I've finally got to the end of the final Harry Potter book. It took me 4 days because I only had an hour or 2 each day, on the train or in the evenings, to read it.

A few thoughts:

• The early books were a bit childish. Thankfully the later ones were more grown up.
• What has J K Rowling got against the North of England? She names a couple of evil characters after Northern towns (Warrington, the Slytherin chaser in the earlier books, and Runcorn, a fairly nasty man from the Ministry in the last book). Also, do all Hogwarts students live in London? There is only ever mention of the train leaving from Kings Cross.

Possibly a few spoilers below...
A few thoughts about the final book:

• How did Neville get the Sword of Gryffindor? He was wearing the Sorting Hat at the time, and the sword had come out of the hat for Harry in the 2nd book. But when that happened for Harry, the sword was still in Hogwarts. When it happened for Neville, the sword had been taken by Griphook and its whereabouts were presumably unknown. Are we simply to assume that the hat could magically bring the sword into the school grounds?
• I was disappointed that Harry finally defeated Voldemort with the Expelliarmus spell. I at least expected him to counter with an Avada Kedavra of his own. At least he used the Cruciatus curse on one of the Carrows so he wasn't all goody-goody in the book.
• A few comparisons with other things:
  Lord of the Rings: A group of friends travelling around the countryside, trying to destroy a magical object. Also the presence of giant spiders.
• Jesus: A baby who would grow up to be our saviour. Although unlike Herod, at least Voldemort knew who to target, instead of killing all children.
• Nazis: Luna Lovegood's father wore the symbol of the Deathly Hallows - an ancient symbol which had been commandeered by evil (in the guise of Grindlewald)

I will probably re-read the book to make sure I haven't missed anything important.