Hew boy ... lot to chew on this time...
Overall I found this book to be brilliantly flawed. I agree it is much better than
Order of the Phoenix, but not quite up to the level of
Goblet of Fire.
There are several things that annoy me with the book, matters that keep me from labelling it "dead brilliant".
1) Harry is doing well in Potions because he has Snape's annotated book. But Snape has always been very secretive and private -- why would he just happen to leave his book with his notes behind? I would think that he would either take the book with him or else have copied his notes into a larger grimoire and destroyed this one. Somehow this simply seems out of character.
2) Tonks & Lupin. This felt just incredibly forced. Last time we saw Tonks (about 2 months before) she is bright, bouncy, happy and has never shown any inclination at all towards Lupin. Now she is morose, moody, not eating right, and generally a little black rain cloud. Somehow this simply doesn't jibe.
3) Grawp is now civilized enough to be at the funeral ... why? What has happened to change him? This, again, felt like an abrupt change and a tack-on.
4) Why wasn't Slughorn upset/worried/angry later after Harry had wormed the truth out of him? Given his general character, he seemed to take the whole matter rather easily!
But for all that and all that, there were some absolutely brilliant touches as well, and in the end they outweigh the problems.
Both Slughorn and Harry are gathering groups to them. Harry's loyalists are unannounced, but they are there. Just like Dumbledore he is slowly builing up a circle of folks who are devouted to him simply because of who and what he is, not because of what he might offer or get them. Equally, again unlike Slughorn, he asks for and expects nothing in return. I found this a wonderful parallel.
Yes, Dumbledore believes in the power of love. He feels it is more powerful than anything else in he world, and in this book we got love in every form possible -- first love, twisted love, self-love, true love, teen angsty love, love of family, love of group. We also got the inverse, perverted forms of these, with loyalties drawn out of fear or hatred, with evil not even trusting its own, and love that is merely selfishness. I think this was wonderfully played out.
Did anyone else feel there was something important to Harry being able to cast the sectumsempra spell? This was obviously an evil spell, one that did great physical damage. After reading that section all I could think of was Bellatrix's taunting of Harry near the end of OOP -- that he couldn't cast an Unforgiveable Curse on her because he didn't
mean it, that you have to really
want to cause pain to make such spells effective. This may set the seal on Harry's relation with Malfoy.
Is Malfoy redeemable? Sure. Obviously he hesitates at the last minute, and this shows either extreme cowardice (not likely) or dawning morality (much more likely). Will Harry allow Malfoy to be redeemed? This is open to a lot of debate...
As to Snape ... I don't know. I know he has further roles to play. I feel he will be there At The End, but to what purpose it is difficult to say. I think Snape wanted to fight for Dumbledore, but was compelled by the Unbreakable Oath, but why would he enter into the Oath in the first place, given that he would know what that choice would probably lead to.
Just a few random thoughts
