She made stone for Harry with all her info on the Ways. Not necessarily when she died, but it's a safe bet she knew he was on the way, and it probably wasn't for Thomas (being a Wampire, his mortal magic probably wasn't on the same level).
Point of order: the stone was given to Lea to give to Harry, not necessarily made for him. In the text, it functions like a doctor or researcher's notes; she even has aside dialogue about a rough landing (something like "don't wear a dress next time, some farmer will get a show," if I remember correctly). It is my reading that she made it for herself, then left it to Harry in her pseudo-will. I could be wrong here; I'm going just from what we know about it in Changes.
Not saying one way or the other that she had set aside her magic; I was simply raising the question in my original post.
As for the death curse, I don't know enough about how they function to say whether or not it would still work, and I think we don't have enough information about what Michael
truly meant by setting aside magic. It could be setting aside the function by which their wizard senses work—they can't pull energy from the environment, etc., but they can still draw on their life energy to back a spell; after all, non-wizards can do magic, too—what limits them is their ability to tap into those external resources. Harry compares it to a deaf-blind-mute learning to paint.
There seems to be this everpresent impression of Maggie Sr. of this ultimate planner that did everything completely purposefully and with foresight, but the evidence suggests she very much was not.
I agree. I don't think she had a Grand Design; I think she was curious and defiant, and got into some stuff way, way too deeply before she realized how terrible it was all going to be. I think that once she was snapped out of her deluded lifestyle, she reacted by doing what she did best: running. That was after she had decided to correct what she messed up, landed on the idea of a Starborn, and went about the business of making one herself. That gave her the push she needed to break away, met Malcolm, fell for him, and aligned the circumstances of Harry's birth (not sure if it's significant, but Lash doesn't say the circumstances of his
conception, but specifically his birth).
Further evidence of Margaret's lack of foresight is her defiance toward the Laws; Luccio provides a perfectly reasonable and credible argument for keeping them as high-level and simple as possible, but evidently that kind of argument didn't work too well on Margaret.
