Harry Potter and the final chapter....

J.K. Rowling is officially back at work, writing the seventh (and final) Harry Potter book. That's the good news. The bad news is that it will be at least 2007 (eek!) before Harry Potter and the Whatever, Whatever, Whatever is published.

In the meantime, are you re-reading the first six books, notebook at the ready, searching for clues about what might happen in Book Seven? Have you figured out who RAB is? Does your family get into shouting matches over whether Snape (Professor Snape, please) is good or evil?

You're not alone. At any given time, thousands of Muggles are scouring mugglenet.com for clues, joining message boards at the-leaky-cauldron.com or finding hope amid their grief at dumbledoreisnotdead.com. (Don't say we didn't warn you!)

Part of what made Half-Blood Prince so riveting is that it answered so many questions and raised so many others. We look at some of the most interesting issues left for Book Seven.

Rowling says those who think Dumbledore and Snape had a pact "cling to some desperate hope."Still, in Sorcerer's Stone, Dumbledore tells Harry that "to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Would a man who thinks that really beg for his life?

Who is RAB? Could it be Sirius Black's dead brother, Regulus? Rowling has called that "a fine guess."

There are other hints pointing to a Black family member having gotten the locket/horcrux from the cave. During the frantic cleaning of 12 Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix, members of the order come across "a heavy locket that none of them could open."

Will the secret of Harry's scar be revealed? Some speculate that Harry's scar is actually a horcrux, created when Lord Voldemort killed James and Lily Potter, although there is much dispute about this on the Internet.

There can be little doubt, however, that the scar that started it all will play a key role as Harry's story wraps up. After all, it's in the first chapter of Sorcerer's Stone that Professor Dumbledore says "scars can come in useful." And Rowling has said that the last word of the last book will be "scar."

Is this the end of Hogwarts? Well, Harry's not returning for his seventh year, and Ron and Hermione are going with him. Also, Rowling described the Luna-commentated match as "the last Quidditch match."

Still, it's hard to believe, as Harry and Voldemort prepare for their final battle, that these two magical, handsome, cursed orphans won't return to the place where each first felt truly at home.

Does Harry die? That's the only question that really matters, isn't it? Remember in Goblet of Fire that Dumbledore gets a "gleam of something like triumph"in his eyes when Harry tells him that Voldemort used a drop of Harry's blood to revive himself. Rowling calls the gleam "extremely significant." Perhaps, like his scar, giving blood to Voldemort somehow protects Harry. Who knows?

Well, J.K. Rowling does. The rest of us will just have to wait and wonder.

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By TRACY GRANT

The Washington Post