I was really taken aback by just how dark the thing was from just about the very first page. I did get a sadistic giggle out of Voldemort at the end of Chapter 1, after the AK when he called out to Nagini "Dinner", although thank goodness that wasn't someone we had actually met
Then in the second chapter, Harry's thinking about Cedric, and Sirius, and finally Dumbledore. Then Rita Skeeter starts trashing on Dumbledore's name, it was really quite dramatic. Then of course the escape, my throat kinda swelled up when Dudley thanked Harry for saving his life, and seemed like he would rather be under Harry's protection with anyone else. And of course during the escape when Hedwig died, shattered me, and the intensity of waiting for all the Order members to arrive back at the Burrow, until finally Moody was known to be dead. That was about all I could handle on the Saturday when the book showed up. I don't read super fast, but, even if I was capable of reading fast enough to rip through the book in 5 hours, I still wouldn't have been able to continue after that. I kept saying to myself "You should just Hedwig fly ahead, and catch up with you", poor thing was so angry with him for keeping her locked up, and she died with Harry knowing that. When she got hit, I found myself yelling at Harry "Why didn't you lsiten to me")
The following day I went and saw Order of The Phoenix movie, and elt me tell you, seeing Hedwig and then Moody rally the troops at Privet Drive, just about had me bawlilng. I was OK after that, until Dobby got it, and that just ripped my heart out. At this point, I was sure she was gonna take McG and one of the six kids from me too, and thought, "Gosh, having Harry die, just might be the nicest thing JKR could do for him at that point. I've actually expected since GoF that in the end Dobby would be leading the House Elves into the fight, at the last possible moment, when they were needed the most, and I knew that was no longer gonna happen, and that really hurt. So, it really warmed my heart when Kreacher did show up, leading them (in the place I thought Dobby would be)
Did I miss a couple pages and miss Tonks and Lupin being killed? Last thing I knew, Tonks and Ginny left the RoR and Tonks went to go find Remus, then all of a sudden JKR was talking about their bodies laying there amongst the dead?
I liked the resolution, but, I'm confused about the Veil. A JKR spoiler after OotP came out said the Veil would be back, or she wasn't finished with it something of that sort. I have been expecting since finding about the Horcruxes that, that would be the way Harry would kill Voldemort if he was indeed a Horcrux, since he would have to kill both himself and V at the same time. I wonder if maybe the "death room" where Harry was having his final conversation with Dumbledore, was supposed to be "beyond the Veil" and she just didn't write it clearly? I also expected the Chamber of Secrets to have more secrets, like the hidden Diadem, but, I thought it was genius that she had planted it so slyly in the RoR where Harry hid the Potions book.
I enojyed the sickly sweet epilogue, I thought it was a very good high for her to end the book after the heaviness of the emotional roller coaster, but, I was a little disappointed we didn't find out more, such as what everyone else was doing for a living, and Luna's not mentioned at all in the epilogue, it would've been nice to see her being some kind of accredited "Mystery critter" researcher, or maybe following in her mom;s footsteps in the DoM as a lead spell inventor or something. Would've been nice to see McG promoted to Head Mistress, or to find out if the DADA position had finally lost it's curse.
