Harry Potter and the Crappy Title

Seriously, is George Lucas giving J.K. Rowling ideas for book titles (it's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", if you didn't know)? And speaking of books:

1. The Complete Poems, Anne Sexton
2. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
3. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
4. Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami
5. Sideways, Rex Pickett
6. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
7. Le Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
8. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
9. The Sonnets, William Shakespeare
10. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
13. interpreter of maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
14. The Neverending Story, Michael Ende
15. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
16. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
17. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
18. The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman
19. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
20. the namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
21. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
22. seven types of ambiguity, Eliot Perlman
23. Unhooked Generation, Jillian Straus
24. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
25. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
26. This Book Will Save Your Life, A. M. Homes
27. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
28. Youth in Revolt, C.D. Payne
29. jPod, Douglas Coupland
30. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Rainer Maria Rilke
31. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
32. Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
33. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, John Lee Anderson
34. No Acting Please, Eric Morris
35. In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, Marcel Proust
36. Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn, William J. Mann
37. The 9/11 Commission Report, Various
38. The Aeneid, Virgil
39. Istanbul: Memories of a City, Orhan Pamuk
40. No Logo, Naomi Klein
41. Jimmy Stewart, Marc Eliot
42. An Illustrated Short History of Progress, Ronald Wright

I'm not too sure why he got it, but my dad passed it on to me, so I feel somewhat obligated to read it. It's decently short, somewhere around 190 pages, and made effectively shorter by the illustrations (the inclusion of which I find somewhat odd and unnecessary, but whatever), so it'll be done with quickly, I'm sure.

Getting back to Harry Potter, I had a brief discussion with a friend a bit ago about how while I didn't necessarily know the exact contents of the last book (obviously), I felt fairly confident that almost anyone could predict the general events which would be contained therein. Here, then - since I love proving how fucking brilliant I am and, should I get any right, can totally point back to this post as evidence of said brilliance when the book comes out - are my predictions for the last Harry Potter (yes, there might be spoilers for anyone who hasn't read Half Blood Prince):

1) Snape will be revealed to have been working against Voldemort from the start. This is a no-brainer. My guess is that the revelation (and Harry's acceptance of it) will only come simultaneously with Snape's death, which I personally detest, but it's the way basic storytelling tends to work, just as you knew from partway through book one that at some time in the series Dumbledore had to die or be otherwise incapacitated. Personally, I like to think that Snape will play a key role in Voldemort's defeat, but that could just be because Alan Rickman's portrayal of him is fucking awesome. Honestly, though: in all the Harry Potter books, which character has developed the most, which character have we learned the most about motivations and history, aside from Harry himself? Snape. Is this happenstance? If it is, J.K. Rowling has fooled a lot of people into thinking she's a decent writer.

2) Voldemort's physical body will be destroyed. However, he will not necessarily be finished, "for once and for all," if you will. I just find it difficult to believe that Rowling will be able to wrap up the destruction of the current avatar and the remaining horcruxes, of which there are at least 3-4, without a 1000+ page book (which I suppose is possible), or some appallingly bad storytelling (also possible). I also find it difficult to believe Rowling will be able to resist writing more Harry Potter books in the future - hence the possibility that the location of one or more horcruxes will remain unknown. I certainly wish she wouldn't, but authors rarely are able to quit while they're ahead when they write a popular series.

3) Ron and Hermione hook up. Or at least profess their feelings for each other. God, take longer.

4) One of Ron or Hermione die. This could just be my personal preference expressing itself (and is the prediction which I feel the least confident about, because it isn't necessarily dictated by traditional story telling plotlines, nor is it required from a character perspective), but I just don't see Harry having the fortitude to stand up to Voldemort without some further emotional impetus. It's a bit difficult to say whose death would have more impact; Ron being the Sam Gamgee sort of (homo-erotic, if you're inclined to read it that way) man-love and support, and Hermione being the one who, you know, actually knows things. Killing a girl would also be pretty intense, and the level of violence has certainly elevated with each book.

5) Draco redeems himself. Plain and simple: he's a bitch. He doesn't belong with the Death Eaters. Somewhere in there he'll lose his nerve and stand up to mommy (somewhat paradoxical, I know).

That's about all I can think of for now. Write faster, Ms. Rowling! My reputation as a genius depends on it.