It's finished.

I got nothing really to say. Really. Wellll, that's not entirely true. I finished Harley Pitter's newest, "The Half Blood Moneymaker". And I cried/got all lumpy/etc...again. Why?

Backstory: I knew about all the hype behind those silly little books.

When the series really took off in the states, I had absolutely no desire to read kid fiction. (Frankly, the dorky robed kids with the broken nerdspecs they kept showing in the paper were a little off-putting.) Call it my tendency to avoid the initial hype of all things popular...I just couldn't find myself getting into it.

Circa Christmas 2000, the Dayton's 8th floor X-mas extravaganza was "All about Potter" (It was something like "Harry Potter and the Holiday Stone"...doofy, I know.) Y'know, I dug it...but, again, nothing to make me run into the bookstore to buy the 1st two novels. And the little kids there drove me nootz. By this time, my mom and brother had bought the books and mama-san was nagging me to start reading them too. Which meant the chances of my reading them diminished tenfold. If mom thought it was "cool", there was the probably chance that it wasn't.

By Early '01, I knew that a movie was in the works...and I figured that I'd better drag my butt out and read them beforehand to get a grip on the source material. (After I re-read the LoTR books of course...after all, the exploits of the One Ring were being filmed in NZ in a rahter grandiose fashion: one after the other. So if found that my excitement was being directed elsewhere.) Long story short: I borrowed Sorcerer's Stone from me Ma-

And I was hooked. DAMMIT!!!

I literally demolished it. Then- Chamber?...gone, Ass-cabin? Finished. Heck, that summer spent out in Medora coincided with the release of "Goblet" (Film coming this Winter) which meant the biggest novel of the series to read and re-read... (I even fought with the g/f out there about how fast I read it. "Let me get this straight- You're mad at me, because you started it first, and I finished it before you?" Readers, Is it any wonder we didn't make it?

(Spoiler coming up, for you purists)

It was after reading "Goblet" that something happened I wasn't expecting: It killed a character. Moreover, it killed a kid. And it came about so suddenly that I found myself sitting on the bed, unable to put 'er down, getting all teary-eyed. Over a book (note: To date, only a couple of books have done that to me: The Stand, It, The Green Mile...see a trend here? And Catcher in the Rye....I cried at the life I wasted trying to read that boring-ass book!!!) I felt kind of foolish, actually. Here I was, die hard against these books not 6 months prior and now here I am all engaged with the kids...The books and characters were no longer "safe". And I kinda liked that...and was pissed that the next one wouldn't be released until 2003.

2003 finally brought "Phoenix" which meant that during our down time during "Odin" and "Red" I'd spend the time reading the hell out of it in the dressing room with Schlo$$er and Hotmama. (With the occasional pre-requisite shouts of: "Okay don't tell me who dies this time!!!") And again, someone did die, and while it (for me) didn't have the same punch as the last book, it still had a certain emotional impact. (And the hopes that a "Major Character Dying!" wasn't going to be the continued selling point of the series. We know already, gosh!)

So I finished it last night..."Prince" that is. And someone does die. And it was someone I thought could die, but would last the series. And again, it didn't really hit me when I 1st read it. When it did hit me, I was already on the last chapter and Rowling had actually written out a funeral for the character. And while my loving girl snored next to me, those stupid hot tears started trickling down again. And I was emotionally brought back to G-ma's funeral last fall. And I thought how wonderful it has been that I've been able to enjoy and endear myselves to these characters for so long now, that their ficitonal well-being actually takes on meaning. And I'm going to start re-reading it again in a month or so, to see if there are any details I missed. And to see if I can make it through without blubbering.

If you're a reader (or if you aren't buried in a script right now) I'd give it a whirl. It's a pretty good book. What she's done is shown you these kids growing up, hormones and all...Funny that, you might see a couple of characteristics of yourself in them.