Rowling has emphatically said that he’s dead, and will remain so. I take her at her word.
I still hope beyond hope Dumbledore’s not dead.
I had this whole big theory that Severus did not kill Dumbledore; that he cast some OTHER spell silently while yelling the words “Advara Kadavra!” as total Muggle misdirection and pretending to kill him; that when Dumbledore flew out of the window (and since whendid the Advara Kadavra make one fly away?), that was when his “corpse” switched for a boggart’s, one stricken with a Petrificus Totalus Spell (Full Body Bind) so that it wouldn’t change shape. My theory was that under those conditions everyone would look at the frozen boggart’s body and see Dumbledore’s dead body lying there, because a deceased Dumbledore would be the thing everyone would fear most.
Can someone explain the persistence of the Snape-Lily Potter spurned love meme? As far as I can tell, there’s no support for it in the actual books whatsoever, and IIRC Rowling explicitly denied it in response to a fan question. Yet so many people seem extremely confident that this will turn out to have been the case. Where does this come from?
Wow. I like the way you think. And given the emphasis on silent spellcasting in the last book, it’s veeeeeery interestink…
Harry is a horcruxe, and he is the one linked to Griffindor, as we know that there are horcruxes for each house. Some one needs to be killed to create a horcruxe, so killing his folks will do. Voldemort could interact with other horcruxes, tom riddles diary for one. Voldemort also knew that to destroy voldemort harry would have to be killed.
This brings me to the part about the prophecy we heard in the ministry of magic. (its been a while, so I dont remember which book) but this prophecy said something along the lines of ‘one can not live while the other does, blah blah’ anyway in the book Rowling/the characters led us to believe that this meant Harry had to be the one to kill voldemort. But at the time of reading, the prophecy looked to say that Harry had to die for voldemort to be truly dead.
This makes sense, Harry could have a battle with Voldemort and kill him but part of voldemort will still be alive in Harry. The story could go two ways, 1) Harry sacrifices himself so voldemort is truly destoroyed forever or
2) Harry is a most powerful wizard to keep voldemort inside him.
I am equally skeptical about the “Snape loved Lily” theory, but Rowling hasn’t explicitly denied it at all. The exact interview snippet is this:
Very much a non-answer, I think – the comment that nobody would want Snape in love with them is hardly an answer to the question asked, and it’s unclear whether she’s “stunned” because the correspondent has made a lucky guess, or because the idea of Snape in love is so far off the mark because it might as well be in the stratosphere.
IF Snape had feelings for Lily (and I still think Narcissa is a far likelier bet), I’d expect it to be well and truly nasty and involve the magical equivalent of a date-rape drug.
Rysto:
On the contrary, I see that as being exactly the reason why that would work. Here’s how I see things:
- Voldemort will be defeated because Harry has “power that Voldemort knows not”, which is love.
- The sacrificial love of his mother is what protected him in that manner from Voldemort’s first attack.
- However, mother-love will only work until Harry’s legally an adult - Dumbledore said so in Book 6.
- Voldemort took blood from Harry in Book 4 so that the protection Harry has would now be his as well. When Dumbledore heard this specific thing, that’s when he got that gleam of triumph.
I suspect that what follows from the above is that the love-magic can still enable Harry to overcome Voldemort, but it can no longer be the love for a child - it would need to be an adult love, i.e., a spouse. But unloving Voldemort will not realize that the protection Harry used to have (that he shared since book 4) will have worn off and been replaced in Harry, or perhaps despite having realized it, he will be so incapable of love that he will be unable to avail himself of it, and that will be Harry’s salvation and his downfall. Dumbledore realized this in Book 4, giving him the key to ultimate victory.
In order:
- Avada Kedavra is canonically inconsistent in its effects. When Voldemort used it to kill his family, they were described as “pefectly healthy, other than being dead”. But when one hit one of the statues that Dumbledore had animated in Order of the Phoenix, it didn’t just de-animate, it shattered, and in Fawkes, it caused an instant premature combustion. Then, in Half-Blood Prince, when “that tall blonde Death-eater” is slinging killing curses willy-nilly, they leave marks on the walls. It might just be that the full description of the effects is “it kills”, and anything beyond that is stylistic.
