Yesterday afternoon, while I was still fairly early in the book, I was at the store to get something for dinner and this guy walked past me, talking on his cell phone and I heard him say "yeah, I heard that two people die in the book." I wasn't too put off by this because Mad-Eye was already dead. But now, having got to the end, can I just say: two?!?! That's the best the internets rumor mills could come up with? Fucking hell, I lost count after a while. Of named characters that we've met in earlier books I can think of at least eleven who didn't get out of this one alive. (ETA: apparently there was an interview with Rowling that made the rounds earlier this year in which she said that she'd actually written the ending of this book years ago, to give her a goal to write towards, but that she'd revised it recently because two characters she hadn't expected to had ended up dead and one ended up surviving. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether she's talking about the end of the story or the epilogue. But there is consensus that the two unexpected fatalities are Tonks and Lupin and the survivor is Draco.)
Altho I had some doubts, esp. late in the book, I never really expected Rowling to kill off Harry. That'd be like killing off Frodo or Odysseus. Just not gonna happen. And I was impressed, actually, that Rowling was able to send him thru a death-like experience without it triggering any of my Jeebus alarms.
Sarah and I were talking about this yesterday, that Rowling's become very good at writing scenes that work on the page and which you can also tell will look great on camera.
Also, I've noticed that it's not constant but there are occasional scenes where I'll see/hear the actor who'll end up playing it in the movies. Occasionally, Harry would have a line that I'd hear exactly in Daniel Radcliffe's voice. Definitely with Dumbledore's last line in the King's Cross Station chapter I could hear Michael Gambon. The exceptions to this are MacGonnigal, who I always hear in my head as Maggie Smith. Also Dobby and Kreacher -- my images of them have been totally shaped by the movies now.