Hp&hbp Spoilers

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by greatwhitenorthchick
I agree. Very good theory. A thought like that crossed my mind when Dumbledore kept saying those weird things while he was drinking the potion. But I went nowhere with it.

Any guesses on who is RAB? a member of the Black family? that the locket said I already took the real one refutes that it was dummy with the water being the real one, doesn't it?

[dtb]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Any guesses on who is RAB? a member of the Black family? that the locket said I already took the real one refutes that it was dummy with the water being the real one, doesn't it?

Yes, Hank. Regulus Black. We've been over this, dear.

[Replaced_Texan]

another one

For dtb:

Snape and Lily, a reassessment


One of the things I was most glad to see in The Half-Blood Prince, is that at least my thoughts on patronage networks seems to have been borne out – even if a number of my other speculations have proved rather further from the mark! Slughorn’s club (and it’s after-school connections) was beautiful in this regard – and especially the way that Riddle learned from it!

Now, about Snape and Lily.

We know from what Remus Lupin said in Order of the Phoenix that Lily did not become especially close to James until his last year, though it seems that he had always liked her. But it’s only in reading this last book that I’ve started to believe that until this, she really could have been quite close friends with Snape.

They would definitely have mixed socially. They were both members of Slughorn’s club, and (with what Horace said about Lily, and Snape’s potions genius) they were his favourites in their year. “And” he had a consistent practice of setting up connections between his various protégés. I am quite confident (given that Gryffindors and Slytherins take Potions together, and all houses do, in the last two years) that Slughorn paired Lily and Snape together for potions, consistently – perhaps for years.

Which could explain why, although the book was defined as Snape’s by the name of the “Half Plood Prince”, and many spells in it are “known” to be Snape’s own inventions, and Harry was convinced that it belonged to a boy, Hermione was also convinced that the handwriting in it was a woman’s. If Harry had shown the book to Remus Lupin, would he have recognised the handwriting as Lily’s? If they had worked together in Potions, using the same textbook together, and adding in their additional refinements, I think this is entirely plausible. And actually, the strange sense of humour that Harry observed may owe something to Lily too – the sort of Lily that liked playing practical jokes on Petunia. I can imagine the wry humour with which, when Snape referred to the book as his own, she wrote (in place of his real name) she wrote inside, that it belonged to his "preferred" name, of the Half Blood Prince.

Perhaps "half blood prince" is not a mark of ownership, but a "dedication?"

Could this also explain how James got hold of Snape’s spells. Was it through Lily? Or did Snape think that it must be through Lily? (Probably James watched him practice, through his invisibility cloak). Does this account for some of Snape’s reaction to her in the pensieve scene? A mistaken sense of betrayal of secrets?

Oh well! Just an idea!

More detailed post to follow, about the rest of the book!

[Replaced_Texan]

Another installment from Mircalla:

Okay, so I’ve been reading theory upon theory upon theory, mostly about the Snapester. (I don’t know why I feel it necessary to give this highly unpleasant man cute nicknames. It’s disturbing.)

One of the most common theories about Snape goes like this.

Not truly evil, yadda yadda yadda, killed Dumbledore on DD’s orders, blah blah blah, still on the side of the good. So far it coincides with my own thoughts posted here). (Although there are different sorts of evil; he may not be Voldemort’s little musketeer, but I *do* tend to think he’s pretty damn nasty. But I already went there.)

Then there’s this next part of the theory (which lord_of_entropy has already suggested in the comments to the previous post linked above): That Snape was in love with Lily, and that is why he felt such guilt over causing her death. Dumbledore, being the big rah-rah fan of love that he is, believed that Snape was truly heartbroken over what he’d done – Snape hated James and couldn’t care less about *his* death, but about Lily’s death he was deeply sorry. And of course, this would go a long way toward explaining Snape’s almost incredible animosity toward Harry; Harry’s a constant reminder that someone else got Lily, and not just anyone else, Snape’s hated rival James Potter. Okay, it still means the dude is mentally STUCK IN ADOLESCENCE FOREVER, but I suppose it’s marginally more understandable than a simple “your dad was mean to me, I hate you” (which in my eyes is more like “stuck at age seven.”)

There’s plenty of canon stuff to support this hypothesis (Lily was a Potions whiz, we now know – perhaps both of them were part of the “Slug Club”? Perhaps they worked on projects together?) It fits. It fits very well. AND I HATE IT.

Why? Because it’s so bloody banal. Poor Snape, causing the death of his twu wuv. Suffering every day seeing his twu luv’s eyes in his hated rival’s face. Dumbledore, King of Love, understanding and supporting Snape through his pain. Dumbledore, trusting so much in the power of Snape’s enduring wuv that he’s willing to risk the lives of everyone around him by employing and entrusting his secrets to this slimy git-face. Who’s not really slimy and git-like after all. Let’s all feel sorry for poor little Snapey-poo.