1-prime) The members of the Order knew that Dumbledore could die, just like they knew anyone else could die. Why is this a particular difficulty? - Dumbledore is very old, but there’s at least one character who’s known to be older. Remember when Harry’s taking his OWLs, one of the Ministry examiners is waxing nostalgic about when she administered Dumbledore’s tests.
- I think we can take for granted that the phoenix was Dumbledore’s totem (his Patronus is phoenix-shaped, for instance), which implies that if he were an Animagus, he would turn into a phoenix. I’ll even grant the possibility that the phoenix-shape that rose from the tomb was perhaps some manifestation of his soul. This does not say anything about whether he’s an Animagus, though, and there’s no reason (other than wishful thinking) to suppose he is.
- Every phoenix has a distinctive song (remember, Harry was able to identify the source of his wand’s feather from the song he heard in the Priori Incanti), and the song Harry heard in the Chamber was Fawkes’. Nor can we assume that Fawkes is Dumbledore, since we see them together several times.
Askia’s hypothesis about the events in the Tower is also, on the face of it, plausible, but there’s too much other evidence that Dumbledore is dead. Even aside from Rowlings’ explicit statements, the immobilization spell on Harry let go right at that moment, and McGonagal succeeded to the office of Headmistress, and Dumbledore’s portrait was added to the portraits of the other prior Heads.
I will be very disppointed if Rowling actually does have the plot turn on Harry’s girlfriend doing for him what his mother did. Ick.
Well, that would hardly be Voldemort dying by Harry’s hand, though, would it? If something like this is going to happen, I think it’s far more likely that it would be Harry dying for Ginny.
Some random thoughts:
-In the books, the “neither can live while the other survives” bit of the prophecy is only part that repeatedly comes up. Given that Rowling has said that she worded the prophecy very carefully(it’s on her website somewhere), this either means that the “neither can live” part is the most important part, or that’s she’s trying to attract attention away from some other part. I keep going back and forth about what I think about this. “Either must die at the hand of the other” could be interpreted to mean that Harry and Voldemort are both going to kill the other.
-In HBP, Dumbledore says that Harry’s blood is worth rather more than Dumbledore’s. This is massively important, and has everything to do with the “gleam of triumph” from GoF
-RAB = Regulus Black doesn’t even count as a prediction anymore
-Just when I was finally convinced of the Snape loves Lily theory, that interview with JKR gives me real doubts. Yeah, you can twist her response to support the theory, but I think it takes too much doublethink to do that. It reminds me a bit of the mental gymnastics Harry/Hermione shippers went through.
-Details on Kneazles can be found in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them(yes, it’s a real book!). Basically, they’re orange cat-like creatures who are very intelligent and capable of distinguishing untrustworthy people.
Prediction 1: This may be too obvious to count as a prediction, but there is going to have to be a grand reconnecting of the houses in order to defeat Voldemort. The loyal Hufflepuffs, perpetually put upon, have been stewing about Cedric Diggory and are ready to exact revenge under Harry’s command. Luna Lovegood manages to muster some of the Ravenclaws and gains some respect for herself in so doing. And of course Draco Malfoy will be on hand to represent the Slytherins and to work closely (if unhappily) with Harry & Co.
Prediction 2: Snape’s help is going to be required to track down the last horcrux, and Hermione is the only choice to privately hear him out and secretly put his information into play, since neither Harry nor Ron would ever listen to Snape, and indeed would likely try to destroy him on sight. Even though the information Snape passes Hermione is both true and critical to their success, Harry and Ron believe she’s betrayed them and this (at least temporarily) costs her their friendship and trust.
Prediction 3: One of the trio will die, and I don’t think it’s Harry.
