novels, it's the choices that make them different, and they all had to keep on making choices. And suddenly we get an explanation why the thing with Tonks changing her Patronus to a wolf when in love with Lupin in HBP had been necessary; maybe I'm easy, but Snape's Patronus being a doe in memory of Lily, and the simple exchange between him and Dumbledore ("After all this time?" "Always," said Snape) really does it for me. (For Harry, too, going by the way he brings this up against Voldemort later.)

Sidenotes: JKR has admitted she gets a kick out of writing Rita Skeeter, and it shows; even though Rita herself doesn't appear, the excerpts of Rita's scandalous Dumbledore biography are written with such gusto that I expect them to sparkle.

Neville as a professor at Hogwarts, not one of the Trio: was predicted by some of fandom, and is a great end note for him.

Mrs. Weasley versus Bellatrix: for the win!

... no way are they going to market the film version of this one as a kid's movie. Between the death toll and all the torture, that's just plain impossible.

... Draco of the receding hairline having a son named Scorpius is going to send the Farscape fans into stitches.