and foreshadowings and important details.

That Harry might conceivably want to go after Black, for example. Rowling is better at scattering enigmas around her book this time around, I feel. She drops cryptic hints without the use of stupid Dobby, which is of course an improvement. This particular one is oblique enough that it doesn't give anything away (it could even be interpreted as simply a misunderstanding of why Harry always ends up in trouble, which is how Harry undestands it -- I think this was the book when I finally got hammered into my scull that if Harry thinks something it is bound to be wrong). But it promises much and is confirmed later.

I also really like how ``He's at Hogwarts'' is introduced as a snare: it is interpreted wrongly (and plausibly) by the characters, but in retrospect the words have an entirely different meaning). This is what Rowling has understood in this book, and never really mastered in the earlier ones. Her plotting has improved a lot. There are red herrings flying all over the place. Red herrings for red herrings, and then proper red herrings that you think are real because you think you have spotted the red herring that was only a mock red herring. Too many herrings? Sorry.

Or how the sneakscope keeps going off when Scabbers is around, but not in an obvious way at all.

And the Shrieking Shack is introduced innocuously.

Hermione's timetable, as well, which is set up to allow the solution at the end. It is not terribly subtle, but it serves an enigma for the first time reader to wonder about (I did not guess it the first time, but I think we've established I am dreadfully slow when it comes to that sort of thing).

Snape: His expression towards Lupin at the feast is interesting. Rowling keeps serving up indications that Snape might be trying to kill Lupin, and this is the first of them. Of course, the fact that the expression is exactly the same as the one he wears when looking at Harry is in retrospect a clue.

But the writings style as well, it seems more playful in this book than it did in the last, despite the book being darker as a whole perhaps. I love the mirror in the Leaky Cauldron:

`I'm not going to be murdered,'Harry said out loud.
`That's the spirit, dear,' said the mirror sleepily.

Rowling seems to have rediscovered the fun she could have with a magical world, which was very present in the first, but got somehow lost in the second book.

It also shows up in the discussion of magical books in Diagon Alley. She is having fun. I am not such a fan of Hagrid's monster book, but I like the small references to the invisible book and the fact that all divination books (except the one Harry buys) hve pessimistic titles.