illuminating science

At around 10pm last night, cureld up in bed, I finished Harry Potter! I can confidently say it’s an awesome book, probably my second favourite, after book 4. I’m going to comment on some things below (click “More” to see them) but there’s spoilers, so be warned!

There’ll be spoilers in the comments, too, so don’t read them if you don’t want to know! (And you don’t!)

Okay, highest on the list of spoilers is POOR DUMBLEDORE!!!! I’m not really one to get emotional at movies or whatever, but this completely blew me away, I was devastated. I hadn’t known for certain if someone died in this book (although someone, who’d finished it, said “Do you want to know who dies?!” But I wasn’t certain if they were serious, or just messing with me, so I was kept pleasantly tense…) In hindsight, I can see the signs - the injury to his hand (already weakened, “less” of a loss somehow if he dies), telling Harry all his plans, and, worst of all, Harry spending lots of time with him. As Harry points out, it seems impossible that the wonderful wizard from Book 1 can be gone.

When I saw the Dark Mark, I was trying to decide who she (JKR) was going to kill - and I swear, if it had beeen Ginny, I was going to send JKR a Howler like she’s never seen. I loved the scene with Harry and Ginny finally getting together! And Ron’s little nod was really cool too. But I wish he didn’t have to pull the Spiderman thing about breaking up with Ginny for her protection - I really hope that they can get back together before the end of the final book. Harry’s got to have something to look forward to after all this!

And Snape! Oooooooh! I can’t believe I didn’t guess he was the Half Blood Prince! (I was leaning towards Harry’s Mum, with all of Slug’s comments about Harry having the same talent as his mother…D’oh!) We had clues - living in a Muggle town, being brilliant at potions, the book in his old dungeon.

And now, the question on everyone’s lips - whose side is he on? My first thought was that he was bound by an Unbreakable Oath, and so had no choice but to kill Dumbledore. Did he actually know what Draco’s task was when he made the Oath? If he didn’t, then that’s pretty damn stupid - I’m sure he could have got out of it by claiming he didn’t want to cross Voldemort. If he did, then again, he could have got out of it if he’d been on Dumbledore’s side. So this strongly suggests he’s evil.

But then I realised that even if he made the oath not knowing what it entailed, he could have broken it and died, rather than kill Dumbledore. Surely, that would have been the right choice? It again seems like he’s evil.

But his facial expressions seemed a little odd. Was he angry and hating so forth because he hated Harry and despised Dumbledore? Or because he hated and despised himself for what he was doing to save his own life? If the latter, it’s possible that he, in some way, owe’s Harry a debt, which (like Pettigrew’s) might come in useful later. (Similarly, when we saved Harry’s life in book 1, he was repaying his debt to James?) He didn’t kill Harry in the field, even though he could have easily, supposedly on the Dark Lord’s orders. Since the Death Eaters didn’t argue, I’ve got to believe they were true orders. But maybe Snape was saving Harry, believing him (via the Prophecy, which Snape knew part of at least) to be the sole remaining chance of killing Voldemort. Perhaps he made choice to kill Dumbledore, and bide his time for a final betrayal of Voldemort?

Like everyone (specifically, Hermione, Lupin, et al.) keeps saying, we have to trust Dumbledore’s judgement. But Dumbledore himself admits that he can make mistakes (as Harry points out!). And in Dumbledore’s final moments it seems like he really was pleading with Snape, and perhaps realised that he might have made a terrible mistake. He’d been so confident up until then (with Malfoy) and it really seemed like things had gone wrong.

Gah! It’s so frustrating! But it seems we now know why Sirious’ death was necessarry - like Harry’s parents’ and Dumbledore’s, it set Harry on the path where he believes he is the only one to stop Voldemort. Perhaps in no other way than Harry being completely alone could the prophecy be made to come true. Only after he’d made that decision did Ron and Hermione come into the picture and perhaps help to even the odds.

And, of course, there’s the mysterious R.A.B., though JKR has hinted that people will solve that, so I’m sure that the appropriate name or title is already in the books somewhere. I haven’t decided whether to reread them (again!) and look for it myself, or just to check out the fan sites!

Anyway, I’d love to hear comments from others. I’m moving a couple of (minor) spoilers from other threads to here so that we don’t mess up anyone’s day Now, I’m going to check out J.K. Rowling’s website and see what she’s got to say for herself!