So it's July 2007, then?

Bloomsbury announce that the next Potter book will be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. On the assumption that the Hallows aren't the Horcruxes, the alternative seems to be the Founders. I really do hope not; I had so wished to make it through the series without them. No publication date is set. Given that the title of Book 6 was likewise announced a couple of days before Christmas, a similar title would give us a summer 2007 date. Actually, I rather hope it isn't; I'd quite like the canon-in-progress to go on a little longer before I'm jossed. I did quite well out of Half-Blood Prince, without major destruction to my own little Potter world; actually without any destruction but a canonical name for Lucius Malfoy's father, and an identity for Tom Riddle's mother that was not my 1930s living-it-up-in-Muggle-London Amaranth. I rather liked the normal for Norfolk* Gaunt family, and if Merope wasn't the woman I'd written, her not being the innocent victim of Squire Riddle (though innocent victim of her family, perhaps) fitted in a lot better with my own imaginings than the Oliver Twist Ruined Maid who seemed to populate so many fics.

On the subject of Christmas, having not signed up to yuletide, or provided any cards, I thought I would be environmentally friendly and simply recycle my two Christmas fics by pointing the way to:

Carols for Christmas
Family Album: Firelight

The former will be of particular interest to the complete lack of people on my flist who ever tuned a musical instrument in the magistrates' courts of Leeds Town Hall. I note with wry amusement that not withstanding the first words being "Rabastan Lestrange" the latter is now listed as having Bellatrix and Voldemort as its main characters .

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night.

*An acquaintance of mine doing training in a GP practice out in the Fens once met a patient whose thumbs were not opposable. Apparently it ran in the family.