Five things that will happen in the last two Harry Potter books

But enough of trivial stuff. We are in the final run-down to the release of the Half-Blood Prince, and I had better note down my predictions, lest people think I'm just being wise after the event, when I boast about how I knew exactly what Rowling had in mind. Here are some things that have to happen in the last two books:

1) Hagrid has to die. The perpetual innocent always has to be sacrificed, in an epic. Expect to see him go doing something absurdly generous and loving and ill-advised. (I hope this one is wrong because I'm very fond of Hagrid. But he's a character like Coll in the Prydain books -- obviously marked out as a victim.)

2) Snape's history will be revealed, and it will be rather nasty. He will not be rehabilitated, but he may well die heroically, battling death-eaters.

3) Dumbledore has to be gotten off the stage somehow: he'll have to be gone for the last book to resolve, because a new order will have to be established, and if he's still actively onstage there will be no room for the new people.

4) Ron and Hermione have to realize they're in love, so a rival for Hermione's affections has to appear. (Otherwise Ron and Hermione could just go on like this forever.) Look for Viktor Krum to resurface, dashingly. Well, as dashingly as a duck-footed introvert can.

5) This won't happen till the last book, but it's actually Neville, not Harry, who will finally take Voldemort down.

There. Remember, you heard it here first.