Rocky M, NC HP and the HBP: WARNING!! SPOILERS!!

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers and plot details for those who haven't started reading yet, but want to know what happens. If you're avoiding spoilers, don't read any further!


New Characters of Note:
1. Professor Horace Slughorn: Former head of Slytherin House. Takes over as Potions Master.
2. Rufus Scrimgeour: Former Head of Auror's. Now the new Minister of Magic.
3. Eileen Prince: Snape's mum.
4. Cormac McLaggen: Gryffindor Quidditch player.
5. Merope Gaunt: Voldemort's mum.


Quidditch:
1. Harry becomes Quidditch Captian.
2. Ron returns a keeper, Ginny returns but as a chaser, Katie Bell also returns as a chaser, Harry remains Seeker, Dean Thomas, Cormac McLaggen, and serval previously unmentioned characters fill out the rest of the team.


OWL's/Academics:
1. Harry and Ron pass everything except Divination and History of Magic.
2. Hermionie receives Outstandings (A's) on everything except DADA, where she received an Exceeds Expectations (B).
3. None of the three continue on with Care of Magical Creatures.
4. All three remain take on NEWT level Potions, DADA, Charms, and Transfigurations. Hermionie also continues one with Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.


Secrets/Major Developments:
1. Snape kills Dumbledore
2. Harry finds out what he has to do to defeat Voldemort
3. Snape is the Half-Blood Prince
4. Harry realizes that he's in love with Ginny
5. Malfoy joins the Deatheaters
6. Tonks is in love with Lupine

 

The note found in the locket was signed RAB. Any ideas who that might be? My best guess (for a character already mentioned) would be Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother.

 

So I was right about Snape being the HBP. Cool.

 

Yeah......

 

And I was right about Dumbledore dying...

Yes, Ron and I both think that Regulous Black is probably RAB (remember he tried to get out of the deatheaters at the end).

Also, I don't think Snape is still a death eater. I think that the way Dumbledore knew that he could trust Snape was that he and Dumbledore had an unbreakable vow. I'm also sure that Dumbledore knew about the vow Snape had with Mrs. Malfoy.

Now my *theory* is that Dumbledore was mortally wounded by the 2nd Herocrux (the ring), and that Snape was only able to delay the inevitable...so they decided to turn it to their advantage. I think that when Dumbledore was pleading with Snape, that he was was begging him to go through with it and kill him. A couple other things of note: Snape didn't kill Flitwick, just knocked him out. Snape also just deflected and disarmed Harry; he never hurt him when he easily could. He also prevented another Death Eater from hurting Harry...all Voldamort said was that Harry was his...that shouldn't have prevented the Death Eaters from zapping him with a cruciartis curse or two... I also think that Draco, will be like Snape and come back to the good side by the end of book 7. He and Harry will be like Snape and Sirius...they hate each other (too much bad blood), but they'll be on the same side. After book 7, Harry and Ginny get married, have 12 kids, Harry goes to Hogwarts to teach, and eventually becomes Headmaster, and lives happily ever after. It is, after all, still a children's book and must have a happy ending.

That's my 2 cents.

 

Picked the book up today in Rocky Mount and plan on spending the rest of the afternoon reading it.

 

I agree with your Snape theory...at least to an extent. I think that there is certainly more to Snape's actions than meet the eye. His rage at having to kill Dumbledore was genuine, but I think it was because it hurt him to have to do it.

I agree whole-heartedly on with your take on Harry and Flintwick stuff. Additionally, he was still trying to teach Harry the importance of Occlumency and silent casting the whole time they were dueling. Finally, he could have curse/killed both Hermione and Luna if he had wished.

I'm not so sure about Draco, but I could see it going that way. On the one hand, we know that he lacks the courage to execute someone. But on the other hand, he sure doesn't seem to have a problem with causing collateral damage.

It is my deepest hope that Harry and Ginny end up together. Harry teaches DADA at Hogwarts, and eventually becomes Headmaster. And that all the major remaining characters live long happy lives. But I wouldn't put money on it. I think that we'll get a happy ending in the sense that Voldemort is defeated. But it wouldn't surprise me if of the main three (maybe four) dies in the process.

 

We couldn't put it down..any ideas on when 7 should be out? do you think we'll have to wait another 2 years?

 

Best estimate is 2 years. There were 2 years between GoF and OotP, and another two years between OotP and HBP. In a recent interview, she said that she doesn't expect the next one to be as long as OotP, and that she intends to start work on it by the end of this year. Summer of 2007 is the best guess.