Argh. All we need now is a big DEATHBED SCENE. Can’t you see it? Snape, expiring slowly and painfully from a series of Unforgivable Curses cast upon him by his double-triple-quadruple-whatever-crossed “colleagues” in the Death Squad while nobly protecting the Chosen One, confesses tearfully to Harry: “I always loved your mother, Harry, and I’m so sorry for all that I’ve done.” Then Harry gives Snape his hand and says, “I understand, Severus. Dumbledore was right about you all along. You are forgiven. Go with God.”

And then I THROW UP.

Let’s all hope and pray that JKR WILL NOT DO THIS. Come on. If we all pray together, perhaps we can reach her. It’s worth a shot.

I think I just KILLED MY BRAIN.

ETA anonmyous commenter:

I think it's the other way around. Snape was in love with James Potter, which majorly skeeved out James (hence the reason for the animosity). Snape's unrequited love turned to hate (also due to internal self-loathing from not being able to admit it to himself), and he now hates Harry because he looks so much like James. He told VM about the prophecy because if he couldn't have James, he didn't want anyone to. He was later repentant because he killed his one twu luv (James) and the 'filthy Mudblood' who got him, and because he left James' son an orphan.
Snape being interested in Lily and knowing her due to the potions class/Slug Club doesn't fit with how he talks to her in OotP, when it seems they don't associate at all.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by dtb

I, too, thought Harry somehow must contain part of LV's soul -- even before HBP. Details fuzzy, but I'd love to know what others' views are.

2. And Harry definitely has a dark side.

[Replaced_Texan]

She updates again. Reproduced for dtb below.

• Okay, now I’m going to talk about Sirius.
  
  No, not about R/S. I tried posting my thoughts here – twice – and deleted them twice. I just couldn’t quite get the sentences to come out right. But luckily, musesfool said everything I wanted to, and phrased it far better than I would have. If you want to know how I feel about it, you can check out this post: http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/913908.html. (Um. I hope it's okay to link to that. If not, someone tell me.)
  
  So here I’m mostly going to talk about Sirius all by himself. Poor Sirius, who got barely a mention in HBP. Poor Sirius, dead and gone, and no one seems to care all that much. Even Harry, after an intense but surprisingly short period of mourning, moves on quite nicely, and only thinks occasionally of Sirius, when something brings him to mind (Mundungus Fletcher’s pilfering habits, for example).
  
  But is Harry’s behaviour all that surprising? I certainly found it so at first, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Harry loved Sirius; Sirius was the closest thing to a father he had, or probably ever will have. Hagrid’s a friend more than anything and as for Dumbledore – well, Harry is important to DD, but he’s not (just) important because DD loves him (which I believe that he does…did. Grrr.). Harry’s the most crucial player in this big ol’ chess game that’s going on, and DD can’t afford to ever lose sight of that.
  
  But Sirius just loved Harry. Unconditionally. Like a family member would love him. No one else did that. Well, Molly Weasley maybe, but Molly has a whole family to look after, and Sirius sort of…well, belonged to Harry.
  
  But…yes, there’s a but…Harry knew Sirius for a very short period of time. I remember Harry in OotP thinking about his "two universes" -- the one with Sirius in it and the one without him. When I read that, I was like YES! Because that *is* exactly how it feels when someone close to you dies. It’s so hard to get used to the idea that they aren’t in the world anymore. That the world doesn’t contain them anymore. It feels like everything’s changed.
  
  But really, how long was Sirius in Harry’s universe? Two years. Two very intense years, but still. It wasn’t a question, so much, of a universe with Sirius and one without; it was a universe without Sirius, a universe that very briefly contained Sirius, and then one without him AGAIN. Harry had barely gotten used to the idea of having a godfather before he didn’t have one anymore. And it broke his heart, but really, he’d spent so much time without Sirius that I can see that it wouldn’t be all that difficult after all for him to adjust to the loss of him.
  
  I’m not going to say anything at all about Lupin’s reaction to Sirius’s death (okay, I’m lying). We really have little to go on there. That Lupin was highly upset when Sirius died, there’s no doubt – that’s clear in the scene. And Lupin was certainly NOT Mr. Happy in HBP. But there were any number of reasons put forth for that – his work with the werewolves, his…whatever…with Tonks. And again, I think…well, I don’t think this, but it fits with the text…Lupin had already DONE his mourning for Sirius, when Sirius went to Azkaban. Lupin lost all of his friends back then, and I’m sure he missed all of them enormously, Sirius included, despite what (he thought) Sirius had done. But he’d moved on. He was used to a world without his childhood friends. When Sirius came back, he was obviously very pleased about it, and he and Sirius seemed to fall back instantly into their old closeness (whatever you think that closeness was about). But I think that when Sirius died, it’s possible that Lupin accepted it more quietly because he’d already been there. He’d been alone before; he was alone again. Business as usual for Lupin, really.
  
  So who does that leave to mourn for Sirius? His old friend Mundungus Fletcher, who robbed his house right after his death? Dumbledore, who seemed far more concerned about the effect of Sirius’s death on Harry than on the death itself? Tonks, who barely knew him and whose unhappiness was, apparently, all (or mainly) about her wuv for Lupin? There really isn’t anyone, is there?
  
