Blog Post #1: What to Expect

I remember my first time reading the Harry Potter series as I was growing up with the books and expecting a lot of things that did not happen. In the first book, I expected Snape to be the ultimate bad guy next to Voldemort. I was really buying into the facts Harry, Ron, and Hermione were seeing when it comes to Snape finding the Sorcerer's Stone. All clues seemed to fall right into place, but as we know now we were all wrong. Snape was not the person going for the Stone. Professor Quirrel was the one going for it which was a shock because he was not mentioned in the book very much at all unless it was through passing. What I REALLY did not expect was Voldemort being a parasite on the other side of Quirrel's head! WHAT A SHOCK! However, I did expect Voldemort to be involved in one way or another. I just had expected it to happen in another way. Also, since the book did have Harry's name in the title, I expected him to be in the story until the end. What kind of a book would it be if the title of the book has nothing to do with the main plot?

The second book was very hard for me to predict. I remember ultimately wanting Malfoy to be the bad guy at the end of the book. I hated him by the end and I just wanted him gone. However, it really would not be a good thing for the series if they killed him off so early. I guess it was a good thing to do to not really have him be involved. I was very surprised at the use of Tom Riddle. Reading how Riddle switched the letters to be come Voldemort was astonishing my opinion, and I definitely did not see that coming! When it seemed like Harry was cornered, I was at the point of not knowing what to expect. Any inkling of what I thought could happen at this point was NOT happening so I just decided to go with the words on the page. I thought the use of Fawkes was very creative and making Harry believe he is a "true Gryffindor" by pulling the sword out of the sorting hat was really cool.

The first book was a little bit more predictable than the second, but both were still not too easy to predict. I really did not see the major twists at the end coming, and that is ultimately what kept me reading the books. I know I can expect more of these to come in the upcoming books, and I can hardly wait.