This may very well be our last full episode before the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In this episode, we discuss how we’re feeling (perhaps the five stages of loss would be appropriate), and take one final crack at a few theories before signing off and preparing for the weekend.

No news this week, but a few links of interest:

• Get your HPProgs T-Shirts. You can order through the HPProgs Store, or email us (harrypotterprogs AT yahoo DOT com) to get a limited edition HPProgs red, white or black tee.
• Check out Filmspotting.net’s review of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
• If you’re in NY, make sure to check out Wizard Rock 2007.
• Catch us on the James Madison Show on Friday between 6 and 7 PM, it’s all about Potter, and you can call in!.

That’s it. Enjoy the show, towards the end we discuss our plans for the podcast after the release of the book(in short, we ain’t going no where as long as folks want to hear what we have to say).

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

We’re getting pretty close the end game. Zero hour. The End of Potter. And we’ve got plenty of unanswered questions. Earlier, we solicited your thoughts on what questions still need to be answered in Book 7. We had a great response, and, in this podcast, we go through some of the questions and give our best guesses as to how they’ll be resolved. So tune in, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

The questions we covered are:

• Who will end up a teacher at Hogwarts? (from Greg in Toronto)
• Why did Bellatrix Lestrange go after the Longbottoms? (Nancy)
• What does the symbol mean? (Aaron from HPPC)
• How did the Wizarding World find out the Potters were killed? (from Mrs. Lovegood)
• What connection does Dumbledore vs. Grindelwald have to Harry vs. Voldemort? (Greg in Toronto)
• Why did Snape turn against Voldemort? (Ajit)

Keep sending in your questions, we’ll cover more next week.

In the news:

• HBO’s First Look at OotP movie looks pretty cool.
• Amazon books 1 million preorders for Deathly Hallows in US. July 17th is deadline for first-day delivery.
• Harry Potter virus infecting computers.
• Wizard Rock in the Garden. Hear great music and meet HPProgs!

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

We were all quite excited when the title for Book 7 was announced. The initial reaction (Whoah!), was followed by questions (Huh?). What is the meaning of “Deathly Hallows?” Many have speculated as to what it all means, we’ve proffered our theory as well.

In this episode, we discuss some new possibilities based on some of the foreign title translations of Deathly Hallows.

We also recapped our Knight Bus experience. Try not to laugh at our extreme lameness.

Don’t forget to enter the Logo contest (entries due by midnight Saturday).

Want a chance to win a free copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

And in the news:

• JK Rowling to tour the US in October. Remember my birthday.
• Many Hispanic countries change OoTP release date to July 11.
• JK Rowling, Daniel Radcliffe,and Emma Watson land on Forbes Magazine’s annual “Celebrity 100″ list.
• Canadian fans to have a special OoTP special.
• You can take a virtual tour of 12 Grimmauld Place.
• Computer Hacker in UK announced what he claims is the ending to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (remember, NO spoilers allowed!!).

You can listen to the show using the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

Hey y’all!  Penny just couldn’t stand being bedridden any longer, so she drug herself out of bed and we did a podcast!  Things have been a bit hectic around HPProgs HQ the last week or so, as Penny has suffered a pretty nasty injury to her spine.  Were still trying to figure out how we’re going to fix that; in the mean time, there’s no sense in not prognosticating.  This week’s quasi-episode features a bit of discussion into what’s going on with Penny (if you care), a little prognosticating on Potter, and a little off-topic discussions (sorry for the off-topic-ness, but we’ve been a bit busy) which are clearly marked as spoilers for those of you outside the US (you can listen until we tell you not to).  I have a pretty bad cold and therefore sound like a post-pubertal Kermit the Frog.  Anyways, thanks for listening, we hope to be back with your regularly scheduled all-Potter-themed podcast next week.

Update: Here is a link to the forum. There are a lot of great conversations going on there and you should join in. The thread about the TV finales is in the “All You Want to Talk” forum. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!!

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

So, we know that the big task facing Harry is to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcuxes, thereby destroying the fragments of his tattered soul and shuffling off his mortal coil. Sounds simple, right? Not quite, there’s one problem that we haven’t addressed: Just how the heck does one destroy a horcrux anyhow?!?! Tune in for our best explanations as to how Harry will help Voldie meet his maker.

