THERE PROBABLY ARE SOME SPOILERS, BUT I'M NOT SURE I CAN TELL ANY MORE And indeed the end is nigh. Things have sped up to a slick pace now. Every possible event ever – plus the rest – is being saved for the final five chapters. It's as if our author wants us to feel the thrill that the end is finally, gloriously, rapturously coming into sight. It's all planned, I reckon. Rowling must know that day is breaking for us, that the light is coming, in many more ways than one. Thanks for thinking, JK.

26 opens with Dumbledore and Harry – tempting to call them Dumb and Dumber by this stage, though that might be unfair – journeying through a mysterious cave, then on to a mysterious lake, then to a mysterious island on a mysterious boat. Or possibly the lake comes first, then the cave, then the boat. Or the boat then the cave. Anyway, they're all mysterious. The lake is full of bodies. Definitely mysterious.

You might think that we're finally inching towards what these Horlickscrutches (or whatever they're called) are all about and where they are, but if you thought that ... I'm afraid I couldn't possibly comment. Having done my utmost to spoil every plot twist possible, from this moment on I'm now attempting to be the soul of discretion. Giving away the ending would render the whole thing pointless, and imply that maybe it wasn't worth all those nice trees being cut down, or all those lovely children getting excited. Of course it was!

But these are gloomy thoughts, for perhaps the Death Eaters have been ranging down Ladbroke Grove. Onwards. So there's all that business with the lake and stuff, and then a magic potion in a magic bowl appears, and someone drinks it, and it seems like they might not pull through. But they do. Phew. For the moment. Partial phew.

Meanwhile there's one helluva fight been raging at Hogwarts (worse than those "unforeseen" Muggle weather conditions, oh, so much worse), so Harry and Dumbles head over in order to do battle with the bad dudes. Then a complex lattice of cross and double-cross and double-double-cross (and quite possibly double-double-double-cross) is spun, by which it is left quite unclear, to me anyway, which side is good and which evil. Po-mo Potter? I'm not quite sure if this is intentional.

Then a long-predicted death happens (exit chuckling bookmakers stage left, counting Galleons), a baddie is exposed ... and the Half-Blood Price is FINALLY identified (I suspect we could have saved a lot of bother if JKR had adopted the UK government's otherwise unaccountable enthusiasm for ID cards). Then we get a big, big, big funeral, and it's very sad, then there's a creaky shift in the love-interest balance, which is kind of sad but not entirely. Love's like that, you know. (Here's hoping there's nothing more explicit in HP7; we're not sure Rowling's got the stomach for the fight.) Oh, and someone's bitten by a werewolf but will hopefully get better. I feel a bit guilty for not wanting them to get better, but I'm sure this will pass. For lo the sun, the sun is here!

And with the glorious appearance of the day, it seems our work might at last be done. Page 607 has come and gone, the back cover has blurrily flipped past and I find myself staring, a little wild-eyed, at the barcode. It's coming up to half-seven, which means many thousands of people here in the UK, having sensibly decided to get some sleep, are eagerly about to get cracking. Elsewhere across the globe they may already have done so. For these folk, everything lies ahead. The whole lot. Every page. Now there's a thought.

But the Vulture's feeling slightly woozy, is about to fall off his perch, and suspects it might be time to take a bow and stagger off to bed. Many thanks for sticking with us, and goodnight.