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My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Forty-eight hours before the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Madam Trelawney sat down with me for a Divination session based on the leaked chapter titles.
The Dark Lord Ascending
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Clearly Voldemort, climbing a flight of stairs, perhaps.
Unfortunately, I know better, thanks to my big-mouthed daughter Kelsey, who shared with me a spoiler publicized by The Guardian. Apparently (or apparatently?) the book begins with two wizards Apparting in a moonlit lane and one asking, “Any news?” The other replies, “The best.” Clearly, they are referring to The Guardian.
In Memoriam
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: This chapter must refer to Dumbledore. But wait a minute: didn’t they already have the funeral at The White Tomb?
The Dursleys Departing
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: And not a moment too soon, if you are as sick of the Dursleys as I am. Unfortunately (sound familiar?) Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times spoiled this chapter for me, too, with an aside that even Dudley Dursley has hidden depths. Very hidden.
The Seven Potters
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: What, one’s not enough? We only know about four, as far as I can tell: James, Lily, Petunia, and Harry. It is odd, isn’t it, that we’ve never met Harry’s paternal grandparents (that would be two more Potters) or any of his other relatives.
The book seems to be taking a sudden swerve into movie territory with The Seven Potters being a logical follow-up to The Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven.
Fallen Warrior
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: We haven’t really met any warriors in this series, have we? Many authors would have been inspired by the “war against the Dark Lord” storyline to create vast paramilitary edifices of officers, sergeants, and regiments, but J. K. Rowling’s mind doesn’t seem to work that way. She created schools (Hogwarts, Durmstrang …), bureaucracies (the Ministry of Magic), and vast efflorescences of individual creativity, but no armies. Even the Aurors and the Death Eaters are really just groups of individual wizards, not armies. So a true warrior in the archetypal sense will come as something new in the series.
The Ghoul in Pajamas
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ghoul school! Pajama party! This sounds pretty silly.
The Will of Albus Dumbledore
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ok, I definitely want the phoenix, the corner office, and all the super-cool magical objects that Dumbledore has acquired in the course of a full lifetime as the greatest Good magician in the world, or at least in the UK.
Seriously, though, exactly what is it in Dumbledore’s power to bestow? Presumably his will only extends to his own personal possessions, not Hogwarts, which has a Board of Governors.
The Wedding
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Bill and Fleur, what a lovely couple! They’ll be lucky to get through the wedding without a car bomb going off. Oh, wait, this isn’t Iraq.
A Place to Hide
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Sorry, buddy, there’s no place to hide from THE DARK LORD.
Kreacher’s Tale
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Oh, man, what’s this nasty little critter doing in the book? I thought we had seen the last of him in OOTP. Seriously, though, how does Harry get Kreacher to spill?
The Bribe
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Some moola, baksheesh, grub—and, as we all remember, Harry is loaded. Why not use some of his money to get the crucial 411?
Magic Is Might
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Sounds like Voldemort’s campaign slogan.
The Muggle-born Registration Commission
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Another faux bureaucracy from the fertile mind of J.K. Rowling. Scotland must be full of these absurdist leftist vestiges which the United States thankfully extirpated in the 1990s, when my home state of Michigan replaced “Social Services” with the aptly named “Family Independence Agency.” That’s as in “independence from government assistance…”
This doesn’t sound good for Hermione.
The Thief
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ok, now it’s time for {Argus whatsisname} to justify all the investment Rowling has made in his character.
Although the term “thief” could just as easily be applied to Harry, who, after all these years at Hogwarts, is quite the practiced second-story man.
The Goblin’s Revenge
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: We haven’t met many goblins in the series, but what we have seen, makes it seem quite plausible that a Goblin’s revenge will be not just nasty but quite effectively vindictive. If it is Harry who was the thief, the revenge will be a great loss to him. Hermione or Ron, perhaps?
Godric’s Hollow
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: The home base of Pottermania. The place where it all began. Named after Godric Gryffindor, the founder of a House devoted to courage. Does the Hollow itself have any special powers or properties related to courage? It would be a heck of a place to make a last stand. Did the Potters know that?
Bathilda’s Secret
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ok, who’s Bathilda? Giantess? House-elf?
