topaz | Harry Potter and the Unfounded Speculation

So reesei and coyotejen, along with probably about half of you clever people, figured out the key twist right away: the last Horcrux is going to turn out to be Harry himself, or more precisely, probably his scar.

reesei presents the case better than I could have: go read it! I am still a little unsure on how the details work out: for example, if Voldemort made Harry a Horcrux then why does he keep trying to kill him? Apparently V. doesn't realize that Harry is the Horcrux---if Rowling can plausibly explain how that happened I'll buy it. Certainly the rest of the details make this fit together so perfectly it is hard for me to deny.

coyotejen also argued that Dumbledore isn't really dead. She pointed to the conversation he had with Draco right before getting zapped. We could protect you, he tells Draco: we could fake your death. The theory here is that this conversation foreshadows an arrangement he had already made with Snape to stage his own death. CJ also notes the passage at Dumbledore's funeral where it says that Harry "thought, for a moment, that he could see a blue-and-white phoenix soar into the air" as evidence that Dumbledore isn't really gone.

I'm not sure how convinced I am by this, but as I was thinking over the book tonight I had a flash:

Snape's "nonverbal spellcasting" lessons.

For much of the book, Snape emphasized the importance of being able to cast a spell without verbalizing the incantation: just by concentrating hard on the word in your head. When he cast the spell at Dumbledore, he said "Avada Kedavra" aloud, but we don't know what spell he was concentrating on. It is entirely plausible that he cast one spell while speaking a different incantation. Or even that Dumbledore said "Avada Kedavra" himself and just threw his voice a bit.

This doesn't answer the question about the Unbreakable Vow that Snape took at the beginning of the book. For that, there are two hints that we need to keep in mind:

The wording of the vow that Snape took: "... will you carry out the task that the Dark Lord has assigned Draco in his place?" Rowling very carefully avoids telling us what that task actually is. While she obviously wants us to think that the task was "kill Dumbledore," it is possible that it may just have been "find a way to bring the Death Eaters into Hogwarts," which was arguably the really impossible thing that V. could not have done without inside help. (If this turns out to be Rowling's solution to the Unforgiveable Vow, it does seem like it would be a bit of a deus ex machina.)
One of the things the book does not address, as far as I know: what happens if a person has taken two Unbreakable Vows? For Snape having taken an Unbreakable Vow with Dumbledore would certainly explain why Dumbledore trusts him so implicitly....

It's also possible that all of this is bollocks and Dumbledore really has croaked. We'll see. :-)

Oh, and R.A.B.? Regulus Black. Gotta be.

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I will be very sad if Dumbledore isn't really dead.

I will also be very surprised if Snape is really evil. Nasty and foul-tempered, yes, but not evil. Either he and Dumbledore had it all worked out once Dumbledore figured out he was going to die (such as, from the time Snape temporarily kept him alive after the ring fiasco) or, as is pointed out in this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/garlandgraves/3409.html) very popular thread, the two skilled legilimancers discussed it on top of the tower.

(That person, by the way, may also have located the locket - in a description of items at 12 Grimmauld Place in the last book.)

Too much of the series has been spent with Harry convinced of Snape's guilt, until proven terribly wrong, for me to believe it this time. He's going to have to go out in a blaze of glory next book, though, because he's in a pretty irredeemable position as far as the rest of the world is concerned, no matter what the truth of the matter may be. Given the glimpses we've seen of the wizarding justice system, a surviving Snape would be in deep, deep trouble.

And I'm putting this comment onto this post rather than the last, because the last post isn't terribly spoiler-y, and this comment is.

The existence of the romantic subplots didn't bother me. What did bother me was the implication that it's not only acceptable, but laudable, to lie and cheat in order to get your man. And I say it gender-specifically, because it was written that way.

