Series Coming to Ends

I have been re-reading the Obernewtyn books in preparation for the next books of the series to appear. The fifth book is scheduled to come out towards the end of the year and the sixth, and final, book is set to appear next year. I have also started re-reading the Harry Potter books, in preparation for the famous seventh and final book coming out in July.

With all this re-reading, I have begun asking myself, what will happen if I don't like the endings?

I must admit, I did NOT like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and it wasn't because Dumbledore died. That, I expected and had even officially predicted on HPforGrownUps. But the Spindle's End chapter and the chapter when they are in the cave with the Inferi are so painful to me that I cannot make myself listen to them on CD or re-read them. So I am thinking: the whole series will be ruined for me if I don't like the last book. What a shame to have it ruined, when the first books brought so much enjoyment to me.

Obernewtyn is similar, although the story is somewhat more complex. Each time a new book in the series has appeared, I have started to read it, only to realize that, in order to appreciate it, I need to remember some of the more obscure details and look for "ashlings" of ideas in earlier books. So I stop reading the new book and start at the beginning again.

Perhaps the authors have had this fear as well and maybe that is why the books have taken so long to appear. People have invested a great deal emotionally into these stories. What if the final ones don't work for them - both authors and readers?

I suppose there is some precedent for this in my experience. I loved Ender's Game and I still love it, even though I did not especially like the sequels - Speaker for the Dead and the others in that thread. And I loved Ender's Shadow, although the sequels in that thread haven't interested me either.

Perhaps the original books - e.g., in HP, up to the Order of the Phoenix, and, in the Obernewtyn Chronicles the Keeping Place - will still be satisfying to me, even if the others are not. But I sure would love to have both series, Obernewtyn and Harry Potter, end in triumph.