If Dumbledore dies, Professor McGonagoll will be the new Headmistress. After all, she was the boss when Dumbledore got suspended.
I was sort of thinking along king of spain’s line - don’t kill Dumbledore until the climactic battle at the end with Voldemort. Then after everything is said and done, a battle-worn, kinder, wiser Snape takes over and becomes one of the greatest headmasters in Hogwart’s history.
Of course - they will need another DADA teacher (the youngest DADA teacher in Hogwart’s history) - (by this time the baddest young wizard this side of the Mississippi) - Harry Potter.
I also think that Ron’s dad bites it - then Ron and Hermione get married, and move in to fix all the wrongs with the injustice against house-elves, and muggle-born wizards, etc by joining the Ministry of Magic.
— Peter Wiggen
I’ve wondered about the socks,too, but cannot come up with any reasonable or totally out there theories, yet.
This is an excellent point, Scifisam. It’s the equivalent of “Two days until retirement then I’m off the force.” cliche. I just hope Dumbledore doesn’t sit on a toilet 
I didn’t realize/hear that Rowling wanted to make the book grittier ( if that is the word I am looking for) as it goes along.
I just don’t see how killing off Dumbledore won’t take the entire story line into a Dark Side - The Force Is With You - Luke -I -am-Your-Father theme.
Draco gay is almost laughable, at first. But if you think about how Rowling has brought in the Race Card with mudblood, slavery with the elves, and a few other buried social lessons that I’ve just gone blank about, it could be a possibility. I’d like to see it only to piss off the Fundy movement.
I love all these theories and I can tell you I have never been so excited about a book release in my life.
I wonder if there are any odds on theories in Vegas.
Anybody have any idea the best way to make our own bets here, to organize it, just for fun?
Just taking the info off this thread?
I could volunteer if I knew where and how.
Good one. 
Well, she addressed those other issues metaphorically, and I think she’s already touched on homosexuality metaphorically, with Lupin. Prejudice against an invisible minority, and all.
That’s reaching pretty far, I think :dubious:
After all, werewolves are dangerous. A better comparison would be someone who has had a history of mental instability, but is currently on medication.
As I understand it, the current position on Harry/Voldemort is that Voldemort tried to kill Harry as a baby, his mother’s dying to save him formed a rare counter curse, causing the spell to rebound on V, who survived as a spirt because of his experiments into death, and a portion of his powers transfered to harry, explaining all the weird similarities.
-
I find it intensely irrititating when people say Harry’s similarity to V suggests they’re related without rebutting the above explanation.
-
I wouldn’t put it past JKR to have this explanation cooked up by D to hide secrets of Harry’s past, but my gut says no.
-
Why was V trying to kill H? The obvious guess is a(n apparently self-fullfilling) prophecy that H will cause V’s downfall (either that time, or later.)
Other thoughts:
Draco will follow his father or snape, (ie. evil or mean-good) I hope snape.
Dudley (and family) will choose similarly. Probably good, though pretty selfishly.
H/Cho and Ron/Herm. are stongly telegraphed. Probably one’ll be a crush and one’ll be for real. Will Fleur reappear? Probably not - she’s just there to show that someone sexy isn’t necessarily your type.
Dumbledore’ll form a resistance to V under Fudge’s nose. After he dies this’ll have to be held together by H, Arthur Weasley, etc, against the odds.
It will be revealed that Neville Longbottom is really Ralph Wiggum.
“Professor McGonagle, I ate my worm…”
-
Dumbledore will die at the end of book six (it is always darkest before dawn).
-
The house elves will join the fight against Voldemort and earn their freedom.
-
Snape will turn out to have been on Harry’s side all along and the dislike of Harry was feigned to provide Snape cover.
-
Snape will finally become the Defense against Dark Arts instructor.
-
McGonagle will become the new headmaster.
-
Ron and Hermione get together.
-
Harry doesn’t get with anybody.
-
Hagrid and Olympia (name?) will bring the giants in on the side of the good guys.
-
Hagrid and Olympia will marry.
-
Neville bites it heroically avenging his parents.
HAH!
Great, now I have the cast of Simpson’s transposed over the cast of Harry Potter in my mind.
Neville Longbottom - Ralphie Wiggum
Harry Potter - Bart Simpson
Ned Flanders - Professor Snape
McConagle - Marge
Dumbledore - The Doctor guy.
Ron - Millhouse
Hermione - Lisa Simpson
Voldemort - Mr. Burns
Draco and his gang - The kid that goes “ha ha” and his gang
Hagrid - Homer
The Dursley’s - Mrs. Crapabaoulous ( what is her name anyways), Mr. Skinner and Ralphie in a dual role.
Filch - Willie the Groundskeeper. Practically interchangeable.
Professor Sprout - Bumblebee Guy
Who’d I forget?
The current canon explanation just doesn’t sound feasible to me, that’s the problem.
To start with, it would only be possible if, out of all the hundreds (thousands?) of people Voldemort is supposed to have killed, Lily Potter was the first person to sacrifice herself attempting to save someone else. That seems unlikely. There are plenty of heroic people around - especially in the Harry Potter universe. It’s especially unsurprising that a mother would give her life for that of her child’s. Was Harry the first child Voldemort had tried to kill?
