Two hours after I exited a mosh pit on a baseball field, courtesy Death From Above 1979, I uttered the phrase ‘you know, I’m going to spend the night with a whiskey and the new Harry Potter,’ at which point I was called a ‘tool’ or somesuch. Instead of sticking to my plan, however, I ended up babysitting a six-month-old. Too bad the parents didn’t factor in the cost of future therapy sessions because they left their highly impressionable child in the hands of three people who spend the better part of the evening laughing at Reno 911!

So I started book six today. As in this morning. Then went to the office for eight hours. Then to the gym. Then back home. To finish the book. And I did. I suggest you do the same. I wasn’t into the first 400 or so pages as much as I was to, say, book five, as it seemed like Her-Officer-of-the-British-Empire Rowling has fallen prey to life as the imitation of art; she writes this one anticipatingly, provokingly - because she knows the scrutiny to which every possible thread of this one will be subjected. The first books stood on their own, but each subsequent addition must work on the same framework. While still expanding the story.

That being said, Oh! Yes! I did finish it in one day because it deserves so! Book seven can’t come soon enough.