Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ***SPOILERS INSIDE***

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/20/2005, 11:21 pm

I figured Dumbledore was gonna die when it described his blackened hand, and how tired he was getting. I figured the mission was to kill Harry though, at first.

Random Name · Post by **Random Name** » 7/21/2005, 7:32 am

If Dumbledore had no idea what Snape was doing and was completly in the dark, and Snape killed him because he's an evil backstabbing little man, than what were Dumbledore and Snape arguing about when Hagrid overheard them?

Odio La Cabra · Post by **Odio La Cabra** » 7/21/2005, 7:57 am

afealicious wrote:1. kreacher and dobby are still able to disapparate and apparate in school grounds, outside of the great hall! did i miss something? (forgive me if this was already explained in a previous book, i haven't read them in a while and it was hard to catch up when i first started reading the half blood prince)
.

House elves have diffrent magic than wizards (or something like that)

AnnieDreams · Post by **AnnieDreams** » 7/21/2005, 8:34 am

I'm not following this whole "everyone would have died unless Snape killed him!" thing. If Snape had attacked the Death eaters, he might have won or at least given Dumbledore enough time to get his wand back. And as Dumbledore said, he can hide people better than they can imagine. He offered to save Draco and his family.

tasha · Post by **tasha** » 7/21/2005, 8:53 am

ughhhhhhh okay i finished the book yesterday.
first of all, i LOVED IT, it has overtaken the third as my favourite in the series. from the sentence when they saw the Dark Mark over Hogwarts, i could NOT look away from the book, i thought i was going to have a heart attack!!

first of all-- when i read that post about Harry being a horcrux, and having to kill himself for voldemort to die--- WOW That blew my mind. that is a brilliant theory, in my opinion, i never thought of that, and that would be amazing.

as for the whole snape killing dumbledore thing... i think snape IS evil, and harry was right all along. but that's just my opinion.

when i had 10 pages left, i actually looked to my friend and said "I don't want to finish it! Then what am i going to do for the rest of the summer? And for the next TWO YEARS, at least?!" it made me sad....

and OH!!!!!!!!! the thing about Harry not returning to Hogwarts...
that made me ANGRY. all along, we've been led to believe that there are going to be seven books in the series. one for each year Harry was at Hogwarts. and there would be no books after that, no epilogue, nothing.
well she kinda cheated her way out of that. the seventh book IS the "life after hogwarts" book.

but that doesn't mean i'm not going to be first (or at least fifth) in line to get it when it comes out.

Henrietta · Post by **Henrietta** » 7/21/2005, 9:28 am

Perhaps she'll change her mind and have another book after seven. I'm already imagining all the things that have to go into book seven, and it seems almost impossible.

I think that Snape had to kill Dumbledore, I really do. Heroes are not 100% good. Nor are most bad people 100% bad. They have imagines, demons, etc. By making Snape a kind of secondary hero (possibly) in this book, she has picked one of the most unlikely people. Isn't that how life really is? I mean how likely is it that Neville would be some sort of hero? I think having Snape do it is brilliant. And like I've said, it's not because Dumbledore wouldn't have lived. It's because Snape is a spy. And if he doesn't make himself look perfectly devoted to Voldemort, then he's useless.

Post by **saman** » 7/21/2005, 11:28 am

afealicious wrote:1. kreacher and dobby are still able to disapparate and apparate in school grounds, outside of the great hall! did i miss something? (forgive me if this was already explained in a previous book, i haven't read them in a while and it was hard to catch up when i first started reading the half blood prince)

here's your answer jen, taken from the word of jk rowling herself:

House-elves are different from wizards; they have their own brand of magic, and the ability to appear and disappear within the castle is necessary to them if they are to go about their work unseen, as house-elves traditionally do.

my theory:

when dumbledore took snape in, he probably knew that snape might not be as trustworthy as he was letting on. dumbledore knew perfectly well that snape is a superb occlumens, so snape could say anything he wanted and dumbledore wouldn't have known if it was true or not.. by taking him on, though, he was giving snape a chance at redemption, hoping that if snape knew that dumbledore trusted him completely, he might change his ways. like snape said, dumbledore didn't let snape have the defence against the dark arts position for so long because he knew there was a possibility of snape relapsing into his old death eater ways. finally letting him have the position would show snape that dumbledore trusted him completely, and dumbledore might've done that in the hope of gaining snape's full support. snape probably does feel affection towards dumbledore to a certain extent, hence the twitch when he's making the unbreakable vow, but it's not enough i guess.

about the theory that dumbledore wanted to die, i think the assumption is being made that dumbledore is perfect. which he isn't. he says himself that he rarely makes mistakes, but when he does, they turn out to be fairly big ones. snape, i think, was one of those mistakes. from the storyline point of view, i see why jk rowling had to kill dumbledore off: so that when harry faced voldemort in the final book, he wouldn't always be hoping to be protected and shielded by someone. but i don't think it's likely that dumbledore himself wanted to die for that reason. snape killing dumbledore doesn't make harry hate voldemort any more, it just makes him vengeful towards snape, who isn't the ultimate target anyway.

well, that's my theory.

