Today marks the beginning of the last week before the end of Harry Potter - as a series if not as a living character. In preparation I will of course have to re-read the preceding six books before Saturday’s release of Deathy Hallows, a practice previously reserved for getting through the Dune series (Heretics of Dune took several running starts to get through, with almost the entire population of familiar characters absent). I thought I would record my impressions of them as I do, and then make a final set of predictions before undertaking book 7 itself (as soon as K. finishes with her copy, of course).

The summit phenomenon itself warrants special mention. Even apart from the “kids reading again” halo effect which earns admiration from the bibliophile set, the sheer extent of the speculation surrounding the concluding events of book 7 is staggering. While the Internet has provided for many such communities of interest to form around media properties in recent years, from cataloging their minutiae to expanding the worlds in fan fiction, it has typically been a small hardcore group that consumes such content. More recently in meta-aware serial dramas like Lost or viral marketing/ARG campaigns like Cloverfield (which notably share the same savvy director), the richness and breadth of the tie-in media has spawned an equally rich aftermarket of speculation with multiple sources for insight. Yet I cannot think of another example of this frenzied discussion extending to the amount of websites, podcasts, and numerous books (which must have had a sales halflife of just a couple of months) whose sole purpose is to comment on, or lay claim to answering, the ultimate questions raised by the series to date…before we find out for ourselves. And ultimately, in the case of Harry Potter and all that remains unrevealed in his world, there is only one source for canon: J. K. Rowling herself.

Kudos must be paid for her resolve in not only setting an initial finite span to the telling of Harry’s world, when even the first being published was a huge gamble (back when kids didn’t read anymore, remember?), but after its unprecedented success, resisting the temptation to expand it ever further. The annals of fiction, and fantasy in particular, are littered with initially limited tales that are churned out in lesser and lesser imitations to capitalize on an audience eager for endless sequels: most anything by Piers Anthony with more than three volumes, e.g. Apprentice Adept which is especially egregious, committing that most foul sin “and then their kids have adventures”; Robert Jordan’s aptly titled Wheel of Time, which presumably will spin forever; and the wholesale rebranding of Dragonlance from a solid trilogy to an open-to-all-comers franchise property. This leaves a marked few who conceive of a novel setting, capture a rabid audience, and stay within the boundaries they originally set. Neil Gaiman’s Sandman stands out with its pre-defined 75 issue run (although some may quibble at the number of other authors who have been given license to play in his world of the Endless, such as via Sandman Presents…), and I am sure most SF/F readers have a favorite series that ends “too soon” for them, leaving a rich backstory hinted at but not belabored and ending with loose threads enough to keep it alive in their imagination. Compare that to the bludgeoning hackery endured by fans of Star Wars and Dune with their kill-all-wonder prequels, and presumptious follow-ups by a cast of talent largely unequal to the task. The rapture at being able to revisit a beloved character or world is replaced with a taste of ashes, full of bitterness and self-loathing…in the case of the first Star Wars prequel, the initial wonder lasted barely the length of time it took for the familiar Williams fanfare to fade away during the unintentionally comical opening scroll. After all, if we had strength enough to resist the diluted continuation, it would not be so lucrative to continue producing it for us (cf. all Disney animated sequels).

Rowling has expanded somewhat beyond the text-and-only-the-text position often left to fans of expansive fiction like the Dune and Tolkien’s Middle Earth universes, giving carefully-chosen tidbits via interviews and FAQ updates on her website. But the vast reservoir of the clues to how she means to conclude the story arc remain within the texts, coded in themes and meaningful glances and salted liberally with red herrings and misdirection. We sadly cannot expect every question to be resolved to our satisfaction, or even addressed at all in what all hope will be a dense if not lengthy enough conclusion. However, I fervently hope that it duly forms a hermetic 7-part puzzle meant to be solved on its own merits, without the cheating machinations of lesser mystery novels where the reader is given no real access to the means of solving the central conundrum.

So this week represents the last opportunity for genuine speculation, totaling up all of what has written and perhaps said, without the specter of a tell-all Reader’s Guide, Cliff’s Notes or …For Dummies sitting alongside your purchase in the checkout line. The coming weekend may be the last chance to savor the unknown in a truly safe “spoiler free” environment. For the last time you can sample the untold myriad theories and debates surrounding what “must happen” by the end of book 7 without the overriding presence of the final word. The probabilistic space will collapse come July 21st, and all of the unchosen could-have/should-have-beens will become just also-rans. While I wonder what it would have been like had book 7 never been completed, a la the final Dune novel or Dicken’s Mystery of Edwin Drood (or better yet, had the 3rd Matrix movie never been released), this time next week we will live in a post-Potter-singularity world where such oddities as a Draco/Hermione coupling, a triumphant return of “just hiding inside the veil” Sirius and “transmogrified a stone into his corpse while falling off the tower” Dumbledore, or a (good/bad, you choose) Snape can no longer persist except in the byways of fanfic. We can all but hope that what is left intact within the completed series fulfills some of our burning needs…but for my part, I hope it also leaves some unanswered questions, for us to wonder and believe in the weeks forever after.