Er… TWO things are certain. Good will prevail, Harry will live, and Voldemort will die. OK, THREE things are certain. Good will prevail, Harry will live, Voldemort will die, and Harry and Ginny will be together. OK, four things will be certain. Good will prevail, Harry will live, Voldemort will die, Harry and Ginny will be together, and Snape will be vindicated. Sigh. Among those things that are certain are the following…
Dumbledore is not dead–AV doesn’t work properly if you don’t use your will–that’s why he went over the tower, so he had time to take a draft of death upon landing. Also, he transfigured into a phoenix when the tomb went up in flames. V has cursed the DADA position, so they D knew Snape wouldn’t be back next year–this shows advance planning for the above.
YMMV.
By Jove, I think you’ve it. 
The central question in my mind at this point is: Will there be another year at Hogwarts in book seven, or will the students be off in the wizarding world? The whole series is based on the premise of the school, and the book’s spine says “Year X” (at Hogwarts). We are limited to 7 books because they are 7 years of education.
While it would be interesting to see the lifes of an adult witch in the muggle world, and while the preoccupation with school points and the school cup, and quidditch scores, sometimes seem at odds with the life-threatening risks that Harry & friends are taking, I don’t want to be cheated out of the last year at Hogwarts.
Concerning Snape: after all the reversals that J.K. Rowling has pulled, it would be the most unexpected plot twist if things were as they seem and Snape really reverted to evil and killed Dumbledore. But of course that is not true. For reasons unknown (as yet), though there are some good guesses in this thread, Dumbledore was asking Snape to kill him. My theory as to what made Snape leave the Death Eaters has not changed; Snape was secretly in love with Lily Potter and her murder at the hands of Voldemort made Snape so angry he turned against his master. In book 6, Dumbledore explains how Snape betrayed the Potters voluntarily but then when he found out what Voldemort was planning for the Potters, Snape repented.
Dumbledore is really dead. Several signs point to it: the Phoenix song, the Avada Kedavra curse, Dumbledore appearing in a portrait in the headmaster’s office. J.K. Rowling has said in interviews “in the Wizarding world, as in the Muggle world, Dead is Dead.” Of course we don’t know that appearing in a Wizard portrait as a moving character necessarily means one has to be dead, (Dumbledore could also be appearing in the portrait because he is no longer headmaster; i.e. he could have resigned at still be secretly alive somewhere), but I, along with many others, have thought that Dumbledore had to die so that Harry Potter faces his last tribulations alone without the super-powerful mentor to protect him.
R.A.B. = Regulus Black? Interesting, I didn’t think of that. But somehow I imagine that the mysterious R.A.B. will be someone more central to the story so far. (A nickname perhaps?) Dumbledore had a brother, as we know from the photograph of the Order of the Phoenix that Moody shows to Harry Potter at the beginning of Book 5. Knowing the importance J. K. Rowling places on family relationships, I can’t help but feel that Dumbledore’s brother will be seen in book 7.
Knowing that retrieving just one Horcrux caused the death of Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard ever living, makes me wonder how Harry Potter can ever accomplish the task of destroying four more, plus disposing of Lord Voldemort.
P.S. Dumbledore will be present, and advising Harry Potter in book 7, through his portrait. Also Harry Potter has yet to use the mirror given him by Sirius so that he (Harry) can always reach him (Sirius).
It was a good book, but I don’t think that it met my expectations. It felt to me that she glossed over a lot of things, and it felt to me like she could have cut some things and fleshed out others better. The Harry/Ginny relationship is a good example of this. If that’s all we’re going to get, there really wasn’t much point to it other than a sop to shippers(and this is coming from a hardcore Harry/Ginny shipper who nearly started dancing when Harry was jealous of Dean). I was actually quite disappointed with the amount of “screen time” Ginny and Neville got. I was looking forward to seeing further developments of their characters, but Neville barely registered and Ginny was basically only present as the romantic interest.
There definitely has to be more to Snape then what we saw. As Snape said in OotP, Harry can’t appreciate fine distinctions – he has a very black-and-white view of the world. The whole Half-Blood Prince storyline actually didn’t really seem to accomplish much. Hopefully, we’ll see what the point was in the last book.
Did anybody else catch the delicious irony at the Christmas party when Slugworth(?) told Snape that he must have taught Harry a great deal about Potions? How right he was!
