"Mollys story is not a happy one" imagine if he said the opposite, what could do more to take out tension from the story than reassurance that Molly's story will have a happy ending.

Ok lots of things could, but you get the point.

So staying true to their human friendship /not contaminating it was more important than using it as a loophole for fairy business. That works for me, thanks Mira :-)

It annoyed me too. If anyone could come up with a good explanationI it would be nice.

If he was in top 30-40 before in terms of raw power I would think that just becoming winter knight and the associated training would put him in  in the top or at the top, perhaps depending on the time of year (battleground was the winter knight mantle at its weakest.

I think saying he is in top 30-40 in his age group would make the statement almost meaningless. Harry must have been at the top of his age group back then. He is obviously not the most skilled wizard, so to be able to do more than other wizards, especially those of his own age, he must have more power to draw on.

Would winter have become more like summer if the summer knight was sacrificed on the stone table?

He used to write two books a year, one Dresden and one something else. I am an optimistic guy so I am just hoping he is coming back to that :-)

It could also be that it is a pro wrestling book in the same way that the ghost story was a prison book.