The way to get around that is to say that Voldemort didn’t personally kill many people, and it just so happened that none of those he did kill were brave enough to sacrifice themselves. Given his Ultimate Evil persona, and the Brave Hero characterisation of most of those who oppose him, this seems unlikely, but it’s the only answer.
Secondly, by what process could self-sacrifice turn into a massively powerful curse? Lilly gives her life, and her love is so strong, that it instantly turns Voldemort’s spell back on him? That karma is more instant than Pot Noodles. Spells in the HP universe usually require a wand, or at least an incantation. They don’t just happen.
How to get around this one? Well, the wizarding world doesn’t operate by the same laws as the real, Muggle world. Most of the time the wizards are subject to the same rules of physics as the rest of the world, but magic can manipulate physical processes. Perhaps intense emotions or spiritual states, like love, can manipulate magical processes. If this is the case, it would have to happen fairly often (not just on one special occasion), and be something the schoolchildren are taught about. Perhaps they will be in later books. I’d like to see that.
Even then, this love force would have to do some pretty major manipulating to not only turn Voldemort’s spell back on him, but to nick virtually all his powers too. That’s some damn powerful stuff there. It would mean that controlling emotions would give you even more power than controlling magic. That could lead to some interesting storylines, come to think of it.
Perhaps this will be the way Lily’s ‘power of lurve’ is explained, or perhaps there will be some better explanation. As of now we have no explanation. As of now, it seems much more likely that HP and V are related or the same person.
I think it’s made clear that some effects do happen ‘magically’ ie without wands and stuff (or maybe it was a spell… who knows.)
I take your point that the situation as stands doesn’t entirely make sense, especially that more people haven’t died to save each other (though there are ways round this). IMHO it’s the kind of thing that is accepted in HP universe even if it doesn’t really make sense.
My real gripe was people who say ‘HP must be Volde’s son because they both speak parseltongue’ and just muddy the waters.
Harry will touch himself and go blind.
It does seem like it. Why else would V kill other kids? Lily and James were powerful people with powerful friends, and he was probably sure their son would try to avenge them one day.
It happens here ;). It indicates that there can be protections and spells WITHOUT incantations. Remember when Dobby knocks over Lucius, he doesn’t say a word. He just holds out his finger. He doesn’t need to say anything because elves are supermagical. This ‘love barrier’ may be the same way. No incantation needed because of its inherantly magical property.
As I recall, Dumbledore’s explanation as well as Tom Riddle’s words on the subject indicate that it was the self-sacrifice of a mother to protect her child that results in the “old magic” that saved Harry. Apparently just any old act of self-sacrifice won’t do.
Probably. From what we know of Voldemort it doesn’t seem that he killed at random or for mere sport, although his followers did. We know of the Big V killing those who opposed him, those he perceived as a threat, and those whose deaths were necessary for some magical purpose, but there’s nothing to indicate that he went around killing babies for kicks. It’s not that he’s not evil enough, since he clearly is, it’s just that for the most powerful dark wizard in history killing babies would barely be a step up from stealing candy from babies. I think he’d consider it beneath his dignity.
I was thinking about Neville today and wondering if he’s perhaps not as inept as he seems. Not that I think he’s hiding any abilities or anything but:
His parents are in the hospital for Magical Maladies (St. Mungo’s?). If they ended up there when he was old enough to sort of get what happened, but still young enough to get confused, maybe he associated his parents’ illness/leaving with magic and developed a sort of “block”. He made the comment once that the rest of his family didn’t think he was magic enough to get in, but he still did, even without a lot of obvious displays of magical ability (the bouncing thing, sure). If his parents, as aurors, were chasing death eaters after Voldemort’s downfall, Neville could have been 3-5 and have suddenly been thrown into his grandmother’s home.
I just have the idea that Neville (before he dies) could become someone to be reckoned with, someone Voldemort/the death eaters don’t expect.
(Happy post 3k to me!)
No, Dumbledore was saying that there was no reason to kill Diggory, and Voldemort did it simply because it was expedient. And if you take the easy way out, its going to happen again, and keep happening.
Actually, I’ve always assumed that Lily’s sacrifice was the final component in a deliberate spell - maybe she also had to recite an incantation, or maybe it just took her magical power and intention behind the sacrifice, or whatever. But I too would find it lame if any old maternal sacrifice will do by itself.
I always found it kind of annoying that Lily Potter is the heroine whose actions defeated Voldemort and saved the wizarding world, yet she never seems to get any credit for it; it’s all The Boy Who Lived this and The Boy Who Lived that…
I don’t think Lily was performing a spell or anything, after all isn’t she a muggle? She is Aunt Petunia’s sister.
I think there is something inherent to muggles that might be some sort of old magic. Harry is supposedly better off living with the Dursleys because they are muggles. Perhaps Dumbldore, Harry, or even better Mr. Weasley, will become some sort of ambassador to the muggle word to build some sort of wizard/muggle alliance against Voldemort? Of course that’s just wild and weird speculation.
As for the comparisions between Voldemort and Harry, one thing that can’t be explained by the simple reflection of the curse is that they are both half-muggle. It inherently doesn’t mean anything, just makes interesting turmoil for Harry and adds depth story wise.
I am curious about James Potter’s family, though. Something should be brought up about his family at some time. Who were Harry’s grandparents on the wizard side? Were any of them ever dark wizards, or fighters against dark wizards? That should be brought up at some point I would think.