BTW, she also said that the last chapter of book 7 would be an epilogue. So we shouldn't have any loose ends.

 

I figured as much...but there was 3 years between GOF and OOP. Goblet came out around my 21st B-Day, and Pheonix came out in time for my 24th B-day.

 

I stand corrected.

Was it just me or did anyone else have a hollow feeling at the end? I don't know if it was Dumbledore's death, the Harry/Ginny situation, the fact that we might have seen the last of Harry's adventures at Hogwarts, or just that we have to wait 2 to 3 more years for the finale. However, something left me feeling hollow as I closed the cover.

 

Yup, I felt hollow too. Like I did at the end of EP:III....I can't wait for book 7, but at the same time I don't want it to come, because that means it will be the end.

 

I'm tempted to go back and read the books 1, 2, 3, and 4 yet again (I just recently re-read 5). I would really like to do so, but there are so many other books out there that I haven't read. I feel guilty about reading the same ones over and over, when I could be broadening my horizons instead.

 

I know the feeling wich is why I got them all on either CD/Tape. They are unabridged and Jim Dale does an amazing job reading them. He's got the voices down pat too (I just don't like his Sirius). It's creepy. So like when I wanted to re-read book 5 before book 6, I just listened to the CD's in my car 2 and from work (I've got a 1 hour commute, and it makes the time fly). I also listen to them while I'm sewing or working on other projects. That way when I read for leasure...it's not a book I've already read 2-3 times (I've actually READ books 1&2 twice, book 3&4 three times, and book 5 twice...I've listen to all of them many more times then that).

I plan on reading books 1-6 just prior to book 7.

 

Hey can anyone tell me the first line of the book?? A friend of mine says he downloaded it (the book) and i was wondering/hopeing that he didnt get the real thing. The Chapter one title is as follows: The Funeral?? Or is it The other Minister??? hopefully it is neither of them!

 

It's "The Other Minister" in reference to the muggle Prime Minister.

 

OK, so I found this on someones Live Journal, and I think that it pretty much covers all the whickets, and I totally agree with it!

Dumbledore's End, Snape's Betrayal, R.A.B.'s Note, and Mundungus' Thieving

First of all, R.A.B. has to be Regulus Black. This has practical implications for Harry because, when he figures it out, it will help him find the real locket Horcrux.

Where is the locket? On page 116 of OotP (U.S. paperback edition), Sirius and the kids are cleaning out an old cabinet which contains items such as a snuffbox with Wartcap powder, a music box, and a 'heavy locket which none of them could open'. I'd bet that's the locket in question.

Now, one of three things could have happened to the locket, which we assume was thrown into the bin with the other things that had been in the cabinet: either it went out with the rest of the rubbish, or Kreacher nicked it (and Harry will have to go back to Grimmauld Place to retrieve it) or Mundungus stole it and fenced it. I'm willing to bet on this last one; why else would the scene with Mundungus and the stolen Black family silver have been given such prominence in HBP, except to remind us of Mundungus' activities so that it's not a shock when JKR brings it back up in the seventh book?

Aside from the practical implications for getting and destroying the locket, Regulus' note sheds some interesting light on Regulus' death, Dumbledore's death and Snape's 'betrayal'. Why is this?

Regulus states that he knows he will be dead by the time the Dark Lord gets the note. Not because the Dark Lord or anyone else will kill him for stealing the Horcrux (Dumbledore mentions, in his conversation with Harry about Riddle's diary, that Voldemort probably doesn't automatically know when a Horcrux is destroyed); instead, I think Regulus knew that the potion in the cave would most likely kill him when he stole the Dark Lord's locket Horcrux, which changes our conception of his death. Regulus was not, as Sirius said, an idiot who joined up and then got himself killed when he saw what he was asked to do and backed out; instead he found out about some of Voldemort's most precious plans for immortality and made an active attempt to thwart them. He went out in a blaze of self-sacrificial glory.

Now, what does this mean for Dumbledore and Snape? Well, it gives us the knowledge (or at least the hint) that the potion in the cave is probably going to kill the drinker. Dumbledore hints at this too; he implies that, though it won't kill immediately, it will probably leave the drinker alive long enough to cause a lot of pain or perhaps even allow Voldemort to find out who had attempted to steal one of his Horcruxes. The biggest confirmation that the potion is lethal, and that Dumbledore knows or at least suspects it, is that he does not allow Harry to drink it--he all but says that he is expendable and that Harry is not. Also, later, there is the fact that Dumbledore chooses to save Harry (well, save him from himself, really, by Freezing him so he can't do anything rash on the tower) instead of defending himself; defending himself is less important because he knows is going to die anyway.