Waiting to Exist · Post by **Waiting to Exist** » 7/21/2005, 1:09 pm

I hope she doesn't have a book after seven. That'd just be dumb. And tasha, I don't think it's really cheating her way out. She's probably known all along that Harry would have to leave Hogwarts, and only one chapter in the book is going to take place later than the seventh year. Now, if she then makes an eighth book, that's just dumb.

Johnny · Post by **Johnny** » 7/21/2005, 1:42 pm

I thought she has written the final chapter of book seven.

tasha · Post by **tasha** » 7/21/2005, 2:03 pm

she's written the first chapter.

she was going to use it as the first chapter of the second, but decided to save it.

Waiting to Exist · Post by **Waiting to Exist** » 7/21/2005, 2:17 pm

She's written the final chapter, too, but she hasn't looked at it for a while and expects there's a lot to change about it.

Corey · Post by **Corey** » 7/21/2005, 3:10 pm

I think Harry really is bad and that Hogwarts is really a school of evil that takes good children and makes them bad. Harry shows signs in this book and by leaving Hogwarts shows he has turned and is ready to start his path of evil. It will be a very unexpected twist in the next book I bet.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/21/2005, 5:39 pm

AnnieDreams wrote:I'm not following this whole "everyone would have died unless Snape killed him!" thing. If Snape had attacked the Death eaters, he might have won or at least given Dumbledore enough time to get his wand back. And as Dumbledore said, he can hide people better than they can imagine. He offered to save Draco and his family.

If Snape had attacked the death eaters that means he would have broken the vow causing him to die. If he died, the death eaters would have killed Dumbledore and Draco and his family would be killed by Voldemort.

Post by **saman** » 7/21/2005, 5:50 pm

the death eaters couldn't have killed dumbledore. even when he was weakened, this is dumbledore we're talking about. the only reason snape was able to kill him was because it took him by surprise.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/21/2005, 5:53 pm

Well Dumbledore was half dead and wandless.

Post by **saman** » 7/21/2005, 6:06 pm

dumbledore was fine enough to fly from hogsmeade to hogwarts. he also still had a broom in his hand. there's also the fact that the last time someone tried to kill dumbledore fawkes swallowed the spell before it could hit him.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 7/21/2005, 6:10 pm

He was ok to fly there because he was flooded with worry and thought somone had died. The adrenaline rush was able to get him there, but then he had to take down his own protection to get him and Harry across. He was also doing good before Draco blasted him with a spell. This time Fawkes wasn't around to swallow the spell either.

Post by **saman** » 7/21/2005, 6:17 pm

draco didn't blast him. it was only expelliarmus. made him lose his wand. and fawkes wasn't in the ministry of magic in the fifth book either.

well, anyway, to each their own.

AnnieDreams · Post by **AnnieDreams** » 7/21/2005, 6:19 pm

Fawkes'll show up if he wants him to show up. He's cool like that.
There is a good chance a lot of them could've died - and Snape certainly would have, but there's no guarantee.

Henrietta · Post by **Henrietta** » 7/21/2005, 6:56 pm

I think Dumbledore will live on as a Pheonix. Just because Harry saw something like that. So it will be sort of like he lives on...a little. Just like he could still use him in his portrait.

And Harry asked Dumbledore why he didn't teach him occlumens instead of Snape, which suggests to me that Dumbledore is just as good at leglimens as Snape is at occlumens. It seems unlikely to me that he couldn't have seen whatever it was that Snape was hiding. I don't think that Dumbledore had Snape kill him because he couldn't defeat the Death Eaters, but because he can't be useful as a spy without doing it! What's Voldemort gonna say if Snape could have killed off Dumbledore and didn't? He'll be killed, that's what. I think in the next book we will find out what the magnificent reason Dumbledore had to trust Snape. Anyhow, it will be interesting to find out who is right. I'm anxious though. And SO excited for the movie!

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince SPOILERS INSIDE