You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

So, now we have the cover art and some new info from the US editor. I'm a bit spooked now by redwood7's uncanny sense of timing. How did you know that Monday would be the perfect time to post that thing?

So ... what do I think?





Hmmmm. This is the simplest of Grandpre's HP covers. Not a lot of details in this one. I don't think that thing they're looking at is a Penseive. Whatever it is, it's pretty old, judging from the cracks. I love the idea that - since this is probably a big event late in the book - Dumbledore will be right by Harry's side for whatever it is. Didn't like all that avoidance in OotP, even if there was a good reason for it. However, his presence on both the US and UK covers makes me worried that I'm right about my long-held prediction that he would bite the dust at the end of book 6.

The Bloomsbury covers are quite interesting this time as well. It appears that either the artist has read the book or has gotten some info from someone who has. The OotP covers were quite generic, but these seem to give some actual details. First of all, apparently Harry made it into N.E.W.T. level Potions, which means he's still pursuing a career as an Auror. Also, I guess we'll see a good bit about Snape in this book. *glances knowingly at ravensnape and angua9* The author of the Potions book is named Libatius. (asdjhf;aksjh;adsjfh ... I love JKR!) As far as the children's cover goes, I have no idea what they could be facing at that moment, but it looks pretty darn frightening. However, Harry looks a bit too old and a bit too buff.

As for Arthur Levine's comments:

There will be a new Minister for Magic.
We knew this, of course, but didn't know it would be in this book. And we know it's not Arthur. Amelia Bones, perhaps?

We will find out a lot more about Voldemort.
We knew this as well, but good to have it confirmed. I wonder if - in addition to what I'm pretty sure will be a Halloween 1981 recap in ch. 1 - we'll get some new info about him through Ginny's experiences with the diary.

He would not reveal if the HBP was Snape.
Hardly surprising. But the adult Bloomsbury cover sort of suggests that.

The book is intense, with light-hearted moments.
Hmmm. Intense, how? More CAPSLOCK!Harry? More intense battle scenes? More abusive bickering between Ron and Hermione?

Well, this is clearly just the beginning of the speculation, and we'll get more chances to FREAX out when we see the back of the Scholastic cover and the rest of the artwork for the Deluxe edition.

129 days!!!!1