Hey Look, I’m Actually Discussing Harry Potter

Have we had any confirmation that Thestrals are going to make an appearance in OotP? I just had a thought that the broomsticks over London scene may not be the advance guard.

I’m really hoping we’re not going to have another way to long sequence of something incredibly pretty, such as broomstick riding in London, but completely inessential to the plot. My biggest beef with the PoA movie is that we had all that long knightbus sequence and not ten seconds of Sirius saying “and by the way Harry, your Patronus is a stag because us and Peter were animagus. Oh, yeah and Snape hates our guts cause I set Remus on him one night. Dude really needs to get a sense of humour.” (See also: Buckbeak flying scene, Dragon attack scene)

ETA: Well, the HBO special answered that question for me.