I finally read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which has been sitting on my bookshelves since it was published. Like the "just-in-time" inventory system that some businesses use, I've only been reading each of the Harry Potter novels a month or two before its film version is released. I haven't wanted to read ahead, because I want to enjoy the films without knowing what happens next in the story. I think all that's about to change, though. I loved Phoenix, and can't wait to see where the story goes from here. Book Six will probably be started the day after I see Phoenix, and there's no way I'll be waiting around for another couple of years to read Book Seven, lol.

That said, I now have to confess in a small voice that I don't like Harry very much these days. He's rash and foolhardy and absolutely convinced that he's the only one who understands, or is capable of understanding, what's going on. "A typical teenager," I hear everyone telling me, and I recognise the truth of it. Still, believing that, and refusing to listen to advice from anyone, be they adults or Hermione and Ron, he sets in motion events that have catastrophic results for other people. And then he seems to be suitably horrified, but I have my doubts that it's more than show, because he doesn't learn anything, and so the cycle just repeats itself. I told someone the other day that if Harry ends up dying in Deathly Hallows, I won't be that upset. He's got one book now to convince me to feel differently.