And The Saga Is Over!

(Spoiler warning: The Harry Potter blog will be updated several times a day until the book is completed and will contain the major dramatic points in the plot.)

And the saga is over! Voldemort is dead and Harry lives on.

I can't really see how the book could have ended in any other way – if Harry had died and Voldemort lived on to terrorise the wizarding and Muggle world, the whole series would have gone against its “Good triumphing over Evil'' theme.

But the journey was definitely an exciting one. And the end in particular was strewn with revelations:

Snape wasn't evil in the end. I can't say I'm surprised, he was the underdog in the whole series. What did surprise me, however, was that he was in love with Harry's mother his whole life and that was the reason he stayed loyal to Dumbledore and risked his life playing the double-agent. And he paid for his love and loyalty with his life. So Snape's death was the other major death in the book.

Harry was the seventh Horcrux. When Voldemort tried to kill Harry as a child, the rebounding killing curse forced a part of Voldemort's soul to attach itself to Harry.

When Voldemort tried to kill Harry in the end and Harry gave himself up willingly, the Dark Lord managed to destroy only that part of Harry's soul that was actually his own. Harry came back whole and unscathed.

In the final face-off, Voldemort kills himself with his own rebounding curse. (Quite convenient in a way, as it means Harry never murdered anyone.)

Rowling ended the book well, although there are a few loose ends that I'm sure will be debated by Potter fans for years to come. And the epilogue was, in my opinion, a bit too soppy and unnecessary. (Although it does reveal that Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny get married in the end. And so the wizarding world continues…)