PLEASE DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD. I find it miraculous that in today’s impossibly distracted world, a child (and his or her parents) can still be captivated for hundreds of pages of text about a brave boy who rides a broomstick, even a Nimbus 2000. The books are exciting and well-crafted, as rich in plot, imagination and memorable characters as classics like Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But I've got one little bone to pick. That’s my job.

Death is a major part of the Harry Potter landscape. He’s an orphan, after all, and “Jo” has hinted that at least one, if not two or more major characters are going to meet their end in Book Seven. Something very real is at stake by the students of Hogwarts’ decisions and actions. If death is ever-present in Harry’s world, what is the consequence? In The Lord of the Rings, it was off to Elfland for Bilbo and presumably, Aragorn when his time comes. The Pevensee children, kings and queens of Narnia, someday wind up in Aslan’s Land. When Harry’s time comes, whether in Book Seven, or implied at the end of a rich, full life, where does he go?

In one of the most thrilling segments of the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix takes place when Harry and Company rocket their broomsticks down the Thames, below the radar, right past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben itself, the implication being that Hogwarts and London somehow inhabit the same world.

If Harry’s world is the world we live in, it does make you wonder what happens to someone who dies in a Harry Potter book. Like his parents. Where are they? Sirius Black? Dumbledore? Is there some kind of Hogwart Valhalla where all the good witches, wizards and house elves go to die? For all of the ghosts, dementors and other ethereal beings that inhabit Potterland, what is being said about eternal consequence? Is there redemption? Is it a true hero’s journey? Or does it all come to dust in the end? We’ll find out soon, probably even before you read this entry.

I know what you're saying, it’s only a book. You're right, it’s just a book. Only the most extraordinary success in modern publishing history. Like any other book that influenced you as a child, and gave you dreams worth dreaming.