Ten Bold Predictions: Number Four

I have a little over two weeks to go, so I figure I had better step it up in the whole "predictions" ring, especially since an early release of the novel sold at auction a couple of weeks ago for $18,000+ (I think that was the news I heard whilst driving to Indiana). I wouldn't want people to think I had an extra $18,000 to blow on early release Harry Potter editions. Because, you know, I wouldn't buy a new car or pay off my credit cards or put a down payment on a fairly nice house or anything like that. I'd go right for the children's lit section.

Prediction Four: Harry got the reprieve!

When I first figured out that Harry was the last horcrux, I immediately wondered if he would have to die. In my world, where I write the endings to books, he would die. And, for a long time, I'm pretty sure J.K. Rowling was in the same boat. She had said that there was absolutely no way that there would ever be any more Harry Potter books (being that she's a multi-billionaire at this point and wants to work on different stories, I tend to believe her). And, honestly, the way I see things working out, I don't blame her. She's written seven books now all about one kid growing up (okay, so it's three kids...four if you toss in Neville Longbottom), so why not make that series about a magical raccoon who shoots spells out of his butt?

[That's an obscure Robot Chicken reference, just in case you didn't get it (thus making it obscure).]

Anyway, it would make sense. Harry (and his friends) manage to pull the magical upset of the century and they beat Voldemort and send him on his merry way after completing the Triforce destroying all the horcruxes (except Harry) and squaring off against dark lord Gannon the dark wizard Voldemort. Then, in order to make sure that Voldemort doesn't sneak back, because Hermionie will have figured out the true nature of the scar, Harry makes sure he gets killed--probably at the hand of Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew. After all, Wormtail does owe Harry a bit of a favor, not to mention, that whole business with betraying Harry's parents.

However, a few months back, John Irving and Stephen King both went on a campaign to beg JKR NOT to kill off Harry. Evidently, they saw the finish of the story the same way I did, and that Harry had to die in order to really wrap things up. I think lots of other people saw it that way, too, and there was an outcry (I don't know if that's really the right word, but it fits) to save Harry from the fans.

A few months after that, J.K. Rowling came out and did an interview in which she stated that one of her characters got a "reprieve". In stead of the original plans to kill off two major characters, she would only kill one (which one? See prediction number two, forthcoming). The one who got the reprieve, I originally thought, was Dumbledore (though she claims he's really dead, ha, we all know the truth!). Then I realized that popular pressure had influenced her and she changed it to young Mr. Potter. So, instead of killing off Harry and one other, it's just the other--but his (or her) death is still tied to Harry.

But what of the scar? How to take care of that? We've heard for a long time now that the last word of the last book (Deathly Hollows) was "scar". How to get rid of Voldemort's soul from Harry's forehead without harming Harry?

Again, we'll have to leave this one up to Hermione, as she's the clever one. She'll be the one that realizes that the Dementors are the key to releasing Harry from Voldemort's curse. The Dementor's Kiss sucks the soul out of a person. So, if you have an extra piece of someone else's soul, one would think that that would go away, too. Harry will then have to allow himself to be "kissed" by a Dementor (they will be at the last battle, anyway, since Voldemort has gathered unto himself all of the non-human magical creatures of the world) just long enough for Voldemort's soul to be released from Harry's body. Then Ron will pop in, create a patronus, and scare off the Dementor, leaving Harry to recover with all the chocolate he'd ever want to eat.

How to know that the Dementor's kiss worked? The scar fades and disappears. Simple as that. The last line of the book will read something like "When he looked in the mirror, for the first time in his life, he did not see the scar. The End." Or some such. I won't pretend to know exactly how she'll word it, but that is probably pretty close. And that concludes prediction number four.