The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: What? Lies? Nooooo!!!! Actually, it has been quite obvious throughout the series that J. K. Rowling’s preoccupation is with growing up, maturing, and seeing the world through a more complex (more clouded?) vision. That being the case, it seems inevitable that we will have to adjust our rosy-coloured view of Albus Dumbledore to allow for the possibility that he made mistakes, even selfish ones, and told untruths, not just white lies, but the occasional great big black ugly self-interested stinker.
What could Dumbledore have lied about? Well, the thing that jumps to my mind is that his story about why he accepted Snape simply has never made sense. Maybe Dumbledore had a very good reason to take Snape’s word about his reform because Snape had something on him.
The Silver Doe
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Mom!
We learned in Prisoner of Azkaban that James Potter and Sirius Black taught themselves to become Animaguses. Surely James Potter chose the stag knowing that Lily’s Patronus was a silver doe. Good one! That’s a smooth courtship maneuver, bound to impress even the most hardened young witch.
Xenophilius Lovegood
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: This may sound bizarre to some readers but to science fiction fans the word “xenophile” is familiar territory: someone who loves that which is alien or strange. Let’s hope this is actually a good character and not a perv.
The Tale of the Three Brothers
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: James, Jacob, and Jeremiah Potter?
The Deathly Hallows
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Arrrgh! Thanks to big-mouthed book reviewer Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times, I unfortunately know that the Deathly Hallows are not a place, as many of us thought, but rather are three precious relics that give the power possessor over death. I even know that a crucial plot twist involves Harry’s decision whether to follow Dumbledore’s original instructions (go after the Horcruxes) or take off on a frolic and detour (as lawyers in the first week of {Contracts} learn to call unauthorized expeditions) in search of the Deathly Hallows.
Thanks a lot, New York Times! The only thing that prevents me from excoriating Kakutani is that I’m not sure whether she realized what a big spoiler this was.
Anyway, now that the Fates have revealed to me that there are three deathly hallows, what are they?
Malfoy Manor
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Place I never want to be (n.) I’m guessing that this will be the site of some pretty intense and, alas, ill-fated adolescent rebellion as Draco questions his father’s orders and gets the Cruciatus curse for his pains.
I hope Harry’s not going to try to break into this joint … but if he does, at least he knows from a conversation overheard in Prisoner of Azkaban that the Dark Objects are hidden under the drawing room floor.
The Wandmaker
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Creepy old Ollivander explains how it is possible that Harry and Voldemort have the same wand.
Shell Cottage
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Do I remember this joint from anywhere else in the series? I don’t think so … which leaves it pretty much wide open. It does sound as if it’s by the seashore.
Gringotts
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: What, again? I thought we were at Gringott’s in “The Thief” and “Goblin’s Revenge.”
The Final Hiding Place
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: For Harry, or for the deathly hallows?.
The Missing Mirror
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ok, if the previous chapter was “The Final Hiding Place”, how is it that there’s a missing mirror? Shouldn’t the previous chapter have been called “Almost The Final Hiding Place”?
The Lost Diadem
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Darn it, I’m always losing my diadems. (Diadems, for those who are rusty on their magical objects, are jewels set in a crown.)
The Sacking of Severus Snape
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Yay! But the brilliance of J. K. Rowling is that Snape might just as easily be fired because he is a secretly Good wizard under a Dark administration at Hogwarts as because he is a slimy, oily, greasy murderer.
The Battle of Hogwarts
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Boom! Now we’re talking. Let’s see some rubble flying. Start by giving me a window view.
The Elder Wand
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Is it possible that Harry’s wand is somehow elder than Tom Riddle’s (even though Riddle’s was made almost fifty years previously?)
The Prince’s Tale
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: I hope this isn’t a whole chapter with that horrible man Snape explaining how he was actually a good guy all along.
The Forest Again
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Again thanks to big-mouthed book reviewer Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times, I unfortunately know that Harry spends quite a bit of time in the dark Forest near Hogwarts. Oddly, the Forest always seemed rather pint-sized to me.
King’s Cross
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: The train station? Another round of first-years entering Hogwarts? Can it be?
The Flaw in the Plan
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Ain’t there always.
Epilogue
My Trelawney-Inspired Predictions: Let’s have a pool on how many years later … if J. K. Rowling wants to forestall any immediate sequels, she’ll give herself a nice long gap of ten or twenty years so that everyone’s unrecognizably grown up.
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