"Honestly, It's a bloodbath"

I am a pretty staunch Harry Potter fan, although of course not as fanatical as the folks who are planning to camp out of bookstores eons before Deathly Hallows is released on July 21.I took the easy way out:I ordered a copy from B&N, and I am promised that the treasure will be delivered on the day it is released in bookstores.

I've been browsing through a myriad - a word faithfully despised by Mrs. Niemi - websites who have devoted their time and energy to the exalted existence of Harry Potter.Here's what I found:

1) Amazon.com features a customer discussion forum, which as of last count, has about 27182818284590 topics ranging from "None of the characters ever poo" to "Snape is a Riddle" to "Mr.Monk meets Harry Potter."
Suffice it so say that most of these topics are the "brilliant" productions of equally brilliant and productive minds that have a lot of free time at hand.
Access the forum here

2)Mugglenet.com has been the most satisfying experience so far.The webmasters have diligently decorated their homepage with a really good HP theme, and the homepage features recent HP events like OOTP (for non-Harryies, Order of The Phoenix, the movie) premier in England, JK Rowling's interview on the Jonathan Ross show.The links on the left side of the page lead to many interesting things both about the movies and the books.It was Jo's interview with Ross that prompted me to write here.Poking out from the glib formalities of the interview is this memorable snippet:

Ross: So, we've heard that two people die in the book...
Mighty Gal Jo: Actually, more than two people die now.[Pay close attention now]In fact, I think it is an absolute bloodbath...

Oh yeah!Bring on the bloodbaths, Jo!

3)HP-Lexicon.org is an uber-geeky HP fan site that specializes in formulating very complex and painstakingly accurate timelines of the entire HP series.For instance, they punctuate their discussion of individual chapters with dates, (and whenever possible, even time) when each event is supposed to be taking place.
Thinking of majoring in "The symbolic relevance of timelines in the Harry Potter universe and its impact on the psyche of the series as a whole", anyone?

4)JKRowling.com is an authoritative source on debunking all foul-smelling HP rumours (sample:Luna is Snape's daughter).Don't expect to find those cheesy discussion forums.However,the graphics are very sublime.


Anyway, all this exhausting sleuth work made me think of one important character that everyone has so cruelly overlooked: Remus J Lupin (Professor Emeritus of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry).

The poor bloke has seen nothing but misery his whole damn life:he was bitten by a psycho werewolf when he was a kid;he was rejected from Hogwarts as a student until Dumbledore became Headmaster;he was shunned by the wizarding world because of his er...problem;he was unceremoniously ousted by the handiwork of Severus Snape at the end of book three.

But here's more:the guy is now absolutely alone in the world.He has to painfully suffer the death of two of his best friends, Sirius and James, and also the betrayal of his third best friend, Peter.And now (that is, by the end of book 6), he has to suffer the death of Dumbledore, his figurative stepping stone in the wizarding world.

Maybe Jo should cut this miserable fellow some slack, you know?