Harry's parents came back in some form to help him in GoF. There's no reason to think that Dumbledore and Sirius can't do the same, especially given the loads of phoenix references surrounding Dumbledore's death and Sirius's strange crossing over. We don't even know that Sirius is dead.

Oooh! Do it again!

I always say Mufasa in the same voice I say Masica.

Mufasa

Harry sure as hell better do SOMETHING alone in this book, seeing as how he a) cheats off Hermione in school and b) got help in his last two finale-of-the-book battles to the point that I thought "why the hell does he even have to be there?"

That's been pretty much my entire criticism of the Harry Potter in all four of the movies so far. He's not active in his own life and gets a lot of glory for it.

Next year is going to be an interesting year for HP fans. A book and a movie to discuss and dissect!

They kind of lost me early on when they said Harry was saved by the power of love, not his own untrained wizardly power.

Harry will stand alone, and Snape's killing of Dumbledore will be revealed to have been faked to allow him to grow.

I hope they don't have a big final battle. The OK Corral wand-fights at the end of the last two books have been exceedingly lame to read, and I don't think they'll come off better on screen. Plus, since she's kind of been in "War on Terror" mode for a while, it seems silly to say that Voldemort can be defeated. At most he can be pushed back for a while so that Hogwarts can reopen.

Harry Potter goes Green
 

At least the publisher for the final volume.

News story here

784 pages x 30% (post-consumer waste (pcw) fiber) = 235.2 pages if I'm doing my math correctly (not bloody likely since I'm not mathematically well endowed)