I've finished re-reading Deathly Hallows - I'm suffering a revulsion of feeling for the big finish. Everything up to and including The Prince's Tale is as good as it was last time. Everything after that seems to have been written with the future screenplay in mind, particularly the Molly Weasley/Bellatrix duel. I actually couldn't bear to read that bit again. Same goes for the epilogue.

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

A fitting successor to the other Ron moments - as much fun as his delight in the 50-pence piece or his vain attempts to make the West Ham posters move.

The only one I never quite liked was his suspicion of doctors ('those Muggle nutters who cut people up') in Order of the Phoenix, but I suspect I'm not supposed to - it's like the lame brand names and wooden wirelesses, one of the uneasy things about wizarding culture that prevents it from becoming too cosy.

Woke up from a nightmare last night yelling 'Avada Kedavra!'. I was trying to kill some dream students who were after me because I'd grassed on them for throwing water bombs at me. I didn't even have a wand, but green light came out of my fingers and everything.

I only hope the neighbours didn't hear.

I was also right about one of the deaths. Good choice to pick one of a pair of interchangeable characters. Also nice to see a pair of redemptions, one comic, one very sad. I can't say I particularly liked the coda, not on first reading anyway. In fact I think I felt my teeth rotting from the sweetness as I read it.

Having got to page 289 I'm pleased to say I was right about everything except Regulus' middle name, which I guessed was Alphard (after his uncle) rather than Arcturus. The locket was indeed the one 'which none of them could open' that they found at Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix, it certainly was saved from the rubbish sack by Kreacher and it was, as predicted, subsequently nicked by Mundungus Fletcher.

Talking of Order of the Phoenix, JKR obviously wanted to avoid writing another book with a long slow start. Deathly Hallows positively explodes with action early on. I haven't been so beset by so many catastrophes in such a short time since I first watched Buffy episode 5.20, Spiral, where Buffs' plan to hide from Glory goes awry in successively more dreadful ways.

Still room for some humour though. Uncle Vernon obviously still reads the Daily Mail, as his suspicions that Harry wants to get his hands on the equity in 4 Privet Drive show. Interesting, btw, to see that Rowling avoids the easy option of showing the Dursleys as Muggle racists. You'd've thought a black wizard would be a Mail reader's worst nightmare.

Which none of them could open

After re-reading all the Harry Potter books in preparation for July 21st, and not reading any spoilers at all, I've worked out where the real Horcrux locket is, and who swapped it for the fake.

But it occurs to me that, if it's not uncommon for wizards to have two Muggle parents, but it's quite rare for wizarding parents to have a Squib, then the wizarding population should long ago have outnumbered the Muggles, particularly as Squibs are still part of wizarding society. I'm surprised that there are any pure-blood Muggles left at all, in fact.

Nice to see, by the way, that, when Snape talks about Wormtail, he starts channelling Saruman talking about Wormtongue. 'He has taken to listening at doors lately' recalls 'Worm has been very hungry lately.'