Finally got a chance to read this last night.

First off? As someone who has loved and adored Draco Malfoy from his first pinched, pale appearance, this book was beyond my wildest dreams. This is the Draco that I've been going about these past years -- trembling, persistent, and so very human. This is the Draco that I've only been allowed glimpses of, the maturation of that bratty little kid that I always had such hopes for.

One after another, every domino that I'd prayed really was set-up kept on tumbling.

Draco Malfoy grew up (not all the way, of course, not yet, but oh! How much he did grow.).

And Harry understood that Draco was a person, too. And he had to. I firmly believed that before and was thrilled to see that JKR agrees. Draco is Harry's opposite number. Feeling for Draco was a big step that Harry had to take in order to understand the greater meaning of love -- compassion. The moment, in the bathroom, when Draco is bleeding, Harry finally understands that empathy isn't meant to be directed only at people that you already like (he took several other steps toward this in OotP, but for every forward step he took in that book, he took another step back -- ex. condemning James for humiliating Snape and with the same breath thinking that Draco would have deserved it).

Once again, the Big Death of the book didn't really affect me. I'm too busy being concerned over the state of Draco's soul (still not in particular need of redemption despite some early set-backs and I think that Dumbledore did a nice polishing job on those particular stains -- And thank you, JKR, for having Dumbledore give a fuck about a student that's not Harry.).

And Dumbledore... well, he was the Mentor. I was expecting him to die at some point. That's what Mentors tend to do.

My personal opinion on the other controversial Sytherin -- I lean towards believing that he had a change of heart that took him away from Voldemort's side and that Dumbledore's faith in him was warranted. I also believe that, taking only this book into account, it can read either way. Snape would have made the same decision regardless of which side he was on --  it was the only choice he could reasonably make at that moment in time. It's because of the previous books that I lean towards him being the same side that Harry's on (not to be confused with being on Harry's side).

I was pleased but not surprised when we learned that he was the half-blood prince.

And now, I'm off to finish reading all those spoilery posts that I bookmarked.