Harry Potter 7

JP has obtained a Harry Potter VII spoiler copy and is approximately 230 pages through. It's the one CNN.com noted here: Some dude took digital pictures from the book and posted them on torrent sites.

The normally-sacrosanct-as-a-freshly-carved-gavel JP had some misgivings both about downloading the book and about telling people he did it. I read the first six Harry Potter books the summer before entering the path of the just and righteous at JPSLS, right after the sixth came out, by borrowing them from a friend. JP loved him some HP. I even dressed up as Hawwy Pawtah for Halloween last year: I learned that the "Get me a beer" spell succumbs to the law of diminishing returns.

I had plans on going out and buying the book the day (not the night) it came out and reading it with everyone else. But.

(1) It was easy to find and download. Only about 72MB and the pages, once you adjust the brightness a bit, are very readable. My buddy from undergrad told me where to get it, it was there, took a few minutes, and I was off.

(2) I'm going to Chicago this weekend to visit the another buddy from undergrad, and I really didn't want to hear somehow over the weekend how the book ends. As I've read HP7 info online for the last two years, I've secretly been afraid Rowling would croak before getting 7 out. The way she creates worlds is amazing, and anyone who still considers the Harry Potter series to somehow be below them intellectually couldn't be more wrong. Literature isn't about using big words; it's about creating rich worlds. I've never read anyone (JP majored in English as an undergrad) who does that as well as JK. I would have been very disappointed if 7 was spoiled.

(3) I don't own any of the first six books, and so I'd really rather wait for the box set to come out in a year or two and get them all at the same time. I have no problem paying Rowling to read her books; I just didn't see a real need to end up with two copies of 7. I will definitely read them all again in a few years, straight through one to seven.