Finally finished HBP

[fenchurch]

rackham and I have been reading the book concurrently... leapfrogging each other through the chapters, until a few days ago, when we both ended up in the same spot and stayed there. Well, last night Rackham got back to the book and read to the end... and then came down, thrust the book at me and told me, rather desperately, to finish it (I suspect he wanted someone to talk about it with).

I wanted to get some thoughts about the book written down before I start going back and reading what everyone else has written on the subject. I'm likely not saying anything that hasn't been said before... it'll be interesting to see if I'm on the same page with the rest of fandom.


I don't think that Snape is actually evil... and I think he's going to be important to the good guys winning later.

I also think that Snape was in love with Lily, and *that* is why Dumbledore trusted his change of heart (because Snape was devastated over having caused her death). I suspect that Snape and Lily were friends, and that he helped her with her Potions studies (thinking, in particular, of Slughorn commenting that Harry had inherited his mother's ability in the subject).

So, why did he kill Dumbledore? Because he had to. He made an unbreakable vow. But, in the end, this will also put him in position to be very helpful to Harry and company.

And poor Draco (which is not something I thought I'd ever say). I liked him as a character before this, and even sympathized with him a few times (I thought his home life was likely to be fairly abusive, and that had a great influence on how he acted at the school), but I finally feel secure that we're actually supposed to be sympathizing with him. I was never sure, before, because it seemed a little too subtle and I worried I was reading too much into it.

Wacky theory #1: I'm wondering if perhaps Dumbledore was able to put something of his essence in the locket before he died.

Wacky theory #2: I'm also wondering whether Harry is the final horcrux containing a piece of Voldemort's soul. It would make sense... since he would be something that "belonged to Griffindor." When Voldemort attacked Harry as a baby, he would have just killed again, enabling him to split off a bit of his soul. It would also explain why Harry knows Parseltongue, why the Sorting Hat thought he might also be good in Slytherin, and why he could tell what Voldemort was thinking before he was blocked out.

Comments

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

I think you're pretty in synch with everyone else, from what I've read. I think Dumbledore is gone, myself. J.K. Rowling has been pretty firm about the characters she kills staying dead. Though I wonder how much the portrait of him in his office is going to appear in the next book. The other portraits seem to have retained the memories and personalities of their subjects. Maybe he can dispense some advice that way?

I felt for Draco too. He wants to be the bad boy, but cold-blooded murder is a pretty big step. I'm glad that Rowling had him unable to do it and I hope he proves to be redeemable in the next book.

Harry as Horcrux is an interesting idea. Though Voldemort was intending to kill Harry as a baby - do you suppose a dead body could be a Horcrux? We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

I wish we'd seen more of Sanguini - it would have been interesting to learn about vampires in the Potterverse.