Without any evidence to support it, I like to think that it wasn't just because Carrow spat at McGonagall.

Just a few minutes before that encounter, Harry was told about the things that the Carrows inflicted upon his friends at Hogwarts. IMO, the spitting merely set him off - he truly did want to see Carrow suffer in agony, at least for a short while.

 

Imagining the look on Voldemort's face when Harry revealed himself to be alive in the final battle, and the conversation after as well.

 

Dumbledore dueling Voldemort in OotP. I think it was the first real duel in the series. I don't count Harry's shit-and-run in the graveyard as one. Dumbles isn't my favorite, but damn he can kick ass.

 

Wheel of Time?

That's why, when I see CoS, my brain always says "Crown of Swords. Crown of Swords! Crown of SwordsCrown of SwordsCrown of Swords!!!", until I forcibly put it in neutral and grind it back into HP gear and parse the initials as Chamber of Secrets. :|

Anyway... I hateses it when people refer to fanfic by initials. I don't care how 'fandom famous' or even 'DLP famous' the story might be, odds are I'm not going to recognize it, even if I've read it.

 

Or 3, Like the Killing Curse Moody explained in the previous book, there just wasn't enough behind it. It was another two years and a whole lot more experience, use of magic, and bad situations before Harry used it properly.

 

The difference is that the Cruciatus Curse requires hatred, not anger. Harry hadn't had the time to develop the level of hatred necessary to really hurt Bellatrix, he was still running on anger at that point.

 

There is "Justice for Sirius" anger, and then there's "Suffer before me" anger.

Justice or Satisfaction.

 

I think hatred was supposed to be the trigger emotion for the Killing Curse. The Cruciatus requires, IIRC, the intense desire to see someone suffer. More like Malfoy hexing Neville just to watch him dance than Harry's need for retribution at that moment. He had the talent, skill, and emotion, but not the sadism.

 

Dumbledore showing up, kicking ass. Then the next chapter being titled "The only one he ever feared."

Easily the best moment of the series, IMO. A point where I thought the future books would get truly bad-ass. Alas...

 

Reading Dumbledore mention private lessons to Harry in the Weasley's shed. I stopped reading there and started conjuring up epic styled battles between Dumbledore and Harry and Harry vs Voldemort.

JKR conveniently forgot the fact that in RL, one can't make or bring about large scale changes without themselves being powerful in some way and kinda portrayed being and craving power being equal to losing one's sanity and morals and becoming 'emperor' esque individuals.

Such high hopes I had for DH seeing that Dumbledore is not there anymore to save Harry. *sigh*

 

HBP and DH were such massive disappointments after the first 5 brilliant books.

 

First five brilliant books? Hell no. One and two pretty much sucked, even for children's books. Storyline was okay, but as Cheddar says, the first one was so formulaic and the underground maze so contrived that I really wanted to quit reading the series (I only read them for the first time about a year after DH came out).

Second book, I thought Lockhart was a waste of words that made Dumbledore look incredibly stupid for hiring him and in the end, he had no real purpose except to fill a role. Even his role as minor antagonist in general and specifically in Ginny's rescue was unnecessary.

It wasn't until the third book that JKR hit her story-telling stride, and the fourth book is the first one I'd call brilliant. Same with the fifth. I don't even have a problem with the sixth and seventh books, right up until the last battle.

I'll say this much, ending the story with Harry not even bothering to say hi to Ginny (regardless of what you feel about her as a character) or the woman that was written as a type of surrogate mother—especially after the dumpy middle-aged hausfrau turns out to be a friggin' ninja-witch master killing one of the strongest Death Eaters in a head on battle—goes so far out of the realm of believability that it emotional cut me off as a reader at the very point where the reader should be the most emotionally connected.

However, talking about favorite scenes, I loved the "Molly Weasley is a badass" twist at the end of DH. The idea of going head on with Bellatrix to the point that the floor was beneath them was melting (burning? don't remember exactly) really caught my attention.

 

I enjoyed Harry confronting Minister Scrimgeour over his arrest and subsequent detention of Stan Shunkpike. I also enjoyed the dragon smuggling episode in Book I.

 

The BadassMolly! scene was not brilliant. It was awful. During my first run through of DH I had several moments of wtf anger. Causing me to take my frustrations out on the book. When I read that duel I literally threw the book against the wall screaming in frustration. I needed satisfaction for the killing of Sirius. I demanded retribution. And I got a friggen housewife whose greatest achievement to date was expanding the dining room table. Needless to say at the very end of the book I had to read it again just to make sure I read it right. And then afterwards, reduced my copy to kindling. Went out and bought another one several months later when I realized my collection was incomplete. It remains unopened to this day.

On a lighter note, I really enjoyed the explanation of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs in the Shack. It really brought home how much of a betrayal Peter did to James. The interesting thing is you really found out a lot about that class in that short scene. How they were psuedo-prodigies, how they managed to invent a magical artifact and independently become Anamagi, and the subsequent hiding and death of the Potters. You really got a lot of great info from such a short exchange, that it enraged me to no end that Alfonso Cuaron had enough screen time to show the Whomping Willow crush birds and have the Fat Lady do bad singing, yet they "didn't have enough time" to fit that scene in; and I ended up having to explain how Lupin knew about the map and how to work it.

 

I have quite a few, one of my personal favorites is Harry's experience with flying and his contest with Malfoy.

Additionally there was
the basilisk slaying
the dementors being repelled en masse in PoA
Dumbledore and the Order's timely intervention in OotP

My favorites were definitely in book 6 though, namely, Dumbledore's fall from the Astronomy Tower, and then the subsequent duel, if you can call it that, between Harry and Snape. Those two scenes just seemed to tie together the mood that had pervaded the entire book.

 

Dumbledore arriving like a boss in a flash of lightning is one of my favorites.

 

I think Voldemort duelling McGonagall, Shacklebolt and Slughorn all at once was cool. Showing the class of difference between him and just about everyone else.
Same for Dumbledore in the DoM, turning up and pwning every death eater except Bellatrix.

 

Just another reason why being killed by Molly Weasley is so silly.

 

Correct. JKR should have took pointers from this on how to write a Bellatrix fight scene.

(Don't know how to make link open halfway down page, but see The Sixth Memory for the fight scene).

 

It served to conclude (or at least attempt to conclude) the matriarchal figure who throughout the books, was unable to protect her family. She was the most protective of them all and yet, her two brothers died. Eldest son mauled by a werewolf, third eldest walked away from the family, George had an ear cut off, Fred died, Ron was in the middle of it all with Harry for the most part throughout the seven books, Ginny was possessed, part of the battle in the ministry, and was threatened at the end of the last book, and her own husband almost died. Then, she is watching her own daughter and someone she's practically adopted as a daughter in the magical world dueling Bellatrix.

Silly? No. You could make an argument for anti-feminist, but it wasn't just Harry or Neville that needed retribution that night.

Speaking of which, I wanted Neville to take her down, and was very disappointed it wasn't him. I couldn't figure out why JKR chose who she did, until I thought through the above.