[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]So....any confirmation on the spoilers? :P[/QUOTE]
a

Hm....I need to stop drinkin.

I confirm spe's bolded, red spoilers as accurate though I did not verify the page numbers. All of the events happened.

Yeah, I second that. I just finished the book after 8 straight hours of reading.

The whole Harry coming back to life thing was really confusing though (the part about why he wasn't killed). The explanation was kinda ehhh

[Actually, one part of the spoilers isn't true -- Harry doesn't come back because of the Stone, but for another complicated reason.]

It would have been simpler to say "You had the cloak and the stone, so the wand's curse didn't work."

Or he could have just died.

I think it was fairly clear. At the end of book four when Voldemort got his new body, he made it out of Harry's blood. So the magical protection of Harry's mom's sacrifice is attached to both of their. So the killing curse gets only the foreign soul (Voldy's last Horcrux), and Voldemort and Harry continue to live, without Harry's mom's protection, and Harry without the fragment of Voldemort's soul.

So Voldemort has only his body and the snake, while Harry has only his own.. cleverness.. and the wand ownership magic on his side. Harry's sacrifice for the entirety of the school protected them from Voldemort's spells, like his mother's sacrifice protected Harry from Voldemort. So only Harry, now, is vulnerable to Voldemort, but because the Elder Wand is loyal not to Voldemort, but to Malfoy, who is the former owner of the wand Harry is using, Harry is able to disarm Voldemort and have Voldemort's killing curse backfire on him.

Wait, so I guess it was a bit confusing.

For those of you who mentioned you have only scene the films:

Horcruxes are a concept established late in The Half-Blood Prince. Before the fateful confrontation with Harry's parents, Voldemort used a very dark form of magic and severed parts of his soul from himself and implanted them into random objects that he deemed important (these objects, combined with Voldemort's soul, become Horcruxes, and can only be created through cold-blooded murder). These are what made it possible for Voldemort to return after being hit with his own killing curse: his body was destroyed, but he had left behind seven pieces of his soul, and thus was not totally defeated.

The Horcruxes are:

Riddle's Diary from Chamber Of Secrets

The ring his muggle father owned (revealed to be the resurrection stone in book 7)

The Cup of Hufflepuff

The Diadem of Ravenclaw

A locket belonging to Slytherin

Nagini the Snake

and Harry Potter (Harry was an accident, created when he attempted to murder Harry as an infant. Dumbledor theorized that when the killing curse backfired, it blasted off a piece of Voldemort's soul and implanted it in Harry).

Hope that explains things to the movie folk.

Did you notice that every horcrux was destroyed by a different person? I wonder why?

Diary - Harry
Ring - Dumbledore
Cup - Hermione
Diadem - Crabbe
Locket - Ron
Nagini - Neville
Harry - Voldemort

Didn't it belong to Marvolo Gaunt - his Wizard grandfather?

Possibly. I thought Marvolo was his father, but I am probably mistaken.

Marvolo was his mental grandfather - his dad was the handsome muggle Riddle that his mum tricked into eloping with her.

(I just read book 6 the other day so this was all fresh in my mind!)

Fixed, he backfired on himself again, dude should have used a firearm, been saying since i read the last couple of books, these wizarding fights would go a lot smoother if they had some knives and guns.

it'd be pretty easy for them to render the guns useless

Yeah but then Harry would throw a pen or lodge a bullet down Voldemort's barrel and the slide would blow off into his forehead and puncture his brain. Probably be sticking halfway out.

WHICH IS FREAKIN AWESOME.

everything timewolf posted is correct...

and that broken body on the floor when Harry and Dumbledore spoke was so obviously the bit of Voldemort that was in Harry in case nobody caught it

and at least one death that was totally unneeded was Nymphadora

and the middle of the book with them on the run and hiding could have been paced better... it has a pretty hectic start... everyone attacked right out of the gate... George injured, Mad-Eye killed... then a "moment of rest" and a wedding (which ends with another sudden attack following news of Scrimgeour getting killed) then the long drawn out first part of hiding out... then that bit at the ministry followed by being on the run and hiding out once again broken up MUCH later by a visit to the Lovegood home which again followed by more hiding out shortly after followed by capture, and that's where the pacing picks back up a bit then things get really interesting once they reach hogwarts and then the epilogue and the book is done

So I just finished, and I'm happy with it. It's very different, but I'm sure that's what Rowling was shooting for. The middle is very monotonous (punctuated by some awesome chapters like Godric's Hollow and that doe chapter), but I think that made the ending even better. A slow-burn build up, that's for sure.

This last book had a lot to live up to, and I consider it no small feat that it was a great closure (aside from that sappy Epilogue. The only thing I liked was the conversation to his son about Snape being the bravest man Harry ever met... closest I've cried reading a book). I've followed Harry since 6th grade, and I think it was a very good (maybe not great) closure to the series.

