You have echoed my thoughts. I appreciate your ability to write them better than I! I believe JKRowling summed it up quite nicely. As to those who've complained about the lack of sex, Hermione's being given too little credit, etc. they need to recall the series was written for children. There are plenty of more "realistic" books around for those who desire them.

My sister and I are in our fifties,our mom in her late seventies and we anxiouslly awaited the last book's release. Rowling's Harry Potter series enabled me to recapture a bit of the purity and naivete of my childhood before the advent of my adult life's complications.I will miss Harry and his friends' adventures, but we must all of us grow up sometime.

OK, maybe a quiet little life is what a lot of people end up with for themselves, but it is not what readers (at least, this reader) want for a beloved hero of a fantasy/adventure saga. I didn't want Harry to die, and I'm glad Rowling didn't kill him. I think that would have been just as disappointing. But there are a few problems with the epilogue, and a big one is that we don't get to see what they do for a living or where they live -- how great would it have been to see Grimmauld Place restored to some delightful homey glory, better than it was when the Black family lived there? I was totally expecting that, and we got nothing. And another problem, frankly, is Ginny. I'm surprised our book club people don't go into the fact that her character, for all the trauma it's been through, is really underdeveloped in the way it acts and speaks. I don't really get why Harry likes her so much, but I'd be OK with that, but I'm just really unconvinced that she is his one true love. (On the other hand, everyone has been more than convinced that Hermione and Ron were meant for each other, no?) Maybe a lot of the problem is that we're not really used to seeing heroes in this vein end up settling down in any way. I for one would have liked to see Harry take possession of the Deathly Hallows (Dumbledore himself did say Harry was the true master of death, so why then did his portrait tell Harry NOT to retrieve the ring? And just when I had gotten used to the thought of the holly/phoenix wand being gone for good, and the Elder Wand as a replacement, bam, Harry wants the old wand back? Ugh!) and retire to a philosophical life as headmaster of Hogwarts. Rowling gave us his instinctive trek up to the office at the end and everything! And while I don't think we needed Harry to die to justify all the darkness, I would not have minded some more intense physical pain (ala Voldemort gathering Harry's blood at the end of book 4 -- that was rough) for our hero, and maybe a more drawn-out death sequence for some of the dead characters. The only one that got that was Dobby; everyone else important dies offscreen (as it were), or, in Snape's case, sort of randomly before he is redeemed in our eyes, which really puts a damper on the level to which we can agonize over it as much as, presumably, the characters do.

JKR shares some additional information here.

Thoroughly agreed with and enjoyed your post - thanks!

While I found the facts of the epilogue palatable, I didn't like the epilogue because I found the writing in the epilogue a bit difficult to read. It was too dense with names, for one thing. The tumble of familiar names, now referrring to different people than we're used to, was jarring and difficult for my sleep addled brain to parse. I think it would have read better if a little more time had been taken with it... start with Harry's family, say, follow them from somewhere *to* the platform so that we have time to slowly register each of the children's names. I'm not talking about fleshing out their characters, just giving my poor brain a chance to soak it all in.

It's a quibble, but I bring it up because I sort of think the quality of writing falters a little in the epilogue, and that muddies the issue of whether we don't like the epilogue because it isn't written as well as the rest of the book, or we don't like the epilogue because we don't like the idea of Harry married with kids.

------------- In either case, I don't mind at all that the story ends with Harry seeing his kids off to Hogwarts, and I found his comment about Snape and Slitherin quite moving. I think, in concept, ending the book with the next generation going to Hogwarts is a good idea, since the books really are about kids going to Hogwarts as much as they are about anything.

I think, if it were me, I might have skipped ahead a couple of generations and had some kids on the HW Express whispering about a kid whose grandfather was Harry Potter, letting you know that he did have a family and so on without filling you in on any of the details of who marries who. Nonetheless, I think the current ending works, as many people have said, because that's what Harry wanted, normalcy, not fame or power or greatness.

Dear Brennan,

I agree that after deadly adventures, Harry and his friends would appreciate to live uneventful lives. But I do understand that a lot of readers (including myself) were a bit disappointed by the end. If Rowling took the trouble to go 19 years ahead on time and show Harry married and with children, she should have left us more information about him. I was curious about his profession, for instance. I thought that after leading the DA and everything, Harry would end at Hogwarts, the first place he felt home, as a teacher or even headmaster. I think that most people didn't expect that he would have a lot of adventures, but just to know a little more about him as an adult. Same thing with Ron and Hermione. Okay, they ended up together, but who are they 19 years later?

The question that the writer left unanswered is, in my opinion, one of the most important questions for followers of Harry's books: what kind of grown ups kids like Harry, Ron and Hermione turned to be? We understand that they turned to be "family people", but what else? We would like to know...