Harry Potter Re-read (minor spoilers)

I am a self-proclaimed Harry Potter fanatic. I have frequented Mugglenet, read fanfiction, written fanfiction, predicted plot points and loopholes, shipped for Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, attended Midnight premiers, and bemoaned omissions in movie adaptations. Now that all seven books are released and I have had time to heal from the heartbreak brought on by the end of the series, I am doing a reread. This, of course, means that all my other reading projects are on hold, since I feel that I can do the series the most justice by reading it strait through.

It's interesting, the things one notices when rereading the series. For instance, in Sorcerers Stone, for the first half of the book, one would think this was just going to be a happy story about a young wizard and his jaunts through a new world. While Voldemort is mentioned in passing in the beginning, he isn't introduced as a current threat until halfway through the book, when Harry serves detention in the Fobidden Forest. Another presence that is surprisingly absent is Malfoy. We don't run into him much in the first book, it's just known that he is a terrible little boy who wants a good beating.

Chamber of Secrets gives us our first clue, briefly, in passing, almost unnoticed, to the secrets we don't discover until books six and seven, when Dumbledore is asked "Who is opening the Chamber of Secrets?" and he answers "Not who. The question is how" To one who knows how the story ends, it is as if we see Dumbledore's wheels begin to turn and watch him realize that this threat is greater than he imagined.

I am picking up the third book at the library today. My original copies were all first editions, and, sadly, were read, literally, to pieces. Prisoner of Azkaban, which my sister still has, has to be read in two separate pieces, as the middle has fallen out. It is common, when reading that particular copy, to have to keep a pile of loose pages next to you, in order to search through them each time you encounter a missing bit of dialogue.

Hopefully I'll remember to post my observations as I work my way through the series. Stay tuned.