This week, we are joined by Andrew as our guest host. Andrew was the winner of our “So You Think Our Accents are Rubbish” contest. Thanks very much to Andrew for coming on the show and putting up with our technical difficulties!

News: Due to technical difficulties, we have an ad hoc version of the news this week. Which means no links. Ugh.

Also, we’ve recently upgraded the Wordpress installation for the site to version 2.1.3, which seems to be much more prone to crashing that the old version we were using, so hopefully we’ll get that straightened out soon.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

Quite predictably, ever since we were introduced to The Prophecy in Book 5, it’s been the subject of controversy.  Despite almost an entire chapter of Book 6 devoted to setting the record straight, questions still abound about what The Prophecy might mean.  Could it be referring to Neville? (No.)  Maybe it doesn’t have to come true? (No.)  In this week’s podcast, we set the record straight.

A few old posts related to The Prophecy from the old HPProgs blog:

• Prophecy Boy: Why Neville is NOT The One.
• Prophecy Analysis: What are the logical implications of the language used in The Prophecy?  Complete with Truth Table.

And the news:

• If you order Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows through Amazon, you are guaranteed to get it on time.
• Harry Potter World?
• First Scholastic Question up!

Make sure to check out the Prophecy 2007 Conference, August 2-5 in Toronto.  We’ll be there!  If you sign, make sure to tell them HPProgs sent ya’!

Shamless Plug of the Week: Preorder O.A.R.’s new album, Live From Madison Square Garden.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download directly as an mp3.

We’ve got our own theory as to how the Harry Potter series will end; but there’s always a chance that JK Rowling will go with another ending, one that is perhaps based on other popular books, movies or TV shows. Without further ado, here’s our list of the top 10 alternate endings to Deathly Hallows:

• 10. Scooby Doo ending - Voldemort is captured, and is revealed to be Filch wearing a mask. As he is hauled away, he shouts, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!”
• 9. South Park ending: After defeating Voldemort, Harry and Ron address the audience, saying, “You know, I’ve learned something today.” Suddenly, Ginny is run over by the Knight Bus, prompting Ron to shout, “They killed Ginny!” Harry responds, “You bastards!” Neville laughs and says it’s because Ginny was poor.
• 8. Star Wars ending; Voldemort reveals himself to in fact be Harry’s father.
• 7. CSI: Miami ending: Harry, Ron and Hermione collect evidence linking Voldemort to the murder of Albus Dumbledore. When confronted, Voldemort challenges Harry to prove he did it; Harry puts on his sunglasses, holding up a single strand of Voldemort’s hair, responds, “I don’t have to, you already did.”
• 6. 24 ending: It is revealed that Voldemort was really just working for the French, and Madame Maxime was really behind the entire plot to destroy the wizarding world. At the last second, Harry is able to diffuse the device Maxime had planted that would neutralize all wizard’s power in all of England. Just as they begin to celebrate, Harry is captured by the Chinese and when we last see him, he is on a boat to China.
• 5. Brokeback Mountain ending: After wishing he could “quit him,” Harry finally finds out that Draco was beaten to death with wands by a group of angry Deatheaters. The book closes with Harry gazing longingly into his trunk, in which he has Draco’s Slytherin robe wrapped around his own Invisibility Cloak. Harry mumbles, “I swear, Draco.” and sheds a single tear.
• 4. Lord of the Rings ending: Harry and Ron finally destroy the final horcrux by throwing it into a bubbling lave pit deep beneath Hogwarts, killing Lord Voldemort in the process, but at the same time weakening the foundations of Hogwarts, trapping Harry and Ron miles beneath the surface. where they gaze into each others eyes, too afraid to talk of the love that dare not speak it’s name. Just as they pass out, Fawkes rescues them and they both live out their lives married to their respective spouses
• 3. A Few Good Men ending: In the process of defeating Lord Voldemort, Ron and Hermione accidentally kill Draco. They are brought to trial before the Wizengamut, and Harry must act as their lawyer. Harry believes that Ron and Hermione were only following orders from Percy, and so he calls Percy to the stand. After a few hours of intense questioning, Harry finally tricks Percy into admitting he ordered the attack on Malfoy. As he is led off to Azkaban, Percy remarks, “All you did was weaken the wizarding world today, Potter. That’s all you did.”
• 2. Back to the Future ending: Harry, Ron and Hermione defeat Voldemort by traveling back through time to 1955. While there, they befriend a young, and not yet evil, Tom Riddle. By showing him love and friendship, Tom grows up to be a swell guy, in fact, he’s Dumbledore’s personal assistant. Just as we think things are going to be OK, Mad Eye Moody shows up, grabs Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny and herds them to his nuclear powered broom time machine. When Harry asks what is wrong with them in future, Moody replies, “You turn out fine…it’s your kids!”
• 1. Harry Potter ending: It’s the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. ‘Nuff said.

