You know what's disorienting?

Spending whole swathes of the afternoon reading Harry Potter 7, then putting it down and picking up Harry Potter 4 to read a couple chapters to the girls.

If the timing had been a bit different, Harry et al would have been arriving at the same place in both books; for the first time in Book 4, and for the first time since then in Book 7.

I remember when reading and later seeing Harry Potter 4, thinking that this was a turning point; it's much darker than the first three, and I wasn't sure I wanted to share it with the girls. I must say, reading #7 myself while they venture into #4 certainly puts it into perspective. I guess we went through the first three in less than a year, although it seems like longer (we started them when Obama was elected and we learned that he had read the whole series to Malia). It'll be fine if it takes us another year or more to get all the way to 7 - and for the movies to be made. (I hear they're making the final book into two movies.)