The kids are alright. I didn't want to wait until 2011 to know, though of course we always knew. It's not painless, but you knew it wouldn't be. You-Know-Who won't rule the world; you knew that.

There are buckets of exposition, some of it awkwardly late. And I'm uneasy about those goblins. I'm not a fan of hiding the nasty parts of our fairy stories; our ancestors told some weird stories and believed some bad things, and that's part of our big story too. I don’t see the point of straying into this troubled terrain.

The Battle of Hogwarts is magnificent, capped by the unforgettable image of a platoon of school desks rushing down the hall to some disputed barricade.