What is the deal with these Horcruxes?  We know Voldie’s soul has been broken into seven pieces, six in other object, while one remains with his bad self.  What are the unknowns, what do we know, what don’t we know, and what might we know?  All this will be answered in this all-Horcrux edition of HPProgs.

Plus, the news and an interview with Sister Judy (she’s our sister, not a nun), who just finished reading all six books for the first time!

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

In this week’s podcast, Penny and I review the book Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts. The book is a collection of scholarly essays relating to the Harry Potter series. We discuss a few of the essays and their relevance to the major themes of the Harry Potter books, in particular how they might relate to what is to come in Book 7 (The Deathly Hallows).

For more information, check out Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts on Amazon.com.

And the news:

• Chilean fanfic author publishes first original novel.
• A Norwich, CT newspaper wants your thoughts on how Harry Potter will end.
• Check out the latest Movie 5 action figures.
• MTV, EW and Premiere all include Movie 5 on 2007’s “must-see” list of movies.

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

Penny picked this up whilst listening to MuggleCast. The Wikipedia entry for The Hanged Man reads:

It is a card of profound but veiled significance. Its symbolism points to divinity, linking it to the death of Christ in Christianity and the stories of Osiris (Egyptian mythology) and Mithras (Roman mythology). In all of these stories, the destruction of self brings life to humanity; on the card, these are symbolized respectively by the hanged man and the living tree from which he swings. Its relationship to the other cards usually involves personal loss for a greater gain.

Recall the game of hangman behind the locked door on JKRowling.com. And there was something about the words hallows and gallows meaning the same thing in days of yore…

As we were saying…

Since December 21, we’ve all had pretty much one question on our mind: what is the meaning of “Deathly Hallows?”  We recorded some of our initial thoughts last time, and followed up with two blog posts with a more fleshed out theory: that the “Deathly Hallows” is the name for the magic that Lily used to protect Harry from Lord Voldemort by dying for him out of love.  In this podcast, we go into greater detail on our theory and discuss how all the pieces fit together, incorporating many loosed ends, including horcruxes, occlumency, legilimens and that gleam in Dumbledore’s eye at the end of Book 4.  It’s our theory, and we’re sticking to it!

You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download it directly as an mp3.

I think I know how Harry Potter will end.  I’m almost 100% certain that I’ve figured it out, based on the title of Book 7.

As I said before, I think the “Deathly Hallows” is the name for the magic by which Harry became protected from Lord Voldemort when Lily died for him out of love.  Lily’s performed a “deathly hallowing” of Harry, making him immune to Voldemort’s powers.  In Book 7, Harry will learn this magic, and devise a way to use it so that he, Harry, is killed by Voldemort.  The key: Harry’s deathly hallow will be on behalf of the entire world, rendering the entire world immune to Voldemort’s power.

The beauty of this is that, in Book 4, when Voldemort used Harry’s blood to reincarnate himself, he undid the protection provided to Harry by Lily’s original Deathly Hallow.  Voldemort can now kill Harry, allowing Harry the chance to die on behalf of everyone, leaving Voldemort helpless.  This is why Dumbledore smiled upon hearing that Voldemort used Harry’s blood:  Dumbledore understood that Voldemort, in his wanton determination to destroy Harry (mostly out of vanity), had opened the door for Harry to defeat him with the one weapon he could not wield: Love.

So that’s it.  That’s how it’s going to end.  It’s the prognostication to end all prognostications (we’ll still podcast, of course).