feelings & theories after HP & the HBP

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!! DON'T READ THIS ENTRY IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE


okay, all through the book, i was thinking that lily potter was the hbp... cuz slughorn kept saying that harry was just like his mother, especially the way he 'achieved' in potions, and the HBP's old potions book was helping harry achieve in potions... i never thought it was snape until, i don't remember when it finally occurred to me, but it was stupidly close to when the book came out and said it.

the fact that snape turned out to be the HBP didn't seem to mean much in this book, but perhaps later on. in book 1, snape is muttering a counter-curse to quirrell's curse when quirrell is trying to kill harry on his broom. it seems, though, that he was doing this without the knowledge of anyone. so, when he turned out to be a loyal death-eater, i wondered why he didn't let harry die, even if it was right under dumbledore's nose... he could have played dumb and said he didn't know what to do.

when snape kills dumbledore, i was reading that part and honestly didn't know which way that was gonna go. honestly. but i am still not convinced that snape is a loyal death eater. here's what i think might have happened: from book 5, we know that harry can't use the forbidden curse on anyone, let alone voldemort, until he 'means it.' what would help harry to mean it more than for dumbledore to be killed by a death eater? so perhaps dumbledore told snape to kill him so that harry could face voldemort. no, that doesn't work, because all of the horcruxes haven't been found, and dumbledore would've wanted to finish those off before setting harry off on his own. (the horcruxes hafta be destroyed before voldemort can be truly killed.)

okay, throughout the book, dumbledore is showing harry old memories of early voldemort. while he is introducing harry to a particular memory that is dumbledore's personal memory, he says he thinks harry will find it 'accurate and detailed'... back in book 5, harry saw a memory of snape's in which his father, godfather, and their friend lupin were not nice people. perhaps dumbledore's little aside about accuracy was foreshadowing harry finding out that his father and his friends were not that bad... maybe snape did something bad to them first, and that was left out of the memory...

i wonder who's gonna teach defense against the dark arts next year?
i wonder if mcgonagal will be the new headmaster of the school?
i wonder how harry will decide that he should go back to school for his 7th year?
i wonder if harry & ginny will get back together?
i wonder if dumbledore is really dead? if sirius is really dead?
will malfoy come to the good side, or be tortured & embarrassed by the death eaters...


in lord of the rings, one of the fellowship members says that "gandalf had fallen into shadow," and that's exactly what sirius did, he fell behind a mysterious curtain. gandalf arose after fierce battle with an evil spirit. will sirius reemerge? it seems like he has to!