Yeah, there were a lot of deaths in this book, and a lot of them were relatively major characters. Fred, Lupin, Tonks...they were all sad. But to me, it was Mad Eye's death. It was very early in the book, and he was the first of a long list of characters who die. I think when he died, I said to myself, "wow, she isn't fooling around in this book." His death paved the way for everyone else to die, so when other characters passed, it was kind of expected, as I said, "well, if she killed Mad Eye, then she can kill off pretty much anyone." And to further that belief, she had Hedwig killed moments after Mad Eye. This innocent owl had to bite the bullet. The deaths of Snape and Voldemort did not shock me in the least. I expected them to both kick the bucket in this story. @Tofu: You forgot Nagini. If you're gonna pop Bathilda's name up there, you gotta throw in Nagini too.