Oh, and I’ve got a nasty feeling that Snape told Voldemort the first part of the prophecy on Dumbledore’s orders. There has to be more to why Dumbledore trusted Snape then he felt really bad about the Potters’ deaths. Leading Voldemort into a trap that caused him to lose his powers would be an excellent way to gain Dumbledore’s trust. The nasty part about this is that would mean Dumbledore sacrificed James and Lily to gain time in the battle against Voldemort.
FWIW, I was guessing the HBP was Snape as soon as Harry saw the name on the text book.
I have a similar suspicion that Dumbledore is not dead.
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This is the book where non verbal spells were introduced or explored more deeply.
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When speaking with Draco, Dumbledore said
“He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine.”
- When the Avada Kevadra spell hit Dumbledore, his body was thrown in an arc.
From what I remember of the Avada Kevadra spell, you simply drop dead and not get blasted. Now consider 1 and 2. Maybe Snape used a nonverbal spell along with mouthing the words Avada Kedavra to stun but not kill Dumbledore.
Can anyone confirm my recollection about the effect of Avada Kedavra, i.e., dropping dead as opposed to being blasted back?
I haven’t seen this in either of the threads, but I’m curious about one thing. When Harry and Dumbledor are in the cave, at some point Dumbledore says that retrieving this Horcrux could only be done by two people. “The protection was…after all… well-designed,” said Dumbledore faintly. “One alone could not have done it… you did well, very well, Harry…”
So assuming RAB is Black (or Burke another good guess) who was with him? Perhaps it was Dumbledore himself and he took Harry along to test him or something. He did know the proper way to get through the [del]backdoor to Moria[/del] magical door and what to do with the potion. Perhaps it was Snape, but then you’d think that Dumbledore would have already known about the Horcruxes and that that one in particular was gone. I guess I don’t know, because all the ones I could think of would have told Dumbledore and it wouldn’t have taken him until Book 6 to figure out the Horcruxes.
Actually Dumbledore’s brother was introduced in Book 4, when Hagrid was hiding in his cabin. Dumbledore tried to encourage him by saying something to the effect of “even Aberforth, my own brother, was arrested and charged with performing illegal charms on a goat. But did he hide his head in shame? Oh no, he did not! Of course, that may be bacuse he didn’t understand what people were saying about him…”
So I don’t know how helpful the brother is going to be.
Oooh, I just had a thouht - you know Voldy liked to collect trophies from the people he killed to make into horcruxes - things of significance, things that are precious to them? Could one of the horcruxes be - Lily Potter’s wedding ring? It seems odd that Harry doesn’t have this - surely someone (Dumbledore, Hagrid maybe) - would have retreived as an heirloom for Harry?
Also, Snape is on the right side - he killed Dumbledore because D told him to. Think about it - can anyone seriously imagine Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of his day, the only wizard Voldemort is afraid of, pleading for his life?! Pleading to be sacrificed for the greater good though, now that’s believable - look at how he ordered HP to force him to drink the potion in the cave.
Plus, while Snape gives a reason why he doesn’t kill Harry - “He belongs to the Dark Lord” - he gives no explanantion as to why he doesn’t disarm him, or supefy him OR torture him (in fact, he stops the other Death Eater from doing so), all of which he could easily do. Instead, he just blocks curse after curse, all the while telling Harry: “Blocked again, and again, and again untill you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!” He’s telling him what he needs to learn to do if he’s to have the slightest hope of defeating Voldemort.
One more prediction that’s just come to me - it will be Lupin who defeats Fenir, possibly sacrificing himself in the process. Only another werewolf would have the strength or ferocity to do so.
Me brain is now on overload. Am rereading the book while my daughter is in class.
Question/speculation–Godric’s sword, that HP pulled out of the sorting hat…I bet HP doesn’t go back to Hogwarts for the potions book, but he does go back for the sword (shades of King Arthur).
Or the sword is stolen for Voldy somehow.
Shouldn’t call him Voldy–this book takes him from “deliciously evil” to just plain evil, to my mind.
Maybe HP doesn’t die. But the pressure to put out an adult Harry book will be tremendous. Bet the Weasley parents die, though. I dont’ want that to happen, but think it likely…ack! 2007 is too far away!