So Dumbledore knows he is dying during the scenes after retrieving the locket, during the return to Hogsmeade and on top of the tower. Throughout the conversation with Malfoy he grows steadily weaker. Even as he is convincing Malfoy not to kill him, he is already dying (and probably has known he was coming close to death all year anyway, or why would he have taken the trouble to pass his work on the Horcruxes on to Harry?). Dumbledore reasons with Malfoy, not to save his own life but to spare Malfoy having blood and murder on his hands. The fact that Dumbledore is dying anyway would not make Malfoy's act of murder any less despicable, and Dumbledore does not want Malfoy to become a murderer; we get the impression that Malfoy is not naturally evil, anyway, in this scene. He is under extreme coercion.

Things change a bit when the Death Eaters arrive--now there is the new problem of keeping Mal

 

I agree with most of her theory too. In fact, I came to the same Legilimens/Occlumancy conclusion yesterday after sending my post about Snape's rage. Now that I think about it, the Unbreakable Vow makes sense also. Has Snape ever directly defied or even questioned an order from Dumbledore? I can't think of an occasion where he has. Maybe his vow was to obey Dumbledore without question.

 

Do you think we'll ever know everything? Or will Rowling keep little details back, such as why Dumbledore so implicitly trusts Snape?

 

I would be surprised if she left any major loose ends.

 

i will post about this book when the movie comes out, i'm lazy...

 

Thanks for your help Lady Vader.

 

Any time!

Now if you are waiting for the movie to come out...I would guess that you'll be waiting for the 2008 Holiday season before book 6 is a movie.

 

Finished the book over the weekend. Damn! Cannot WAIT till book 7 to see how this all plays out.

 

I finished the book about a week ago and just haven't posted until now. I admit that I shed some tears at the end, over Dumbledore and over the Harry choosing responsibility over Ginny thing. I shed a few more when Ron and Hermoine promised to come with him... friends to the end, literally.

I am willing to be money on the RAB thing... the whole locket thing in OOP is a dead giveaway.

I was impressed by how JKR had Harry mature so quickly. In about a month's time, he went from wrecking Dumbledore's office over Sirius' death and the fact that he alone can stop Voldemort to being "I'll take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage." I really liked this new Harry. He is really starting to "man up."

Now, for the big one. I think Snape has been a baddy along. In the beginning of the book, he is able to make an excuse for everyone of his actions to Bellatrix and Narcissca. Plus the fact that he was willing to make that Unbreakable Vow so easily, knowing what it would mean. Then the fact he actually did it. Then how he tore into Harry when Harry called him a coward. It was more than acting... all the other Death Eaters had disapparated at that point, right? It wasn't like he needed to put on a show to them. He did it because he hated Harry like he hated James.

The most damning thing doesn't happen here, but in POA. He would have known that Sirius wasn't a Death Eater. He would have known who the secret keeper for James and Lily was, as he gave Voldemort the info about the prophecy and then knew about his Dark Lord finding out where to find the Potters. He would have known it wasn't actually Sirius that killed those people all those years ago. But he is the one that recaptured Sirius. He is the one that was leading the Minister and the dementors up the tower so Sirius could get The Kiss. I told this to someone and they said "Maybe Dumbledore told Snape that Sirius would be saved and that he should play his role like he did." That would have been fine, but the way he reacted when they found Sirius gone is what seals it. He assualts Harry, yelling that it was him that saved Sirius. He was just filled with rage. Why? Because he wanted Sirius out of the picture. Why? Not only did he hate him, he knew what he might mean for those who would align against Voldemort. With everything that has come to light since POA, it is obvious that he should have saved Sirius if he was trully on Dumbledore's side.

I think Snape has always been a villain, like many of us felt in the beginning. But JKR waited to trully reveal it until we got comfortable in thinking "OK, maybe he isn't such a bad guy." It was almost like: "See this dark guy over here... he looks like he is bad but isn't... Fooled you! He is bad!"

But I do agree that Dumbledore was beging Snape to kill him. He wanted Snape to kill him so he could possibly save Draco. He didn't want Draco to become what his mother and father had become: murderers. Maybe saving Draco this and letting him see what cold-blooded murder was like would be enough to bring Draco back from Voldemort.

My last thought... after what JKR said in one interview and with what happened in this book... I am growing more and more afraid that Harry will not survive Book 7. I hope I am wrong, but I think he will die defeating Voldemort.

Overall a great book. It had a very dark tone... the very same reason EIII is my favorite of the Star Wars movies now. Very awesome read.