By far the coolest part was Neville owning Nagini.

I thought it was definitely the best book.
I'm glad I avoided spoilers successfully! (the last book was ruined for me, I learned my lesson this time)

JEEZ people, How could we all forget to mention Georges's ear?
_______________________
kidding.

I JUST finished it like 2 minutes ago.

The only question I have is:

How did Voldemort Die?
His killing curse richocheted back onto him because... Harry was the true owner of the Elder's Wand? I'm a little confused there.
The Elder's wand richochet's spells back to people who aren't rightful owners of the wand?

I don't think the wand would let someone who didn't own it use it to fire a killing curse at the owner.

I haven't read the books (at least not yet) but I've seen all the movies so far. What I don't like is how seemingly cheap Avada Kedavra is. Unblockable, instant death. It's like...wtfhax. It seems like there is no point in an epic battle with that curse.

Well, you can dodge it. Or be faster than your opponent. Or be Harry Potter.

I imagine it takes a lot of focus, skill, and energy to perform, unlike the most of the other quicker spells they use while dueling and fighting.

In addition to the huge moral issues. Keep in mind, for the most part, the good guys were not fighting to kill.

I think the only one who can do the spell non-verbally is Voldemort. Everyone else yells out the incantation.

Voldemort can do it non-verbally?

I remember reading some where in Goblet of Fire that Avada Kedavra only works if the user is skilled, does it with extreme malice and has a desire to kill. If an inexperienced caster tried to casually use it, nothing would happen.

I almost cried when Kreacher brought all the house elves to the battle. Yeah. >_>

what i didn't get was how malfoy was the true owner of the elder wand. also, along those lines, how harry potter became the owner after killing voldemort (shouldn't malfoy still be the owner?). like, wtf?

edit (before replies): ah wait, so when harry defeated draco (not killed, but overpowered/whatever) at some pt before he faced voldemort, thats when harry became the owner of the elder wand... i think... but how can that be, if draco was using his own wand and not the elder wand? argh.

Well, Malfoy forcefully disarmed Dumbledore in HBP, iirc. The ownership of the wand then went to him. Harry forcefully disarmed Malfoy, and even though Malfoy hadn't been using it, the Elder Wand shifted its allegiance to Harry. Than again, Voldemort was still using Dumbledore's wand and it still had power, so maybe it wasn't the wand itself that had the power, maybe just the person who overcame the power, and it sort of transfers its 'essence' like that.

I duno.

He doesn't always, but I think he does in GOF and OOTP. It makes sense, since he's so used to killing, and like Bellatrix said, you have to mean it.

Yeah, I'm with Whelly.

Huzzah - I can finally go onto the internet again now I've finished HP and needn't be scared of spoilers lurking out there!

Yeah, we get JK's explanation, it just is silly.

Here's how the book should have ended (I'm gonna copy this from IRC):

<Vin> Harry should have gone mano et mano with Voldemort
<Vin> Some HUGE SPECTACULAR DUEL
<Vin> Ala Dumbledore vs Grindelwald
<Vin> and then Harry siezes the wand, uses the deathly hallows to make him immune to death, and destroys the horcrux within himself
<Vin> and then stabs Voldemort in the face

Fixd

<.<
>.>

*runs*

Hot

Awesome book....I loved Molly Weasley's line: "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU *****!".

The death of Snape (and the following chapter's worth of his memories) was quite touching.

So happy I can be on the Internets again without fear of spoilers.

Yeah it was good to see Snape come good - he's always been such an ambiguous character and I always hoped he'd turn out to be a goodie! As for the rude words is the latest installment of the boy wizard's adventures... in a children's book?!

I was expecting Snape to die some heroic death in a spectacular duel that allowed Harry to finish off Voldemort. Not be all emo over Harry's mum.

I'm guessing Harry's ownership of the Elder wand is what saved him when he got Avada Kedavra'd by Voldemort. So the wand killed Voldemort's soul chunk inside him, while going easy on Harry, letting him have a choice to live or die, and therefore allowing him to talk to Dumbledore.

I'm confused as to what killed Bellatrix. It just said Molly hit her with a curse in the Heart? Does a stunner to the heart kill people? I never heard that in the books before.

So Neville pulls the sword out of the hat... does that mean Griphook has lost it again, or can there be multi-swords?

Ron and Hermione trying to make out in the middle of a huge battle was humorous.

I think Molly hit Bella with a killing curse to be honest: it did say both women were duelling to kill.

As for the sword, I imagine it will stay with Neville until another true Gryffindor pulls it out of a hat. It's probably framed in the Herbology Greenhouses