The Half Blood Prince (spoilers)

Well, I finished Harry Potter on Monday afternoon. Was a good book and on the whole I was quite pleased with it. Plot summary is here if you can't be bothered to read the book.

I am going to discuss it below.. so to save spoiling anyone's enjoyment of the book, I have attempted to hide the text. If you want to know more, then click and drag the empty space below to highlight the text thus making it readable.

This probably won't work if you are taking an RSS feed and so please stop reading now!!!

Spoilers below. You have been warned.

So as I was saying, I really liked the book. It was very much like Empire Strikes Back in that it leaves you with a kind of dark "ending" which resolves nothing really and sets up the final book very well. Had a little cry at the end when they had Dumbledore's funeral. His death had kinda been spoiled a while back with some of the press speculation and leaks, and I knew it was going to happen, but it was still sad when he went.

Took a while to get going, following the usual pattern of the books now which is - Harry at the Dursleys, Harry at the Weasleys, Harry gets into trouble on the way to Hogwarts, School Stuff, and then adventure begins.. Sorta going through the expected stuff now like a James Bond movie kind of does.

Plot was good, with the idea of the Horcrux things that need to be destroyed setting up the next book well (and the obligatory video game I expect!)

So Malfoy wimped out at the end and could not kill Dumbledore himself. No suprise there. Snape finishing the job was though.. I still don't know about Snape, reckon there's a suprise coming in from left field in the next book with him. Maybe he had to kill Dumbledore to maintain his cover with Voldemort? He had no choice really, he had the unbreakable vow (which I think he didn't expect to have had on him) and so if he didn't he would have died himself. In every war there are casualties and sacrifices. Maybe Dumbledore had to die to keep Snape in an ideal position help Harry take down Voldemort at the end of book 7.

Good to see Ginny and Harry get together. I kinda like Ginny Weasley. Cute and feisty.

So what for book 7 then? Harry obviously has to destroy these Horcrux things, and hunt down whoever has the locket. Will Harry die at the end? I dunno... I have a hunch he may sacrifice himself. What side is Snape really on? Will he "do the decent thing" at the end of the day? I think he will.. it's too obvious having him really on the side of evil. We were always meant to think he was really in it for the Good side, now we think he isn't.. and I reckon thats a deception on the part of JKR. I also reckon Neville will have more of a role too, and may even be the chosen one himself.

Guess we have a lot of speculating to do. JKR has said she will start writing the next one at the end of the year, so we're gonna have another two year wait I guess before we get the answers.

Speculate away in the comments. For those that haven't read the book, don't read the comments!