Mugglenet.com’s What Will Happen In Harry Potter 7? by Ben Schoen, Emerson Spartz, Andy Gordon, Gretchen Stull & Jamie Lawrence
Emerson Spartz was a bored 12 year old homeschooler in 1999 when he started MuggleNet.Com, which apparently exploded along with the popularity of the books. One assumes he’s not one of the Ultra Religious Homeschooler crowd like we have here in Georgia who were trying to get Harry Potter banned from school libraries.
The web popularity even enabled him to do a personal interview with J.K. Rowling. So, huzzah for him.
The book, which I borrowed from my brother’s girlfriend, is a somewhat tedious read. It is highly repetitive and written without elegance. But, then again, I am reading a fan book, so none of this is surprising.
What I was really hoping for was a cliff notes to the series, with all the likely important plot points listed. If they were trying to fill space by repetitiveness, I think they might have considered doing a plot and key info breakdown of each book. That would’ve padded the tome out nicely.
Regardless, there were some interesting theories suggested, with supporting data from the books and interviews with J.K. Rowling.
One note is the mysterious R.A.B. who stole the locket horcrux before Dumbledore could is most certainly Sirius Black’s brother, Regulus Black. There’s lots of supporting data in the books, but what I thought was neat was that these guys looked at the translations of the Potter series, and when the last name of Regulus Black changed to make sense in the target language, the last initial of R.A.B. followed suit.
They also reminded me that Harry and Co. had found a mysterious, unopenable locket in Sirius Black’s ancestral home (8 Grimwauld Place, I think) when they were cleaning it out to set up the Order of the Phoenix HQ. That locket, likely the missing Horcrux, is probably now in the possession of Kreacher the house elf or Mundungus(sp?), the guy who kept swiping stuff and selling it.
The two way mirror that Sirius gave Harry is supposed to be important. Sirius had one, Harry the other, and theoretically, Sirius’ went with him when he fell into the veil and died. It didn’t work when Harry tried it after Sirius died, and he broke his in anger, but somehow it will matter. J.K. said that Sirius had to die. Will Harry use it to talk to any of the many dead people?
The MuggleNet folks think that the Deathly Hallows refers to the Four Hallows of the Holy Grail:
1. The Holy Grail
2. The Broken Sword
3. The Stone, the Dish, or The Pentacle
4. The Spear of Destiny
They then relate this to:
1. Hufflepuff’s cup
2. Gryffindor’s Sword
3. Slytherin’s Locket
4. Ravenclaw’s Wand
There are thought to be four more Horcruxes to be found and destroyed in Book 7. The Sword is the only one that is presumed not tainted with a horcrux. It is the sword Harry used to defeat that beast thing whose name I can’t remember.
Anyway, I’m going to read the Wikipedia plot summaries before the book comes out, and then woo-eee! Book 7!
Then I’ll go back to being an adult.
I just re-read HP5 for the movie (Order of the Phoenix), which is the only reason I remember the Order’s home is at 12 Grimmauld Place.
I forgot all about the horcruxes (horcruces?). Guess I need to re-read HP6 before the last book comes out this month.
The MuggleNet theories all seem pretty sound, and backed up by common sense evidence from the books and from Rowling’s interviews.
If you want stuff that goes off the deep end, I saw a book at Barnes & Noble the other day called Who Killed Albus Dumbledore? This book contains about fifteen long essays from people who can only be called “Harry Potter conspiracy theorists” – positing ridiculously elaborate scenarios such as “Dumbledore actually died a year ago, right after Book 5, and Snape was impersonating him every time he appeared in Book 6.” Or insisting that, say, Lupin was actually being impersonated by Peter Pettigrew throughout Book 6, and so on.
Nearly all of these theories depend heavily on Polyjuice Potion and the same “one character successfully impersonates another for a long time” gambit that was central to Book 4 – which is exactly why none of them are probably true. I really doubt Rowling would use the same punchline twice. But it makes for an entertaining read, and keeps a lot of people off the street who would otherwise be obsessing about the shadowy figure on the grassy knoll, or why Frame 28 of the Zapruder film has obviously undergone CIA tampering.
Y’know, Lord Voldamort was the shadowy figure on the grassy knoll. And Jackie’s hair was a horcrux.
Just sayin’.