It's true that Ron isn't nice to Hermione when he ditches her for Lavender, but near as I can remember he does so with no dual motives - the guy wants to get laid. Or at least smooched. And he does. Closest to a moral that we get is that sometimes your smooch-toy gets clingy, and then it's hard to break up with her. But if you treat her badly enough, she'll break up with you first, and then it's ok.

Hermione on the other hand - Miss Perfect Prefect cheats at the quidditch tryouts for Ron, with no repercussions whatsoever. This from the girl who is too honest to let people copy her homework! She then deliberately goes to find the single person who is most likely to make Ron jealous to date, and does so in a very public fashion. It's the same person, I might add, that she cheated out of the Quidditch Keeper's spot... but that's ok in Potterland, because he turns out to be a jerk anyway. And everyone knows you don't have to be fair to jerks.

Ginny also - at the end of the book, we find out that really, her aim over the last two books has been to attract Harry's attention, and she is perfectly willing to date and ditch as many people as necessary to do so. I don't know if it's in or out of character for her, given that we don't really know what kind of character she has. But it certainly isn't very nice to the boys along the way. I think the word I'm looking for is "ruthless".

Makes me very fed up with canon pairings.

Disclaimer - I've only read the book once, and as people who know me are well aware, I tend to get annoyed by things occasionally and somehow remember only the evidence that supports me. So if I'm seeing things that aren't really there due to bull-headed reading, mea culpa!

Late to the discussion, but: 1. I think you're reading in auctorial approval to Hermione's actions which isn't really there. I mean, acting like she's attracted to that dude, just to piss Ron off? Hermione herself realizes it was a Bad Idea pretty much right away, and Harry thinks she's being stupid all along. It doesn't really *go* anywhere, it's just a stupid sixteen-year-old-girl thing to do. As for the Quiddich tryouts, I of course agree that cheating was wrong, but I don't see how it is actually relevent to Hermione trying to "get" Ron. She didn't do it to make him like her (IIRC, he never finds out about it at all), she does it because she likes him and wants to help him out. Yeah, she goes about it the wrong way, but I don't think there's any implied lesson in there about How To Get A Man.

Re: Ginny, I think that you are misinterpreting what she was doing. Was she supposed to just nurse her childhood crush for years and years in the hope that someday the Great Harry Potter would notice her? Isn't it better that she, like, got a life? I don't think she was dating all those guys as a stragem to get Harry; she was doing it because Harry wasn't interested, and the other guys were, and just because they weren't the Ultimate Love of Her Life doesn't mean she didn't like them. I really have a hard time seeing Book-version Ginny Weasley as the manipulative vixen you're portraying her as.

Oh, and you are totally wrong about Ron & Lavender. He was so trying to make Hermione jealous. He didn't go for Lavender until he heard that Hermione had kissed Viktor Krum, and then all of a sudden it was all-snogging, all the time.

It's possible that Snape thought he could beat the Unbreakable Vow, but it backfired and the vow made him kill Dumbledore even though he didn't want to. If that's the plot, Snape isn't evil but he's made a huge mistake. This fits in with Snape being a very talented wizard who comes up with his own spells and potions. Harry still gets to be right that it was a mistake to trust Snape, but Snape isn't set up as a mini-Voldemort in the next book.

I'm skeptical about Harry or his scar being the last Horcrux, but we'll see.

I am at least half-convinced that once Voldemort dies, all of the people he murdered (or at least the ones associated with the horcruxes) will return to life, particularly James and Lily Potter. (Perhaps James and Lily will spring from Harry's forehead? Oh, the irony.)

And yes, having Snape appear to have killed Dumbledore could well have been Dumbledore's (and Snape's) way of pushing Harry into accepting and taking on the task only he can do -- going at Voldemort directly.

And yeah, Regulus Black.

Lets keep in mind Dumbledore might have been dying from the poison Harry fed him and therefore legilimensed to Snape to kill him since he was dying anyways. We know they both were legilimens. That could be the voiceless spell either Snape or Dumbledore cast.
Really hope Snape not a baddy

Harry Potter and the Unfounded Speculation

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