I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince again, for the umpteenth time. It’s so funny, these books are kind of a phenomenon, not in their popularity, but that people who do read them tend to become immersed in them. If you haven’t read the last book or whatever, spoilers follow so go somewhere else if you don’t want to know them.
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Anyway, I always have a hard time assimilating that Dumbledore is dead. There has to be some catch. I know that Snape made the unbreakable vow, and was bound to kill Dumbledore or he would die, himself. I’m sure that when Hagrid heard Dumbledore and Snape arguing, it had to be because Snape was saying he could not do it ultimately, and Dumbledore told him he had no choice. At the end, when Dumbledore says, “Severus, please…” I think he was telling Snape to do it so that Malfoy would not have to. When they say that Snape had hatred and revulsion on his face, I’m thinking it was because of what he had to do, not because he hated or reviled Dumbledore. If Dumbledore’s trust in Snape was misplaced, then you would not be able to totally trust Dumbledore’s instincts on anything else he had told or taught Harry.
I think Dumbledore knew he was going to be killed. And with that knowledge had some things in place for that event to help Harry, and I bet that we’ll find out about them in the last book. The fact that at the end, you see Dumbledore snoozing in his portrait tells me that Harry will be able to communicate with him in some respect. The white phoenix that flew away at the funeral…what if there was something to that as well? Is Dumbledore an animagus? Is he a phoenix, and therefore can come back to life? Think about how old Dumbledore is/was. He worked on alchemy and developed the Sorcerer’s Stone with Nicolas Flamel, who was several hundred years old in Chamber of Secrets. So if Flamel lived that long, he had to have had the Sorcerer’s Stone all that time, and so Dumbledore must have been alive that long.
Ah, I don’t know…I’m just conjecturing. Another thing I was wondering. I know Dumbledore can speak many other languages including Mermish and Gobbledegook. But in the 6th book when they travel back into those memories in the Pensieve, there is a lot of conversation that takes place in Parseltongue. Can you just “learn” Parseltongue, or is that one that you have to just know how to speak it? So, if Dumbledore heard and understood all the conversation, he has to know Parseltongue. There must be something to that, but JKR is not making a big deal out of that, either. Or does she just take it for granted that we wouldn’t notice that?
Here’s another thing. Dumbledore is/was probably just as strong of a wizard as Voldemort, just on the other end of the spectrum of good v. evil. He had a pretty decent knowledge of the dark arts, and magic in general. I just wonder how he learned everything he knew. Because his knowledge is far beyond what they seem to be learning at Hogwarts. For instance, when they arrive at the cave where the locket is hidden, he said, “This place has known magic.” As if it gave off some sort of aura that he could sense or see. Is that a skill developed by magical education or does he have some skill that most wizards don’t?
I could write all day about the questions I have about Dumbledore.
I’m just really bummed out if he is really and truly dead. He was one of my very favorite characters, and he grew on me even more in the last two books because it is so evident that he truly loved Harry, not just interested in him as the possible “Chosen One.” That he had a real affection for him. You get to know more about him, and then JKR takes him away! Bad J-Ro!!!
OK, I have a ton of errands to run this morning, I had better go rouse the masses.
CG
Celtgoddess 