Prediction 4: Killing is not the way to vanquish Voldemort. Some other mechanism will be required (which I hope comes in the form of loyalty and not love), because Harry is ultimately too tender-hearted to cast Avada Kedavra. Unless…
Prediction 4a: Prediction 3 is right, and Harry is then able to summon up enough hatred to really want Voldemort seriously dead. But I don’t feel very comfortable with this one.
Prediction 5: Even though I hate to give up the idea, the reason Dumbledore trusts Snape is not that Snape was in love with Lily. The reason he trusts Snape is that Snape actually overheard the entire prophecy that night in the Hog’s Head, not just the first half. He only revealed the first part to Voldemort in a successful attempt to force Voldy’s hand, and is a skilled enough occlumens that he has managed to hide that deception all these years. Snape couldn’t tell Voldemort the truth now if he wanted to (or unless he also wanted to be killed horribly, I suppose).
Prediction 6: Snape is killed horribly anyway. But he dies doing something honorable.
I’m not as big a PotterHead as most of the people in this thread…but regarding the above, so what?
If she’s going to have some big reveal in Book 7 about Dumbledore being not-killed in some way, she’d have to be pretty stupid to say, in interviews, “Yeah, it’s just some misdirection. He’s actually a Phoenix Animagus and he’ll be back to help with the final battle.”
-Joe
As much I would personally like to see Dumbledore be alive again, I just don’t get that feel from the overall tone and structure of the series. Having him alive would undercut the impact and aftermath of his death.
One of the strengths of the books, IMHO, is that upon re-reading, the scenes prior to the reveals are still interesting, they still “work” but in a different way. I’m trying to imagine re-reading the funeral scene if I knew that Dumbledore was still alive, and it would just be so flat.
I will predict that there will be some sort of communication from Dumbledore to Harry, one of those “open only in the event of my demise” kind of letters, but more interesting, because it will have magic. This will keep the voice of Dumbledore at the forefront of the action of Book 7.
His sleeping portrait, true. But if you’re going to fake your death, it’s a nice touch of authenticity. I also found it odd that the Hogwarts House-elves were conspicuously missing from Dumbledore’s funeral services and that Fawkes’ song apparently relayed some sort of messgea that made everyone feel better.
I"m going to go out on a limb here and predict Voldemort living and everyone else critically injured or dying.
Think of the money I would make if that dark horse came in! ( and I actually bet on it.)
I know their maiden name was Evans, but I’ve wondered if perhaps their mother was a Riddle, or if perhaps they themselves were Riddles and adopted by a stepfather named Evans. Too much has been made of Harry’s resemblance to Voldemort for it to be a red herring, but I can’t imagine Voldemort having sired children and they certainly wouldn’t be Gaunt as that family seems to have been extinguished (though it would account for the Parseltongue). Rowling has denied Petunia is a squib, but she definitely knows something about Harry’s birth and there’s a reason she took him in rather than let him go to whatever the late 20th century of a workhouse is (and it has to do with blood).
I think the big twist will be that Snape really is evil.
Ooh! What about Cecilia, Tom Riddle, Senior’s first girlfriend? I guess it’s possible that she and Tom had a child who is running around somewhere…
I think that Aberforth Dumbledore is going to be a character in the next one; he’s been mentioned too many times and like his brother is ancient, which means that he may have been taking some of the Philosopher Stone latte with him, which means he’s probably strong (and the business involving- was it a hog or a goat?- will be explained).
The R.B. will not turn out to be Regulus Black.
Forgot to mention about Regulus: it was said that the Blacks disown and erase family members who went against her. In Rowling’s family tree for the Blacks she mentions that one, Dorea, was married to a Charlus Potter- it’s unknown if these were Harry’s grandparents but they’d be about the right age/generation- and that may also come into play.
Hee hee–this is actually one of my favorite dark horse theories. And it sure would be great, in a meta kind of a way: spend six books building up a guy to be tragic and misunderstood and very vaguely creepy…except…he’s actually REALLY creepy! And he kills you all! Waaaaaaaa!