(Can I contradict an Admin?)This isn’t true, Harry tried to use the mirror at the end of OotP when he remembers that he has them. (Please don’t ban me!)
I wanted to cross post this from the other thread (why are there still 2?) because I’m curious about one thing. Dumbledore says that there has to be 2 people to retrieve the locket Horcrux. So who was there with RAB?
Very good question!
It couldn’t have been Sirius or he would have told the Order. Add that to the list of questions I suppose.
I’m sorry, but this sentence just brought a whole bunch of unwanted images to my mind.
Cross-post of my own theories from the other thread:
Oooh, I just had a thouht - you know Voldy liked to collect trophies from the people he killed to make into horcruxes - things of significance, things that are precious to them? Could one of the horcruxes be - Lily Potter’s wedding ring? It seems odd that Harry doesn’t have this - surely someone (Dumbledore, Hagrid maybe) - would have retreived as an heirloom for Harry?
Also, Snape is on the right side - he killed Dumbledore because D told him to. Think about it - can anyone seriously imagine Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of his day, the only wizard Voldemort is afraid of, pleading for his life?! Pleading to be sacrificed for the greater good though, now that’s believable - look at how he ordered HP to force him to drink the potion in the cave.
Plus, while Snape gives a reason why he doesn’t kill Harry - “He belongs to the Dark Lord” - he gives no explanantion as to why he doesn’t disarm him, or supefy him OR torture him (in fact, he stops the other Death Eater from doing so), all of which he could easily do. Instead, he just blocks curse after curse, all the while telling Harry: “Blocked again, and again, and again untill you learn to keep your mouth shut and your mind closed, Potter!” He’s telling him what he needs to learn to do if he’s to have the slightest hope of defeating Voldemort.
One more prediction that’s just come to me - it will be Lupin who defeats Fenir, possibly sacrificing himself in the process. Only another werewolf would have the strength or ferocity to do so.
people, people, people. you’re all forgetting Dumbledore’s mysterious words in the cave
Could this really be Wormtail speaking, perhaps? Plus he had that damaged hand, which was never adequately explained. And also why Snape looked disgusted before killing him.
A thought a bout Riddle’s award for special services to the school? Was his name just recorded with honour? Or was he given some sort of trophy? (I think there was a trophy, but I can’t remember exactly.) Only I was thinking a trophy would make a good horacrux.
Hmmm, this book seemed a little stale. The obsession of Harry trying to find out what Draco was up to bored me to no end. It was a dull non chase. The end chapters after Dumbledore’s death were rushed along.
I was gobsmacked that it was Snape who killed Dumbledore. I always expected him to die, but not this way.
The most touching moment was Hagred crying while carrying Dumbledore’s body to the funeral. That made this big tough guy choke up.
It was nice to see Harry acting more adult with less temper tantrums. Dumbledore treated him so much better.
What a disappointing use of a Vampire. Could have had a lot of fun with one as a character like Lupin is. Oh-no we get a zombie like pet.
Thinking of the way the note was signed, could it be a monogram and not initials? That means the A is the first letter of the last name. WAG on my part.
I can’t see Harry being the Horcrux. (my gut feel of the entimology of the “hor” as in horror) Why would Voldy do that? Just doesn’t feel right.
I see Ginny staying by Harry. There is no way she will let him walk away. The theme is Love. Harry needs to really experience it to help use it as a weapon against Voldy.
They have to go back to school some way or how. Hogwarts is central to the whole story arc. My question is if McGonagall will be the headmaster. She is the deputy but that doesn’t give her a lock on the job. It’s up to the board of Governors to decide.
My biggest plot hole was Dumbledore being faced down by Draco. With all the talk of silent spells and the wild magic Dumbledore can do that nobody else has ever been seen doing he couldn’t disarm a scared kid? Yes he was weak and lost his wand, I don’t buy he couldn’t do something before the Death Eaters showed up.
Lots of snogging (is that real British slang?) made me laugh. Toward the end did you catch where Ginny says one of the other girls asked if Harry had a Hippogryph tattoo on his chest? That would imply she has seen him half nekkid! Something for the shippers to dwell on.
My first impressions, YMMV.
I won’t say I predicted it, but Snape was on my personal list for the Prince. Just as a possibility, not necessarily because I really believed it.