  Except for us. And now I come to it. I think that it’s highly possible that we fans care far more about this character than his creator did. We’ve given him an importance that, perhaps, he was never intended to have in the text. He served his purpose; now he’s no longer needed, save as a “red herring” to distract us from Tonks’ real feelings. And I believe that if R.A.B. *is* Regulus, then Sirius, if he makes an appearance in Book 7, will most likely only do so as a very minor character in the Regulus backstory. Regulus is the new Black.
  
  I’m sad, though. And I do still think, deep down, that there’s no way that a canny writer like JKR would bother to identify Sirius’s Animagus form with a psychopompic creature (what? I can make up words if I like) and then proceed to give him a highly ambiguous “death” (going behind the veil while he was still alive) if she did NOT intend for him to be some sort of link between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Right? She made use of the legends about church grims for a reason. Right? Right? Right? Come on, someone reassure me here.
  
  Of course, I thought the same thing about the connections between R/S, and it seems that I was off-base there (at least as far as the author is concerned). So who knows.
  
  Yes, that’s the end. Aren’t you glad?

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
2. And Harry definitely has a dark side.

Draco is clearly going to leave the dark side and fight Volde alongside Harry in book 7, right?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Draco is clearly going to leave the dark side and fight Volde alongside Harry in book 7, right?

Of course. He's the Snape of his year.

[spookyfish]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Of course. He's the Snape of his year.

I was wondering about something that might not have anything to do with anything, but all of this deconstucting Harry has inspired me to reread 1-6 from the beginning, and I've been seeing repeated references to Dumbledore's defeat of the "Dark Wizard Grindewald in 1945," which, it occurs to me was about the same time as Tom Riddle's leaving Hogwarts. Since you all have me believing that JKR doesn't make references to people in her stories for no reason whatsoever, does anybody think that there will be some connection between the dark wizard who was defeated, and the current resurrected Dark Wizard?

I'm probably thinking way too much about this stuff now. Damn you all.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Of course. He's the Snape of his year.

Not really. Snape was an outcast and a dork, wasn't he? Draco is/was well liked in Slytherin.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?
Not really. Snape was an outcast and a dork, wasn't he? Draco is/was well liked in Slytherin.

Yeah, but there are a lot of parallels, and I don't think Harry is as popular as his dad was. Due to being the chosen one and all that.

[dtb]

Originally posted by spookyfish
I was wondering about something that might not have anything to do with anything, but all of this deconstucting Harry has inspired me to reread 1-6 from the beginning, and I've been seeing repeated references to Dumbledore's defeat of the "Dark Wizard Grindewald in 1945," which, it occurs to me was about the same time as Tom Riddle's leaving Hogwarts. Since you all have me believing that JKR doesn't make references to people in her stories for no reason whatsoever, does anybody think that there will be some connection between the dark wizard who was defeated, and the current resurrected Dark Wizard?

I'm probably thinking way too much about this stuff now. Damn you all.

Not at all! JKR recently admitted (in the interview she granted two die-hard fans/website administrators the weekend the book was released -- the two interviewers got to read the book, then conduct an interview -- I'll find a link tomorrow) that 1945 was chosen purposefully and specifically. She wouldn't go into more than that, b/c it would give away too much.

[Albus]

A link to J.K. Rowling's interview with representatives of two leading fan sites:

http://www.mugglenet.com/jkrinterview.shtml

She refers to Grindelwald (apparently pronounced "Grindelvald") in part 3.

[Aloha Mr. Learned Hand]

Originally posted by Albus
She refers to Grindelwald (apparently pronounced "Grindelvald") in part 3.

I thought that was interesting. Vald = vold? Mort(is) = latin for death.

Having just finished the book last night I do tend to subscribe to the theory that ADD is truly and irrevocably dead, but that he asked Snape to make him that way. Obviously the fact that he owned a Phoenix leaves some room for doubt.

[Albus]

According to the Harry Potter Lexicon, Voldemort is French for "flight from death."

The "Dumbledore wanted Snape to kill him" theory is held by the majority of Harry Potter obsessives out there. I don't know. Jo Rowling seemed less than enthusiastic about that theory in her Leaky Cauldron/Mugglenet interview, though she could have been trying to throw the dogs off the scent.

Beware, as well, of the tendency to view the Potterverse as a bi-polar struggle of good and evil. As Sirius warns Harry in the Order of the Phoenix, "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters." Rowling has done an excellent job of creating a complex world of filled with people willing to do evil in the service of a perceived good (Barty Crouch), or who are simply evil free agents having no allegiance to the Dark Lord (Dolores Umbridge). There is the distinct possibility that Snape is working only for himself, equally willing to betray either side if he deems it to his advantage.

Finally, keep your eye on Wormtail, who appears to be spying on Snape whilst he boards at Spinner's End. We don't really know what he is doing or who he is working for. An evil Snape would provide Wormtail with the means to redeem the debt he owes to Harry for sparing his life.